Interesting opinion 43” but I see it very differently. .
Qantas’s debt was actually lower this half than the previous half. Sold off underused property.
Net debt is now at $5.5bn. Prior to COVID it was at $4.7bn in a much higher interest rate environment.
Not much of an increase in debt and the terms of the debt will be much better.
Qantas have weathered the extreme adversity of COVID surprisingly well. Despite not asking for a bailout, they received hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance. They have used the pandemic to be fairly ruthless in reducing costs. Ground handlers and cleaners all outsourced, pushing through company-wide multi-year wage freezes, or possibly worse for our cabin crew colleagues.
It is looking like the world (and even WA) is emerging from COVID restrictions so I expect Qantas to return to bumper profits, having trimmed their costs and increased their domestic market share.
All that being said, I think QF IR are a disgrace they treat their employees very poorly, but I don’t think they’ll be going broke.