QAN investment thesis

I've been following the strong price action of $QAN since Covid19 spread throughout the world with fascination. Yet I see no compelling argument for why one would invest at these prices other than "Qantas was trading at $7+ (briefly) in Oct 2019 before covid kicked in".

This simplistic and erroneous view on historic prices ignores the following:

1 - Qantas has much, much more debt now after having borrowed money to get through the worst stages of the pandemic lockdowns
2 - Qantas has more shares on issue due to the post-covid capital raise
3 - Qantas has sold pretty much all of its hard assets (mainly land in Mascot)

1 + 2 + 3 mean that comparing prices from before vs now is like comparing apples with horse manure. The Qantas balance sheet is in a horrible state and nothing like what it was before the covid pandemic started.

Further,

4 - Oil prices are at levels not seen for more than a decade. This represents the single greatest operating cost for an airline
5 - Inflation is the highest that its been for over 40 years and there are very justified fears amongst many that stagflation is inevitable now
6 - High inflation means that interest rate rises are inevitable. The long period of record low debt, artificially suppressed by central banks globally, is very much over. Inflation raises the real rate of return required on debt capital markets thereby lifting the floor on interest rates dictated by central banks.

4 + 5 + 6 mean that Qantas operating costs are higher than ever and will continue to rise as interest costs on their record level of debt take hold

Additionally,

7 - The world has changed with less air travel than ever. Online Zoom / Microsoft Teams meetings are commonplace now and working from home is more accepted. Work travel can only be at lower levels than before the world ever heard of covid.
8 - There is *still* a pandemic. China is currently locking down major cities and we are not through this yet. Many are reluctant to travel for various reasons (hassles of testing, fear of catching the virus, etc).
9 - There is a major war in Europe with good reason to fear escalation. This can only harm international travel (not to mention inflation).

7 + 8 + 9 meant that in every single way the world has changed for the worse for airlines. I honestly can't see one thing that is positive for airlines now vs befor covid.

But the stock market seems to anchor on historic share price expectations without realising that this makes no sense (mainly due to 1, 2, 3) and only focused on "pent-up demand" that, while evident over the Easter break, can only be a temporary catch-up before demand for air travel inevitably settles at levels before the world ever heard of covid. At best, even if demand for travel returned to pre-covid levels with more debt, more shares on issue and increased operating costs, the share price would have to be a fraction of pre-covid levels to make all things equal (ie when considering the enterprise value of the business - and even that ignores profitability, which can only be lower from now on).

I'd be interested in hearing from the bulls about what they think I'm overlooking and / or why they think that none of the points that I've raised above are worth considering. Thanks.