Flight Centre boss calls on Scott Morrison to “shoulder the blame” for Qantas’ woes

Flight Center boss Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner has come out in defence of Qantas, blaming the Morrison government for the airline’s service issues.

Skroo penned an op-ed for the Australian calling on the Morrison government to “shoulder the blame” and apologise to both Qantas and the nation for their “over-reaction”.

The managing director of Flight Centre said that as far as most people in the travel industry are concerned “it was the government of Scott Morrison and its international border closures that caused the national carrier’s issues.

“Many businesses in many industries have suffered serious damage under these severe government restrictions and in the end for little or no overall benefit when everything is taken into account,” he said.

“History will show or has already shown that shutting borders and dictating widespread lockdowns not only were ineffective in stopping Covid-19’s spread but caused enormous societal and collateral damage.”

Skroo claims there was “little science and poor interpretation of data in government actions”.

He said the government’s response was a testament to the fact that major decisions should never be made “on the run” and instead should have been met with a thorough “cost-benefit analysis on cause and effect” of what he said were “draconian restrictions”.

“So Alan Joyce is getting the blame for significant service issues when he has had to start up a significant global airline almost from scratch after two years of a deliberate policy by governments to ground the industry,” he continued.

“The inevitable result of this was operational and service shortcomings. Lack of staff numbers and expertise, lack of pilots and operational aircraft, widespread sick leave and other issues occurred largely because of our government’s panicked restrictions.

“Hopefully they will learn from this fiasco and this sort of action will never happen again.”

While the restrictions on travel were devastating to the travel industry, research led by the University of Sydney has shown that Australia’s response to COVID may have saved more than 16,000 lives.

Led by Dr Fiona Stanaway, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Sydney, researchers used data on all-cause mortality from England and Wales over the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak from March to May to directly estimate the number of excess deaths that may have occurred if the outbreak in Australia had been of a similar extent.

Dr Stanway and her colleagues estimated that an additional 16,313 deaths would have occurred in Australia had our response been as liberal as that in the UK.

“This enormous difference underlies the importance of Australia’s response using a combination of extensive testing and contact tracing, mandatory quarantine of people returning from overseas, and shutdowns to control community transmission,” the authors wrote.

“What we were trying to say is all this stuff we’re doing, yes, it’s really hard and people have had to change their lives. But, actually, it really mattered.”

Skroo said he believed the concept of shutting down whole states and countries for a very contagious virus that is “dangerous only to a tiny percentage of the population (mainly old, fragile and vulnerable people who easily could have been identified and protected early on)” was accepted by authorities with no thought of studying alternative policies or understanding the cost versus the overall benefits.

The response to Skroo’s op-ed was largely negative if the comments are anything to go by, with many pointing out that the measures were in fact effective.

“There is unimpeachable early scientific data from the Doherty Institute using genomic fingerprinting showing that the initial lockdowns and lockouts rid Australia of covid at the start of the pandemic,” one commenter said.

“I have no problem with debating whether lockdowns were worth it then or later – or whether something better could have been done.

“But such an argument has to come from a position of truth and not by some underhanded deception from someone with such an obvious conflict of interest.”

“Graham, neither Morrison nor the Premiers created Covid,” said another commenter, “And last time I looked, most of the world was locked down in 2020. No point keeping international flights running when there’s nowhere to go.”

Featured image: Kat Stanley Photography; www.katstanleyphotography.com