The Qantas Quagmire: It’s shaping up to be an awful year for the flying kangaroo

When it comes to making money, Qantas, as a rule, doesn’t dazzle. But nor does it disappoint. Unlike any of the North American legacy carriers, or those in Europe or Japan or anywhere else in the rich world, Qantas managed to generate underlying pretax profits, excluding special items, in every year—no kidding—since the turn of the millennium. Come to think of it, such consistent profitability is, in its own right, rather dazzling. But it’s also the past.