Ollie, after reading Bens article I don't think "hatred of Qantas" has anything to do with it. If anything, Ben understates the difficulty of the Qantas current situation in my opinion.
Furthermore, the current deafening silence from Qantas is telling.
My reading of Mr. Hickeys comments is a breath of reality may be starting to blow through the halls. Old technology fully depreciated airliners are, as he says, very profitable. Spares are cheap and easy to come by, most of the bugs and maintenance issues are known and fixed. There is plenty of trained tech. staff. The only issue is fuel burn.
But apart from that, I think Mr. Hickey realises that Qantas can not afford new aircraft just now and his comments sound suspiciously to me like Qantas is about to go into "lifeboat" mode.
My guess is that Qantas is going to have to acknowledge reality or go under and that the next Board meeting is going to be critical. At that meeting, and I am guessing, a restructure plan has to be approved or Directors are going to have to consider walking because there are severe penalties for Directors if a company is found to have been trading while insolvent.
My guess is that the restructure will involve the closure or sale of Jetstar, or possibly amalgamating it with Domestic and International and abandonment of the pretence that anything Jetstar does is, or ever has been, profitable. Alan will announce his resignation as well.