"There is no upside to this for staff"
There is an upside. The cost savings will ensure QF have a future for the staff that remain.
Although a business is not in the marketplace for the benefit of the staff.
I'm sorry that is not totally correct. A company's employees are a stakeholder in any company's operation, and an ethical and intelligent company management will always consider them as a key part of any operation, particularly in a service industry. Southwest is one of the most historically successful airlines in arguably the most difficult of all markets, the USA, and it's CEO has this to say about it;
"Our people are our single greatest strength and most enduring longterm competitive advantage."
Gary Kelly, CEO Southwest Airlines
Framer, with all due respect I feel you may be mistaken as to how this will work. Qantas will NOT, at least at this stage, use the airframes to go up in to Asia. The 767s and 747 will be sold. Meanwhile the A330s that are currently being used internationally will be redeployed to further strengthen the domestic network by adding capacity and replacing the existing 767 services (down the East Coast for example). What's in it for EK then you ask? It's the Australian DOMESTIC network that will feed in to EK and visa versa. This was the final knife that killed Qantas International, and it is now dead. I have personally never seen a company with such a bloated and inefficient back office as Qantas, the empires that exist there are just extraordinary! All the empires are constantly competing to allocate costs against each other, even if the overall result is a far greater overall cost to the corporation as a whole. It's quite bizarre; a "How not to do it" management guide if ever there was one. If anyone honestly believes a handful of A380s will support all these "paper shufflers" then they are frankly kidding themselves. It won't be long at all before that is made public, and the A380s also sold. It is why the International division was separated off from the domestic operation several months ago. I predict Qantas to shrink to about half its current size in terms of employee numbers.
So what of Asia then? Joyce, in his complete and utter lack of understanding of the region, believes that everyone in Asia is a peasant and therefore the "low cost" model is the one to use
The strategy is to create a "spiderweb" of Jetstar franchises (their so called "capital light" model) throughout the region, with each hub feeding in to the next. In my humble opinion this has to be one of his most idiotic strategies to date*, though it's admittedly a long list, but I digress.
No matter which way it goes, Qantas International is now dead, and about the only hope is that perhaps Joyce will be thrown out, common sense will prevail, and the 787s sent to where they really belong.
*It was a tough choice between these "franchises", where Qantas management actually believe the locals are going to treat them as a true "business partner" and not just ripe fruit to be plucked. On the other hand "Red Q" would have easily won the "Most Idiotic Business Idea" award, but at least after waking up the next morning from the boozy business lunch on which it was developed, the paper napkins comprising its business plan were hastily destroyed before too much more money was wasted on it.