She is worse than an accountant, she’s an auditor - as the old joke says: auditors are people who don’t have enough personality to be an accountant.
‘’That said, everything she sees is measured in dollars and cents and her only tool, being a bean counter, is the pencil. She will cut costs even further than Joyce did because cost cutting is all she knows.
The Qantas strategy for 40 years has been simple:
1. Trade on the innate patriotism of Australians by dosing them with soft feel good nationalism in very effective marketing campaigns.
2. Develop very effective Government lobbying capabilities using (1) + freebie like the chairman’s lounge. That allowed QF to run a virtual monopoly for forty+ years.
3. Screw every last drop of blood from Australian travellers: domestic and international on the strength of its reputation and monopoly position.
And screw us they did. I was paying $7000+ for two economy tickets to europe in the 70’s when American teenagers were choking London on weekends - they were paying a few hundred dollars in airfares while we were forced to pay about twice the going rate.
Dont get me started on their Sydney-centric bias.
Qantas has been an unmitigated disaster for the Australian economy. We are a trading country. We need cheap and copious travel options to everywhere, both for ourselves and international visitors. Hell will freeze over before Qantas delivers anything of value to Australia.
In the 70’s, I would automatically make QF my first choice, such was their market position.
Since a disastrously expensive and bad experience of Qantas business class circa 2001 and new appreciation of just how rotten and expensive compared to others, and the negative effect Qantas was having on the Australian economy, I gave them away except when forced.