EG.
Like most QF drivers I am looking at overseas gigs at the moment (I am a B767 Capt with B737 experience) and there are a number of good gigs that will pay me more in the hand each fortnight.
Otherwise you have hit the nail on the head.
Qantas has 141 staff per airframe - the highest of any carrier in the world. The next closest is UA with 119.
And the majority of those staff are massively overpaid compared to their counterparts in foreign, full service airlines.
Part of this is because a large of part of the bureaucracy that supports JQ is on the Qantas books - Capt Kremin analysed this in an excellent post some time ago.
Part of it is because the overriding philosophy of Dixon and now Joyce is that management and admin costs are a necessary part of doing business, but operational costs are unnecessary waste. This is because fundamentally neither understand about the required level of detail and excellence involved in running an airline.
But mostly its because the real argument is not about cost.
Its about the ideological war against the idea that any staff member outside the senior leadership inner circle is allowed to influence their working environment.
The real shame is that the major shareholders are prepared to allow their investment to be pi$$ed away in this ideological campaign. Perhaps their thinking is that once this reform process is complete their investment will be worth more, but nothing could be further from the truth..
All that will happen is that middle and upper managements KPI linked bonus's will be increased even further.
As I said previously, nothing can save Qantas now. As part of this process, the specific plan (devised by Oldmeadow) to inflict as much individual damage on each pilot in the process will also fail. 180 have left already, and many more are going each week.
On their own terms and to a better future.