Not good management, more dumb luck.
Or it could be good management. QF survived the Asian financial meltdown in the mid 90's, They then coped with 9/11, SARS the GFC and now this. It could very well be the case that the reason they did drip feed aircraft orders is they were aware of the effects of sudden downturns and its effect on the bottom line. That they were very quickly able to convert assets in to cash suggests they had a "black swan event" business plan ready to go.