Story of Convenience
Sometimes, these stories are harmless and merely reflect the human tendency to simplify, while in others, they can be misleading or manipulative.
It can be an unconscious adaptation or an intentional strategy to avoid facing or revealing more complex or challenging realities.
I am referring to the stories of convenience.
The story of convenience often serves a particular agenda. By aligning with common beliefs or prevailing trends, it is easy for people to buy into and support that POV without requiring significant thought.
When a Convenient Story Takes Hold
The collapse of the Australian airline Bonza is an example of a story of convenience, and the most common narrative that surrounds the failure of Bonza is that Australia can’t support more than two airlines, of which there are previous failures to support this.
It is a story of a strategy gone wrong, and when you add in the might of big, bad, evil Qantas to squeeze them out, which is an easy add-on while Qantas is working on rebuilding consumer trust and then, for good measure, throw in the outdated and anti-competitive slot system at Sydney Airport, which the Government is to blame you would have little reason to question that this airline should never have started in the first place.
Few talk about how Bonza performed, its trajectory and its success stories after just 12 months in business. According to Airline Ratings, on some of the routes where Bonza was the only airline flying, load factors (bums on seats) exceeded 90%. According to its FY24 annual report, Qantas averaged 76% on its domestic flights.
Bonza didn't fail because its core strategy was wrong. That hadn’t had enough time to be properly tested. It failed because of a bad choice of investors.
You can argue, well, that's a strategic decision, and it was. And that was Bonza's most significant issue: Their financial partner couldn't support the ongoing operation because of its issues overseas, which are also quite complex.
When 777 Partners stopped paying the leases on the aircraft, the airline was grounded. With significant brand damage done to such an early-stage startup, it is hard to see how anyone would have the nerves and cash reserves to take on the rebuild.
Challenging the Narrative
This brings us back to the story of convenience; that story isn’t nearly as appealing or easy to tell as aligning with the prevailing narrative, which blames Qantas and the Government for all that is wrong with air travel today and reinforces the belief that Australia can only support two airline operating companies.
Critical thinking, balanced POVs, and awareness of how stories are created and shaped, how they can ethically influence, and whether they are misleading or manipulative will be key as we navigate the next chapter of content creation and distribution. As active participants in this process, we can challenge and reshape these narratives.