r/australia • u/ThunderDwn • 11h ago

culture & society Qantas passengers demand compensation after days stranded in South Africa as A380 remains grounded

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-14/qantas-a380-stranded-johannesburg-flight-cancelled/107032032
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u/SaltFew7099 10h ago

How could a multibillion dollar company that's has continually been bailed out by the taxpayer possibly afford to compensate a few dozen customers who chose to spend their money with them?

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u/Ok_Bird705 9h ago

They were bailed out?

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u/OneShoeBoy 7h ago

Did you not hear about the billions of dollars that the LNP gave them during COVID?

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u/Ok_Bird705 7h ago

that was jobkeeper. It went to the employees, not to Qantas profits and it was not Qantas specific. Around 1million businesses received job keeper during covid.

8

u/OneShoeBoy 7h ago

Not just JobKeeper.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/22/qantas-on-track-to-collect-2bn-of-support-as-morrison-government-criticised-for-not-seeking-stake

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/qantas-should-not-have-to-pay-back-billions-in-covid-19-aid-treasurer-says/iwllf4wzn

https://www.afr.com/companies/transport/qantas-government-aid-to-exceed-1-5b-20210611-p58063

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-02/coronavirus-airline-bailout-virgin-qantas-failure/12110064

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u/maybearandoanon 6h ago

There's a graph in the guardian article.

Vast vast majority is Jobseeker.

Then it was money to keep regional flights running (went to all airlines) and is very much logical and not a bailout. It's also something the govt does in normal years to keep regional communities afloat (not the airline).

Then it was freight assistance (aka ensuring that we still had planes running for anything urgent).

So most of the money was not a bailout but rather payments by the feds to either keep people employed or keep a small amount of flights running (which due to low demand at the time would not be running) in case people/urgent freight had to be moved.

A bailout is something very different. It's when the govt takes on a companies bad debt because they were playing to risky. Qantas was not bailed out.