What's happening with Qantas - by someone who has no idea what's happening with Qantas.

It feels like you can’t turn on the TV, open a newspaper or even search for some never-before-seen cat videos on the interwebs without hearing about Qantas these days. Our national airline is in trouble, you guys. I know that much.

But with the CEO changing his mind every second day about what he wants from the Government, the Prime Minister using phrases like ‘legislative repeal’ and Labor screeching about jobs being sent away, who knows what’s going on any more.

But I have decided to get to the bottom of it. To go all Sherlock Holmes on this Qantas caper and figure out what’s a-happening. I went down a Qantas rabbit-hole, and didn’t even click over to asos once.

So here’s the haps with Qantas, presented in an easy-to-understand 4 step guide. Well, at least as far as I can decipher it.

1. Qantas is struggling, money-wise.

They lost a shit-load of it in the last year – like, a $252 million kind of shit-load. There’s lots of reasons they’re losing it – they say the carbon tax is part of it. It’s also hard to compete against other big airlines like Virgin with their trendy flash-mob ads and dancing safety videos.

But, whatever the reason they’re losing money, obviously Qantas kind of needs it. An airline can’t stay profitable without, you know, making a profit, so they announced last week that they would be cutting 5000 jobs to try and save some moulah.

But, even with those job cuts, Qantas is still struggling to bring in the cash, and CEO/Boss Man Alan Joyce is kind of freaking out about what to do. You see, normally, when a big company starts struggling, they can go to some other bigger companies overseas and be like “what’s up bigger companies – you have heaps of money and we’re kind of losing money, so do you wanna buy us and help us out?”

2. Qantas want international help but that’s easier said than done.

You see, Qantas isn’t allowed to do that, because it’s our STRAYAN airline and everybody wants it to stay STRAYAN, so there are laws in place that say no more than 49% of the Qantas can be owned by people who aren’t STRAYAN.

So, because it was the government who put those laws in place, Qantas CEO/Boss Man Alan Joyce thinks the government should come to Qantas’ rescue. He’s all like “If you won’t let us make money with the big international kids, then you have to give us money when we run out of it. Which we have. So give us some money please.”

3. So Qantas boss man Alan Joyce has presented Daddy Tony Abbott with two options.

First, he was like “Hey guys – we really, really need to borrow some dosh. But we’re kind of not sure if we’ll be able to pay it back, so do you think you could lend us, say, 3 Billion bucks, but also sign a piece of paper saying you won’t come after us if we can’t afford to get it all back to you?”

Tony replied “Lol no.”

So then Alan was like “Okay okay, that was a big ask. Well… What if we borrow the money from someone else, but you sign a thingy saying that if we can’t pay them back, you’ll step in and pay it back for us? Like when a teenager gets their first loan from the bank and their parents go guarantor.”

Tony again replied “Lol no.”

But Tony and his government pals did feel bad, because this is our STRAYAN airline and 5000 people are losing their jobs.

So now Tony Abbott is saying that he won’t lend Qantas money or go guarantor on an international loan for them, but he WILL change the laws so that more than 49% of Qantas can be owned by foreign countries. That way, Qantas can compete again with the big boys, but with the safety net of a big international company behind them.

4. Basically, the Government wants to let Qantas go and get themselves a foreign sugar daddy.

Now, a lot of people don’t like that idea because it means our STRAYAN airline might not be STRAYAN anymore. They’re scared that corners will be cut, Qantas’ high standards will drop, and we’ll just end up with a bunch of buses that have wings stuck to the side. There’s also the risk that although jobs will be saved, those jobs will move overseas anyway.

Other people are saying that it’s better to have a foreign-owned Qantas than no Qantas at all.

Then there’s the people who think Qantas should just solve the damn problem themselves. After all, there are lots of people who are STRAYAN and have debts that they’re struggling to pay – why should a big company get special treatment?

So, yeah. That’s pretty much the gist of the Qantas situation right now. Enough to get you through a dinner party anyway.

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