This airline is hell bent on holding its line. They really really need a management turf out, and the next regime next to come in and say we got the everything wrong, and just listen to staff and customers, and move forward.
Deep down we all know if they could go back in time, many of these cost cutting decisions illegal or not, would still be made.
This is the part which amazes me. You've been caught with your pants down, so no one cares how you wash it. You might as well take an angle of contrition on this one, eat it and move on, because trying to go against the pub is going to get you killed (figuratively or literally).
Then again, we are used to Qantas and almost any other large company being clobbered in the PR sense but still coming up strong. Thank you capitalism...
Geoffrey Thomas (Aviation expert) is pretty confident the ACCC's case will fail.
The case may fail. But at the very least it has dragged Qantas' image through the mud in the mind of customers and that in and of itself is enough to hopefully give them a pause and reconsider some of the actions they take going forward. For instance, I highly doubt Qantas would have offered all those bonus points or extra award flights availability had this case never come up. Whether they change their own policies when it comes to things like IRROPs remains to be seen.
As said previously, they've been through the mud before (admittedly, maybe aside from the grounding, not this much mud) and came out squeaky clean. It would take something quite dramatic like the entire Qantas board being sent to prison (or otherwise disappearing), a significant number of shareholders throw in their shares and send the share price crashing to nothing, customers en masse cancelling their tickets (corporate customers ripping up contracts) or a significant portion of the Qantas workforce (and/or their contractors) going on indefinite strike before Qantas will be forced to do anything that will be seen as morally or ethically acceptable.
It's highly doubtful any of the aforementioned will happen, as it takes a whole lot of people a whole lot of guts that they don't have in order to effect. Also, these would be decisions that are not strongly grounded in economically sound reasons; these are probably more reputational or ethical decisions (along the lines of "we don't want to associate with them, because they're bad, not because they are too expensive). Given time, Qantas will still be on its feet and most of this will be forgotten. Most of us will either not use Qantas in principle (or unless it's a no-choice situation) or will only use Qantas in a purely exploitative relationship, not true loyalty (basically like being in a gaslighting abusive relationship).
In history, airlines around the world have had accidents which have killed people and culpability has been traced back to the airline. Many of them are still here today with a reputation as if it never happened. Garuda is just one example. Same goes for abuse of human rights (of passengers and/or staff). For big businesses, nothing seems to be a big enough tarnish to actually wound them to get their attention.
I'm surprised why the case will fail. The main reason why it might fail is because of lack of precedent and our country's inherent lack of appropriate punishment for white collar crime. The ACCC is a government organisation - doesn't it have punitive powers that are exclusive of the judiciary, let alone it could make recommendations to Parliament?
One thing that puzzles me and probably all of us why there is no such protection framework like EU261 in Australia yet. Is it a political decision or hotbed that no one wants to touch? It seems like some of the simplest legislation to make the case for and implement, and - if not at the moment - seems like it would have unanimous support or you would be hard pressed to work out why an MP would not support the idea. I don't care if all of them have CL membership and that's stopping them - if that truly influenced their decision then that's called corruption.
Mind, the next problem with introducing EU261 style protections is making sure that the airlines cough up in a timely matter when they get it wrong (because they will drag it out as long as they can before they pay up).