You omit how QAN's management held the proverbial gun to state governments' "heads" in threatening to relocate its head office away from Sydney, a clever ploy that IIRC resulted in QAN receiving extra funds from a desperate NSW government.
Arguably QAN never had any intention of departing its ironically named Coward St area head office.
You say 'the governments severely restricted how these (airlines) could operate for almost three years' but again you omit how QAN's Qantas legacy airline was only prepared to mount so-called repatriation (international) flights if it was subsidised by the then Liberal-National Federal Government. In contrast, other, foreign-owned airlines such as United Airlines, China Airlines of Taiwan, Philippine Airlines, Emirates and Qatar operated quite a lot of flights to and from Oz during lockdowns and restricted COVID timers yet to my knowledge never approached our governments for a cent in assistance. United, after the event, took out full page ads in 'The Australian' highlighting this.
"Qantas our National Airline?" Piffle!
QAN Price at posting:
$6.36 Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)