spelling nazi,
there is a difference.... in Singapore, Japan, Vietnam and Hong Kong, Qantas owns less than 50% equity in each of those countries. There is separate board and management, albeit some shared services (eg. website, booking systems)
In the case of VA, you have foreign airlines who now own 80% of the listed entity, there is some trust thingy that says it is under 50% for international. At one point there was a separate board but that hasn't been mentioned since, and everything seems to be run out of the same building.
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As for QF International, the rot is in and extremely difficult to turn around. International aviation is a tough game - lots of competitors (far more than in the old days when it was predominately the western nations with airlines) with access to the same planes, roughly the same fuel cost etc - so controlling little things becomes important.
Negatives for Qantas International
- High management cost (look at Aus salaries v Asian equivs)
- Higher tech and FA costs (particularly v Asian/Emirates equivs)
- Stricter OH&S policies on workforce (compare flying hours for example)
- Higher maintenance costs (although higher quality)
- Higher home airport costs (thanks to privatisation and not having government owned/supported airports)
- Worse aircraft depreciation policies
- Higher corporate tax rates
- Home bases not located at a hub that can reach most of the world
- Home bases not located close to major jet fuel producing facilities
Positives
- Great reach in its FF scheme, but reality is this is really only attractive to high tier elites, and at some point $$ rules
- Large number of corporate contracts thanks to domestic network
- Natural domestic feed
- Good brand and safety record
While Qantas does have a lot of positives, unless you can address a chunk of the negatives it is a tough game to make money when Joe Blogs only cares about the $ cost of the flight.
As for the McKinsey theorey - plenty of businesses manage multiple brands, positioned at different points in the market.
If Qantas had not Jetstar, we still would have seen LCCs in this country - Tiger Australia may have entered earlier or RyanAir, or AirAsia (all possible to have 100% owned ops) and Qantas domestic routes would have been given up as they became unprofitable under price competition. The fact that Qantas started Jetstar has made the group stronger and expanded the Australian domestic market, as much as some don't like it.