The saddest/most telling thing about the 4 Corners story was the last couple of quotes from staff:
”We feel like management hate us”
That sums up the way aviation management has evolved, particularly since the pilots dispute of 1989 and the privatisation of Australian/Qantas.
A similar thing has happened at Cathay Pacific recently, a textbook example of how to stuff up what was once a quality product. Invariably the cause is egotistical CEO’s, hellbent solely on shareholder returns and lining their own pockets.
The direct result is that inevitably the airline product suffers and once great airlines become mediocre at best.
Impractical and unrealistic to re-nationalise airlines (though we should have got a stake in QF after that huge government capital injection) but there’s got to be some circuit breaker to halt this corporate greed.