THE DISTILLERY: Qantas revolution

Each day, Distillery selects the three or four best ideas that have been put forward by the nation's leading business and economic commentators (and lists other items they have covered). Readers are invited to comment on the Distillery selections in The Conversation.

Contrary to speculation that, after playing one of the most difficult hands of any Australian CEO in recent memory, Alan Joyce was planning to pause his Asian carrier strategy, the Qantas boss appears to be doubling down. The Age's Adele Ferguson crystallises what Joyce is trying to turn Qantas into, while she and another commentator discover the Irishman with greater ambitions for Kuala Lumpur than Singapore should its Asian strategy ultimately fall there. Meanwhile, another business writer comes up with another useful way of looking at Qantas – it's in fact a lot like a bank. And finally, while we're speaking of banks, recent fears raised about the funding crunch that could befall our precious big four has been put in a less worrying context by one onlooker.

We start with The Age's Adele Ferguson, whose insightful Qantas piece shows readers just how Alan Joyce envisages the airline in five years time, and offers an inside track on Joyce's thinking about the still-Asian carrier plan.

"The quest by Qantas to become the aviation version of Procter & Gamble – a holding company managing a large suite of brands – is still on the agenda, with the airline focusing its energy on Kuala Lumpur and entrepreneur Tony Fernandes for its new Asian airline. Contrary to speculation that Qantas was set to mothball plans for a new Asian airline, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, it is now believed that chief executive Alan Joyce has been working on a deal not only to speed up these plans but to make them bigger and less costly than the proposal announced in August.”

The Australian's Matthew Stevens strikes a similar note.

"There is no question Qantas is talking with MAL (Malaysia Airlines) about a one-world link-up, but that is not the entire strategy here. If Qantas does step out with MAL, then the new joint-venture proposition would be bigger than the Singapore option with indications that Malaysian investors might be more aggressive than their city-state competitor.”

Thirdly, while Ferguson thinks Joyce is molding Qantas in the image of a US beauty products company, the Herald Sun's Terry McCrann thinks airlines are more like banks. It's the relationship between consumers, banks and airlines, argues McCrann, which made Qantas' decision to ground its fleet so rational.

"Airlines are like banks. They are highly, highly vulnerable to loss of customer confidence. This is so, for a rather similar reason. You worry whether you can get your money out of a bank. You worry whether you can get your butt to your desired or required destination. It's all too easy to trigger what might be termed a 'run on the airline.' But exactly that was developing for Qantas.”

Meanwhile, the Australian Financial Review's Chanticleer columnist Tony Boyd urges readers to ignore much of the fear being sold by other commentators about the funding squeeze that Australia's big four banks could be subjected to.

"Firstly, the banks have completed sufficient wholesale funding in 2011 to carry them through well into the first quarter of next year. The big four banks could remain out of wholesale markets in Europe and the US until February or March. Second, the funding requirement is partly a function of the amount of lending they do and the amount of deposits they raise in the domestic market. It is possible that the banks could continue to fund their lending from deposits, which happened for most of 2011 when deposits grew faster than loans. Alternatively, they could start to tighten the lending tap if Europe completely froze for an extended period.”

Staying with the themes of the leading commentaries to finish off, Fairfax's Matt O'Sullivan also casts his eye over Qantas, while Michael Pascoe examines the banks – specifically their increasingly unrealistic dividend yields.

Turning now to the pending showdown between Washington H Soul Pattinson and Perpetual. The Sydney Morning Herald's Ian Verrender gives a solid preview of today's encounter, while The Australian's Bryan Frith can't quite figure out why Robert Millner would further antagonise Perpetual – a major shareholder – in the lead up to a director vote he's sure to win.

In other company news, Fairfax Insider columnist Ian McIlwraith revisits the movements at Spotless Group and finds some of its major shareholders are convinced by Peter Smedley's long growth tale, but they're enticed by Private Equity Partner's short cash story. And The Australian's Michael Bennet says the poor response to BlueScope Steel's capital raising reveals the current mindset of retail investors and bodes poorly for any other companies thinking of trying to issue shares themselves.

On global economic jitters, The West Australian's Shane Wright reminds readers just how well the Australian economy has performed in comparison to the United States, Ireland, Britain and even a player of comparable size and characteristics, Canada. And The Australian's Jennifer Hewett finds some seriously long-term bullish signals coming from Brazil.

Finally, The Australian's David Uren gives the government another kick for laying the foundations to ultimately claim credit for any pending interest rate cuts.