In fact ticket prices have risen faster than the fuel prices and we are making record profits.
We WERE making record profits. Not any more.
I hear from a reliable source that forward bookings have plummeted. No-one is buying tickets with QF anymore. Especially to London. It would seem that dispatch reliability has affected consumer confidence. When you buy a ticket you expect to get there on the advertised day, let alone the time. That has to be costing millions in lost revenue.
The "alternative workforce" must be costing a pretty penny. A very reliable source (an "alternative worker")tells me the following:
1. 55 "alternative workers"
2. $100,000 for first 6 months, or $211,000/week in "sit-down money"
3. $140,000 for second 6 months
4. Accomodation in serviced apartments in Sydney: conservatively assume $150/night, or $57,000/week
5. All training (CAR214, airside drivers authority, you name it) - God knows how much!
6. Fllights up and down the east coast for "famil" and "positioning" - God knows how much!
That's a pretty expensive insurance policy, considering the ALAEA has been publicly adamant that QF aren't going to provoke us into "striking".
The hotel bills (5-star accomodation), meal vouchers (@$30 each) and taxi fares for pax on delayed/cancelled flights has gotta be hurting.
Massive amounts of overtime for planning, ops and frontline staff to deal with the delays and disruptions.
All that leave we can't take is a liability on the company books. No leave for 2 months now, and no likelihood of getting any soon. Ouch.
Lost customers: a good source once told me that internal research has shown that once QF lose a customer, they never get them back, due to the superior product offered elsewhere. No point having an award winning IFE product if the IFE system doesnt work, and award winning cabin service, if there aren't enough flight attendants to deliver it, and the flight attendants you do have are divided along pay scales, leading to the "I'm not paid enough to clean up spew/work through my break/attend to that passenger - you're paid more than me, you do it" attitude.