It was a reliable performer, and not just for travellers. Investors were more than content with a share price that had quadrupled since March 2014. For four consecutive years, it refused to post a before-tax profit that didn't involve the word "billion": $1.53b in 2016, $1.4b in 2017, $1.6b in 2018 and $1.3b in 2019.Skip forward to today, and the profit is higher than ever, but the flying kangaroo could hardly have fallen any more spectacularly in the eyes of the public.
So how did such an admired company find itself under the microscope? Many of the seeds were sowed during the pandemic – illegally sacking around 1700 workers, taking about $900 million in JobKeeper payments, making it difficult to get refunds or use credits for cancelled flights, not to mention the turmoil caused by grounded flights and closed borders."Really it's been there pretty much from the start of his appointment, which was now 15 years ago, but it hasn't had that public resonance until the start of this yea