I think Its quite clear what QF is doing - attempting to claim its an Australian Airline, while staffing its aircraft with cheap foreigners based overseas.
All I can say is that the Board is taking a suicidally risky brand strategy.
I would imagine that
VB and other airlines are already planning advertising campaigns that have the capacity to devastate the Qantas brand by calling into question its Australian - ness..
The theme are these:
Who is driving your aircraft? When you fly Virgin Australia you can be sure your pilot is a committed Australian professional that we have hired for life, not just a contractor.
Who is maintaining your aircraft? All Virgin aircraft are maintained in Australia by Australians.
Who is crewing your aircraft?.....
Don't let the painted on Australian flag fool you, there is only ONE Australian Airline.
Subsidiary ads could focus on each of those aspects - theme called "Home grown".
For example run an ad with a series of cameos of a young dusty kid flying a Cessna in the outback, then moving to a bigger aircraft, maybe RFDS, then in a
VB training environment and finally in the LHS of a
VB aircraft.
Mechanics starts with a cameo with a little kid messing with the engine of a Holden.......ending up with a CFm56.... you know the drill.
If something like that took off, then the Qantas brand is toast.
Hey this is advertising, don't confuse me with facts.