Now that Qantas is running at a profit again, the Australian public and the consumer watchdog think CEO Alan Joyce is short-changing them.
That's probably why he got a hard going-over in a hastily convened Senate inquiry into the cost of living earlier this week.
Senators wanted to know when airfares were coming down, which tells you something about how rich Australia is when airfares are seen as an essential part of the cost of living.
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And in one sense, it is quite unfair as the price of airfares has come down dramatically over the years. I remember being flown to Canberra and back to Brisbane economy class in 1980 for a price of $600. That would be $3,133 (US$2,030) today, or more than the price of a return flight to London.
But that's the long view.
On a shorter view, it's not unfair, because as cheap as flights are, they could be a lot cheaper. And if they were, a lot of people would be better off because the businesses they own, or are employed by, would be so much more profitable.
Back to the public short-changing. The internet is full of complaints of bad Qantas service-baggage lost, but more importantly, flights cancelled.
Qantas, Australia's national carrier, operates under two brand names-Qantas, the premium brand, and Jetstar, the cut-price version.
A recent popular meme targets Jetstar. It features a photo of recently deceased Russian mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin with the caption "Wish I'd flown Jetstar"-the joke being that the flight would have been cancelled.
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Now the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) is suing Qantas for selling seats on flights for up to 47 days after they were cancelled! There is also a class action against Qantas by other customers for not refunding fares from COVID-cancelled flights.
Then there is their obvious cosying up to the federal government with support for the prime minister's political causes and the granting of membership to the Chairman's Lounge (Qantas's act of grace, and by-invitation-only company largesse, for the rich, influential, and famous) to the prime minister's 23-year-old son.
And the imputed result of this? The federal government blocked the application by Qatar Airlines to double their international flights to and from Australia on the basis that preserving Qantas's profit was "in the national interest."
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