Qantas will shortly go into shut down mode. The droves of desk dwellers retire for the summer holidays. The offices are quiet. HR gone home. IR taking a break. most of the building empty. At least they can turn the air conditioning off, like they want the pilots to do on the passengers.
The flights however keep humming along. The operational staff have borne the brunt of the assault of IR over many years, yet amazingly it continues on. It is testament to fondness people have for aviation. Sadly for Qantas instead of trying to 'value capture' that energy, they embarked on the adversarial IR model of fear and intimidation.Ironically for them as you alluded to Curtain Twitcher "Welcome to the long term, as you sow you will reap."
Pilots are a very important cog in the wheel, no flying no revenue. Very simple. Sadly that isn't taught at modern management college. If you listen to them it all rests on the less than broad shoulders..Pilots collectively have rolled over too many times. The industry is where it is for a myriad of reasons. The industry in Australia mirrors the country; a hollowed out, real estate ponzi. An amazing land inhabited by less than amazing people. Our management class reflective of our political class. (Don't start me on that!)
It is amusing to watch the 'leadership' ( a loose term if ever there were one) wake up. Their only hope is a declining business cycle, (that according to Scott Morrison doesn't exist anymore) to begin the next round of downward bargaining...A declining business cycle is falling revenue (alan blames competition), higher cost (alan blames labour cost or oil), he can't (un) transform the business and declare another terminal decline.
Perhaps we will get to the point where respect is forced upon them, driven by economic reality. Sadly though with this myopic bunch of self important 'leaders' nothing will change and that includes the echelons of Flight operations. The 'transformation' game needed a new chairman and CEO so the 'witch is dead' routine would work out. They are too self centred. Alan's reputation not what skytrax or Geoffrey Thomas (is that pay for play or cash for comments?, how much is a chairman's lounge membership worth?) tells us. So they stayed.
Alan may be a wealthy man, he needs every cent.