Strong and Dixons era was good profit thanks to the back end of Ansett duopoly, and collapse and high dividends. Unfortunately these dividends came at the expense of new aircraft - 9 747s in the late 90s was about it for QFi which has resulted in some of the issues today.
In those days the main International competitors were the similar high cost legacy end of line Euro carriers.. Now it's middle eastern, se asian and growing from the Chinese... The world has changed substantially... QFi hasn't, if it doesn't it will pull the rest of the company down with it.