Despite the fact that the year-on-year earnings still remained gloomy, there was a welcome increase in the Qantas Group traffic figures during the month of September. The bookings of the carrier stood at over 3.4 million during the month, thereby indicating a rise of nearly 7 percent from the same month last year figures.

However, Qantas international figures still remained down, with passenger numbers on Qantas international services plunging 20.8 percent, though driven somewhat by a 13.2 percent slash in capacity.

In terms of revenue passenger kilometers, Group traffic rose by 2.7 percent, in spite of the 2 percent fall in capacity, thereby increasing the percentage of seats occupied by paying passengers by 3.9 percentage points to 83.7 percent. The airline also mentioned that the quarterly figures till the end of December were also higher.

Moreover, with a worst-case crude oil price of US$88 per barrel, Qantas said it has managed to hedge almost 85 percent of its projected fuel requirement for the ongoing financial year.

Further, noting that its yields had to bear the brunt of the considerable fall in corporate traffic and competition-driven price discounting, the Qantas said: "The strong economy cabin volume relative to premium cabin performance has accentuated the yield deterioration."