Competition if intense as I believe it is between Qantas and Virgin then management will be looking for every $$$$. Mind you my airline or should I say the airline I work for operates under the 1:50 requirement. However, none of the fleet ever do. The average ratio is 1:23 across the 4 types. Like many other operators who also have the 1:50 requirement, not many actually do it. A good example is CAL, I don't know what the ratio is but you should see the number of F/A's that file off their jumbo's after a flight. The ratio would be better than 1:20. The 1:36 ratio has worked in Australia for a long time and I believe it should be kept if possible after all most of the operations in Australia operate with a better ratio than that anyway.