Reg Ansett

Sir Reginald Myles Ansett KBE (13 February 1909 – 23 December 1981) was an Australian businessman and aviator.

Reginald Myles Ansett was born in Inglewood, Victoria, on 13 February 1909.

His father owned a garage before World War I when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force.

After the war, his father established a knitting factory in Camberwell and Ansett gained qualifications as a knitting-machine mechanic at Swinburne Technical College.

He was an enthusiastic private pilot, having obtained his licence in 1926 (No. 419).

He went north to work as an axeman in a Northern Territory survey team.

For a time, he entertained the idea of buying land in the territory to grow peanuts.

He found himself unemployed when the Commonwealth government cut off the funds for the survey.

On returning to Victoria in December 1931, with his savings he purchased a second-hand Studebaker and began a service car operation between Ballarat and Maryborough carrying passengers and small items of freight.

When this proved uneconomic, he switched the Ansett Motors operation to a Ballarat to Hamilton service.

The wealthy graziers of Victoria's western district proved to be a much better market.

Within a few years he had a small fleet of service cars operating to towns in western Victoria.

By 1935, Ansett Motors and other operators were proving a thorn in the side of Victorian Railways, taking both passenger and freight revenue.

The Victorian Transport Minister and Attorney General Robert Menzies pushed a bill through the state parliament prohibiting service cars from competing with Victorian Railways, slashing Ansett Motors' revenue overnight.

Looking around for an alternative, Ansett decided to try an air service.

What made this attractive was that air services were controlled by the Commonwealth government, so the state could not intervene.

On 17 February 1936 Ansett Airways Pty Ltd inaugurated its first service, from Hamilton to Melbourne using a diminutive six-seater Fokker F.XI Universal.

The flights operated daily each way, Monday to Friday.

The service was a modest success and the Fokker was joined by an Airspeed A.6 Envoy.

To help boost his funds, he entered, but failed to win, the Brisbane to Adelaide air race in 1936, losing to C. D. Pratt overall, and to Mr & Mrs J. W. F Collins in the speed section (also being beaten by Ivy May Pearce, one of a number of female competitors).

On weekends he took the Universal on barnstorming tours of Victoria giving joyflights to paying customers.

To fund its expansion, he listed the company on the Melbourne Stock Exchange on 14 April 1937, offering 250 000 shares at £1 ($2) each.

A base, including a flying school, was established in a hangar at Melbourne's Essendon Airport.

He found selling the shares hard going.

A number of aircraft crashes, notably the loss of Airlines of Australia's Stinson in southern Queensland in 1937, had dampened public enthusiasm for airline investments.

Underwriters refused to handle the float so he had to find investors himself.

It was a difficult time but he eventually interested enough wealthy individuals in the western district.

Needing new aircraft, he ordered three Lockheed L.10A Electras.

Under the Empire Preference Scheme, aircraft from Britain could be imported duty-free; Aircraft from anywhere else paid import duties.

Ansett Airways Limited had posted a £30 000 ($60 000) loss in its first year and its shares had more than halved in value.

His bankers refused to advance the money to pay Lockheed £50 000 ($100 000) for the Electras which were being held in bond awaiting payment of £14 000 ($28 000) in duty.

His first priority was to get the aircraft released, so he lobbied T W White, Minister for Customs in the Lyons government.

He argued there was no British equivalent aircraft available and that British airlines had ordered them for their own fleets.

White accepted the argument and the duty was waived.

To pay Lockheed, he went back to the banks who agreed to finance the purchase providing his wealthy grazier investors guaranteed the loan.

The investors backed him, but at the price of Ansett handing over most of his personal shares in Ansett Airways.

He was best known for founding Ansett Transport Industries, which owned one of Australia's two leading domestic airlines between 1957 and 2001.

He also established a number of other business enterprises including Ansett Pioneer coachlines, Ansett Freight Express, Ansair coachbuilders, Gateway Hotels, Diners Club Australia, Biro Bic Australia and the ATV-0 television station in Melbourne and TVQ-0 in Brisbane which later became part of Network Ten.

ATI also bought out Avis Rent a Car and had a 49% interest in Associated Securities Limited (ASL).

In late 1979, mainly due to the collapse of ASL, Ansett lost control of the company to Peter Abeles of TNT and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation who became joint managing directors.