With all due respect and sadness for the potential loss of jobs to many hard working front line staff, I do hope this is the tip of the iceberg for the LCC management "mantra", not just in Australia, but around the world.
Aviation is an expensive business, and rightly so. High Tech, Highly skilled, labour intensive and a margin for error that tipped just slightly the wrong way - has the potential to result in catastrophe. It is as simple as that!
This is an industry with no place for aggressively minded management who thumb their noses at safety and safety management systems. Safety costs money, plain and simple. If you cannot afford (or choose not to) implement, monitor and develop the necessary system of checks and balances to ensure a robust safety priority managed organisation, then get out!
Attempting and expecting to make money (over and above the margin of safety) from ridiculous airfares is stupidity that should see management sent to the asylum. It is simply not possible!
These imported management types with their so called "global experience" of airline management need to be pursued to the full extent as possible for any breaches of the law. They attempted to give the finger to CASA, the Australian Law and most importantly, the safety of the travelling public. They should be hung, drawn and quartered, and firstly by the staff they so badly misrepresent.
"Low Cost Carrier" is a sham worldwide, a furphy from airline executives, who think they are smarter than everyone else and believe they can make money by saving money (aka cutting costs). It simply doesn't work that way. The number one lesson in aviation economics 101 is "aviation safety costs money", and a lot of it, with good reason to boot.