Guys, Qantas is running on a "script". I've only seen this done once before and it doesn't work.
The script is about a heroic Board of Directors and senior managers saving the Qantas brand from the dead hands of a highly unionised, backwards looking, brain dead, old and wrinkly workforce by nurturing the love child of Marg. Jackson and Geoff Dixon - Jetstar.
Little baby Jetstar was born young, fit, profitable and competitive. The nasty, evil, old, ugly, wrinkled employees at mainline and International hate their baby brother and want to do away with him if they could. The Board and Senior managers have protected baby Jetstar from the icky wicky "Legacy" employees and old has beens.
Baby Jetstar is now a grown man and is going to kick the nasty mainline and international in the backside and boot them out of the family home, never to return. Then the Board and Senior managers will join with baby Jetstar, have a big party, and they all lived happily ever after.
Well that is the script, more or less. I once was part of an IT company that tried to pretend to its financial backers and it's staff that it was unprofitable and "under threat", when the reality was that it was doing very well thank you. The strategy is sometimes called "keeping Two sets of books".
The trouble with "scripts" is that fact is stranger than fiction and reality eventually intrudes, and then the play acting has to stop, and fast. For example, if Qantas was ever placed under pressure by its lenders and had to engage in "lifeboat drill" then the truth about profitability and the contributions made by the various fictional entities would have to come out - followed by a string of resignations I suspect.
Another interesting issue is the problem of oil just now. What happens to you LCC model if flights become more expensive and air travel thus confined to the carriage trade?