Great article however I feel I need to clarify at least one point regarding "Pilot greed" 
as it is way way off the mark. The average wage for airline pilots within Australia ranges form $45k  up to $400K at the $45k end you have the regional pilots flying domestically ie Sydney to Canberra who have just started their airline career and at the $400k end you have International heavy jet senior check captains who have spent the last 40 years flying big jets. Now let me explain how pilots get there. 
Most pilots start out flying small death traps around doing charter flying to get some experience up after spending about $100k to get their licence in the first place. The airlines wont hire them without experience. This gaining experience may take some upto 10 years and most will be lucky to be paid $20k a year for their effort. Then after gaining this experience they will most likely join a regional airline who offer them job security (there is none in charter flying) and a pay rise up to $45k so another 5years of experience in regional flying should see them starting at the bottom of a major airline like Qantas where they can expect to earn about $100k for about the next 10 years as a second officer, before their next promotion to first officer ($200k) and then about another 5-10 years to attain a rank of captain for +$300k. 
A pilot flying for an airline will effectively be asked to re apply for their job four times a year every year in the form of simulator check flights amongst other regulatory exams each year, if they fail to pass these checks then they are out of a job !
So as you can see the path to any wealth is a very long one for a pilot and in fact it is not money that the Qantas pilots are asking for, it is simply to know that they won't have their career limited if not stopped in its tracks by the off shoring of their work. 

The Tasman is an example of how this works. Qantas used to fly Qantas planes across to NZ now only Jet connect do these flights thus Qantas pilots have lost this area of growth and now do not fly the Tasman. The effect of this reduction in flying is to slow their career progression and make it take longer in each stage to get a promotion.
In summary it takes most pilots some 15years (longer than a doctor) to make any where near an executive wage, a doctor looks after 1 person at a time the pilot may have 500 on board. 
Ask a doctor how often they take exams after they graduate and while your there ask them if they would spend 15 years of hard work to earn $100k for the next 10 years while having their brain poked and prodded 4 times each year ?

Make the most of whatever is flying now because when peak oil hits and it surely will, the only flying will be by the very rich and the government.

Everald Compton is showing a lack of knowledge of the act of parliament under which QANTAS operates. Under that act it is not possible for them to operate outside of Australia and because of that I would suggest that it is ultimately doomed. To succeed, the wages of the QANTAS staff would have to be reduced to mere subsistence levels and that is not likely to happen.

David

Unfortunately the whole action of setting up an offshore carrier by QF is not legislated against (Look at Jetstar ASIA and Jet Connect, Both QF subsidiaries) . The law states that QF can NOT sell off more than 49% of its business to a foreign entity. This is EXACTLY why Qantas is setting up subsidiary companies at the demise of its core brand. The plan seems to be to destroy the core brand (or make it look like a dead duck) while growing the subsidiary brands rapidly and the primary reason for this is that NONE yes NONE of the subsidiary brands are covered by the QF sale act ! Thus they can grow these brands and sell them off at will,completely circumventing the whole Qantas sale act.
Sorry to shoot you down David but you are WRONG !

...Qantas follows the same “spiralling” downward trajectory as that other once great Australian icon, the ALP under Gillard. Outside the imperative of jobs, the future of Qantas no longer matters.