And besides, there was not a good feeling there with Ansett. And it's all going in Qantas's favour. It lets McGowan keep all his airline, rather than the bits he had to share with the big end of town. But Dixon gets more. He gets new planes from Impulse and inherits a workforce that is not unionised, with employees being paid dividends from a unit trust company in which they are all obliged to hold shares.
Impulse is about as lean as airline operations get.
On Thursday, Ansett put an alternative bid to the ACCC to buy Impulse, saying it will fight the proposed alliance in the courts. But in reality, Ansett was never in the running. It had never, argued McGowan, got nasty. But the same could not be said for Ansett. No longer could Impulse passengers buy tickets at Ansett outlets or use Ansett terminals.