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Times Are So Tough That Qantas Is Selling Biscuits and Tea

Times Are So Tough That Qantas Is Selling Biscuits and Tea Bags

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

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 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, available for home delivery at Qantas’s online store, sold out within hours, a spokesman for the airline said Friday.

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, the spokesman said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.