The trend in the past 20 years by airline executives especially the LCC breed, has been to rubbish the way airlines traditionally did business. They come in spruking new lean and mean everything, telling everyone how they can reinvent the wheel blah blah, whilst in the same breath rubbishing legacy airlines. However these guys along with APA are forgetting that the airline business is a one of a kind industry. You go ultra lean and mean at your own peril. Airlines need to make hay while the sun shines and have something in reserve when times are tough. One more SARs, 9/11, Asian economic meltdown, WWIII and QF will be another Pan Am. Now given the position that they are in it at the moment it would be one of the greatest corporate stuff ups of all time!
As said above I cannot see how having an airline, which is effectively part of the national transport infrastructure (like it or not), going from being in a very financially strong position to being in debt to its eyeballs as being in Australia's national interest. Has the government considered the 70% scenario before it approved the the takeover?