"Consumers are losing out, because there's hundreds of millions of dollars in higher charges that we can't pass on to our customers
What charges would they be that cannot be passed on to customers? How would customers know which charges airlines are passing on? I would think that customers would be more than happy for the airline to not pass on the charges. I would think that consumers would be the ones to lose out if those charges were passed on. If Qantas are incurring charges that can easily be avoided, then that is Qantas's problem, not their customers.