Labor's Ben Chifley welcomed the first Holden in 1948. Looks like Tory Tony will see off the last one. In the increasingly unlikely event that he survives the next election, that is. Good morning. I'm Alan Joyce, your Qantas chief executive. On behalf of our chairman, Leigh Clifford, I'd like to welcome you on board QF1, our A380 flight to London today. Or that's the plan. Unfortunately, due to the lack of a level playing field, we can afford only enough fuel to get us to Dubai. So on our arrival there, we'll be inviting you to offer us your credit cards to purchase more fuel for the next sector to London Heathrow. Shortly your Qantas in-flight crew will be moving through the cabin in their exciting new designer uniforms. There are two of them, Dinh and Wong, recently hired at very attractive rates from a labour supply company in Phnom Penh, and we'll ask you to kindly bear with them as they learn the job. It would help if passengers in economy would deposit their sandwich wrappers, coffee cups, etc, in the bins provided at the rear of the aircraft. Recent staff realignments also mean that we no longer have a first officer with us in the cockpit, so we are requesting anyone with flying experience to join us up front to keep an eye on the instruments while our captain takes a nap over the Indian Ocean.

I do apologise, too, that our in-flight entertainment system is not working, due to a regrettable misunderstanding by our maintenance contractors in Mexico. That may also explain the unusual sheet of flame when we started up the starboard outer engine. But any passenger with a guitar or a mouth organ, perhaps, is welcome to organise a sing-song once the seatbelt light has been turned off. You will have the opportunity during the flight to buy Qantas shares as a souvenir of your time with us, a real bargain now at less than a dollar: just a few years ago they were worth more than $6. In the unlikely event of a further collapse in the share price, an oxygen mask will descend from the compartment above your head, for first class passengers only. Those of you with seatbelts, please see that they are securely fastened and, if the push-button thingy is still working, ensure that your seat is in the upright position for take-off. Thank you for being among the dwindling number of Australians choosing to fly Qantas, the national flag carrier. Alan Joyce does lugubrious like Gina Rinehart does iron ore. There are bottomless reserves. Whenever his mournful features pop up you know there will be yet another blast of bad news, inevitably announced with more cheesy headlines: STORMY SKIES, ROUGH LANDING FOR QANTAS. Nothing good ever happens. Routes are cut, engineers are sacked as more maintenance work gets sent overseas, bases are closed, fuel costs soar, profits collapse, flights are cancelled, market share falters, the share price tanks.

How much of this is Joyce's fault I cannot say. But I remember those glory days when Qantas was a world power in aviation, happy to fly you almost anywhere around the globe, much envied by its competitors. Since Joyce took the top job in 2008, it's been nothing but ''honey, I shrank the airline''. Not that there's been any shortage of dazzling plans. At one stage, various bits and pieces of the Jetstar offshoot were to be the saviour for Qantas: an efficient, low-cost operation would lure the punters on board and see profits take-off (requisite pun). Now it seems that Jetstar This and Jetstar That require a regular injection of Qantas cash and some pea 'n' thimble bookwork to keep airborne. More recently, we've seen the deal with the Middle East airline Emirates, trumpeted by Joyce as yet another stroke of genius to rescue Qantas International, but which now looks awfully like the mouse making love to the elephant. Under Joyce and Chairman Clifford, every ballyhooed initiative seems to leave the place worse off. (Don't get me started on that crazy decision to ground the entire fleet and 100,000 angry passengers during an industrial dispute two years ago.) The news this week that Qantas would nosedive (sorry) to a first-half loss this year of $300 million was a genuine shocker. Nothing, though, is ever management's fault. It's the high cost of fuel, or more competition, or union intransigence, or a lack of government support, summed up - in a classic Joycean phrase - as ''our fiercely difficult operating environment.'' The whingeing never stops.

Instinct tells me it's time for Joyce and Clifford to strap on their parachutes and bail out (yes, I know). If they stay at the controls (last pun; metaphor now changes) we can expect Qantas to gradually fade away like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat, until there is nothing left but the grin. smhcarlton@gmail.com Twitter: @MikeCarlton01