......Seemed to be okay for B707's back in the day.
Ah yes, the good old days, when you would have gone London - Bahrain - Singapore - Perth - Sydney. A projector screen at the front and those rubber tube earphones. A trip down under or back to the old country would have been the highlight of your life. Now it's a wide body with 100 channels on demand IFE and a stopover in Dubai for some shopping. Affordable every few years if you're careful.
You're welcome to come work here in Australia for free
Unionised inefficiency and cost is fine when you have no competition or your competition has the same handicap. When the kangaroo route was a QF/BA duopoly the customer had little choice. Now Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Cathay, Singapore, Malaysian, Korean, EVA, China, Thai, Brunei just to name a few are competing on the same route. They play by different rules with most of them having award winning service and/or government oil money backing them.
In the latest Skytrax awards QF come in at number seven
THE WORLD AIRLINE AWARDS™ - the Passenger's Choice all of the other airlines in the top ten, except Air New Zealand, compete directly on the Australia - Europe run.
Whilst QF did well in the premium economy category, BA didn't win a single award, are bleeding money and beset by strikes. QF could be in the same position in a few years time.