Its tiny international operation made $35 million EBIT, compared to claims by Qantas CEO Alan Joyce that his group’s far larger Qantas long haul operation continues to lose more than $200 million a year, and unlike Qantas, Virgin Australia’s loyalty scheme earnings contributed comparatively little to the overall result, which was based overwhelmingly on profitably flying people rather than selling halo points to third parties like grocery chains or hotels.
I've stated this on other postings and I'll state it here again. QANTAS International doesn't lose $200m a year on its operations. Passenger loads are around the 80%-85% on avaerage. Not bad for 18% of the flying population choosing to fly QANTAS. If J* wasn't being propped up by QANTAS and having its fuel and aircraft paid for by QANTAS, it certainly wouldn't be making a $140m profit. If mainline QANTAS wasn't shutdown for 48 hours last October or the dispute with its staff dragged on for so long, QANTAS's profits would have been closer to the $500m mark.
This is not to agree with some of the views pushed by protectionist or change resistant Qantas employees, but a criticism of the hostile attitude of management to labor in the Qantas group, and the lack of staff engagement that this causes, compared to the much stronger sense of joint purpose that has characterised Virgin Australia and its Virgin Blue predecessor from day one.
"Protectionist or change resistant Qantas employees"? Over the last 20 years I have seen many changes within QANTAS. We are "change resistant" because we question the "strategy" or need for change when there is no clear agenda as to why or how it's going to be implemented, and to what benefit. When we finally have those changes explained, that's when questions arise, because if we can't make sense of it, and the manager can't explain it to make sense of it, other than to say "we need to be more efficient and more competitive" then yes, we will resist change if it will be of no benefit to how we do our job or for the overall benefit of the company. When the changes are implemented, the number of amendments to those changes are unbelievable and we end up going back to the way we did things. Some things just don't change and shouldn't change.
As for staff engagement, well the only thing management engage with staff is constant conflict and constant threats to be more efficient or we will be out of business. Our only real competitor is the management of QANTAS, particularly the board.