Let's get this back on track.
The orrigional story was written by someone who is used to a LoCo (Virgin Blue) offering a 1/2 hourly service from Sydney to Melbourne with a 1/2 hour check in, numbered seats, no forced advertising, etc.
The only noticeable difference between Virgin and Qantas is having to print your own ticket and no meal - not that that is a big deal. Oh yes, the leg room is less (a lot less), although seat pitch is about the same - another plea for info to be real leg room and not pitch.
All this, and seats regularly available for under $70 (£28) including taxes and fly from the main airports. And there are other airports close to some of the big cities.
They are also nowhere near as fussy on baggage, so to travel with what they thought (wrongly) to be a European version of Virgin Blue was a nasty shock to the system.
I guess that with Jet* starting up here, more people will get to see what it's like with a Euro style LoCo. What is already causing trouble is that Qantas have dropped a lot of flights from Tasmania to Melbourne and will fly instead to Avalon - Great for Geelong, not so good for Melbourne. This reduces dramatically the choice for International flights to/from Tassie.
I have also booked flights for later in the year, and compared the 3 choices now available to me. Qantas and Virgin were within $1, Jet* was $20 more - I'll fly Qantas as I earn points !!
BTW, the Aussies don't whinge - that's reserved for us Poms. But they do W(h)ine regularly.