Worst Crisis Ever: With Planes Grounded, Airline Selling Stock of Pajamas to Almonds Online

• Selling on-board amenities was more about recovering costs than making money
• Qantas said in June it planned to raise as much as A$1.9 billion from investors and cut at least 6,000 jobs to weather the industry’s worst-ever crisis

Times are clearly hard at Qantas Airways Ltd. Now the airline is trying to sell its in-flight biscuits and tea bags.

With all overseas and most domestic flights halted during the pandemic, the Australian airline has thousands of premium-class pajamas, moisturizers and snacks sitting idle, it said Friday.

For A$25 ($18) apiece, frustrated travelers stuck at home can buy as many as 10 packs of typical freebies that include 12 chocolate biscuits, a sleeper suit, and the kind of smoked almonds that only first-class passengers normally munch. The packs are available in Qantas’s online store.

Qantas said in June it planned to raise as much as A$1.9 billion from investors and cut at least 6,000 jobs to weather the industry’s worst-ever crisis. Selling on-board amenities was more about recovering costs than making money, a spokesman for the airline said Friday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Scrabbl staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)