News: QAN UPDATE 1-Australia's Qantas celebrates subdued 100th birthday, looks to post-COVID future, page-31

A 'cost saving from flying less (you mean 'fewer') miles?'

Yes, but at the cost of a huge loss in revenue and profit.

Having aircraft on the ground costs $$$ in licensed aircraft mechanical engineers having to look after the beasts. Apparently it's fairly labour intensive. Every day that these aircraft sit unused costs QAN big dollars. Bringing them back into service also isn't free.

The fleet getting older means that if some of these planes eventually return to carrying passengers, there'll be higher maintenance and running costs compared to new aircraft. The QAN domestic fleet of B737-800s is already fairly long in the tooth.

There's also the cost to QAN of the vast majority of its international aircraft sitting idle every day. While the domestic operations have largely been the driver of profit pre-pandemic, the international fleet is another not insubstantial drain on QAN's depleting resources.

Has QAN refunded all booked passengers who wanted to travel internationally to March 2021 yet? That's more money out the window that the airline would a year ago (quite reasonably) never have expected it would have to part with. As you and I can book up to 353 days in advance on most airlines (I've never understood why it isn't 364 or 365 days!), there must be many tens of thousands of potential refunds waiting in the queue, as many won't want travel credits given how duplicitous are the conditions of reuse: not a good deal for travellers.

There's also a huge amount of uncertainty as to when QAN and competitors will be able to resume international flights, and to which destinations. We can't even fly to NZ at present without quarantining for a fortnight upon arrival.