Will QAN survive?, page-4483

This may be an extreme case, but it highlights how airlines destroy any profitability from individual flights.

On 24 July's morning after arriving from Singapore, an A330-300 aircraft (registration VH-QPE) operated an empty flight (airlines call these 'ferry flights') from Melbourne to Sydney, and then carried passengers to and from Jakarta, arriving in Sydney this morning just after 0600 AEST.

This morning, it's on another empty flight down to Melbourne, presumably to go to Singapore again on QF35 that should depart at 1205 hours:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vh-qpe

Each empty A330 flight from Melbourne to Sydney or reverse will cost a minimum $22000, which is money QAN somehow must recover from passengers. That's without including corporate overheads, such as the Board and senior executives' high remuneration (admittedly spread over thousands of flights a month, but still adds up).