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Jenny Wiggins

Yesterday

A Qantas Airbus A380 at Sydney Airport. A shortage of planes means airfares are unlikely to fall dramatically over the next year.

Surging international flights leave airports bullish for year ahead

A return of American and Chinese carriers has pushed overseas routes to their highest levels since the pandemic. It may not mean dramatically cheaper fares.

This Month

Downer and Ventia Services help maintain and operate Defence bases around the country

Downer EDI, Ventia Services execs named in price-fixing allegations

The contractors’ shares tumbled as investors worried whether the allegations would hurt their ability to win tens of billions of dollars of future Defence contracts.

  • Updated
The third stage of the Gold Coast light rail line is causing John Holland problems

John Holland overhauls executive team as projects struggle

John Holland is searching for a new CEO and its major projects boss will leave in January.

Aussie Broadband and Superloop are battling each other for market share in an intensely competitive telecommunications market.

A year of pain for Optus and Telstra means little telcos are winners

Superloop and Aussie Broadband have been taking share in the highly competitive broadband market as their larger rivals restructure and cut jobs.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating was the initial funder of Boost Mobile.

Telstra snaps up Boost Mobile, delivering Paul Keating a $40m payday

The telecommunications giant has acquired the specialist pre-paid mobile phone business for $140 million. The former prime minister owns 29 per cent.

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November

IAG CEO Nick Hawkins is defending $7 billion in insurance claims but still making acquisitions

IAG didn’t register Greensill Capital insurer with ASIC: court claim

Greensill Capital’s key insurance agency did not have approval from regulators to act as an insurer when it was half-owned by $20 billion group IAG, new court documents allege.

The Port of Darwin was leased to the Chinese-owned Landbridge Group in 2015.

Darwin Port’s Chinese owner scrambles to stave off forced sale

The possibility Darwin Port could be taken back was welcomed by Coalition MPs who believe the key asset should never have been sold to the Chinese.

Worley narrowly dodges strike on remuneration report at AGM

The engineering group’s investors want to know why the company is paying big bonuses to executives but not raising dividends for shareholders.

Web Travel and WebJet split up in late September, creating two separate listed companies

Web Travel restates earnings two months after WebJet spinoff

Company boss John Guscic says he’ll explain to investors next week at a postponed results briefing why margins on its global WebBeds business are falling.

Former NBN boss Stephen Rue has taken the reins at Optus.

New Optus boss promises company ‘reset’ after horror two years

The incoming CEO says he will draw on a decade of experience at the national broadband network to focus on customer service amid tight household budgets.

Australia won’t be able to get wind turbines to renewable energy zones quickly unless it builds more roads and bridges.

‘Maybe we can use Zeppelins’: Australia’s missing infrastructure links

Solar panels and wind turbines crucial to Australia’s energy transition are piling up at a key port because the nation does not have the infrastructure to move them.

Transurban boss Michelle Jablko

‘We didn’t set the tolls’: Transurban pitches new pricing plan

Company boss Michelle Jablko says NSW can’t afford to build roads without private money and is looking at charging corridors according to congestion levels.

Vesna Poljak AFR companies editor with Sydney Airport boss Scott Charlton and Qantas head of international and freight Cam Wallace on Monday.

Qantas claims network advantage will outgun bulked up Qatar

Qantas international boss Cam Wallace says the wet leasing arrangement that facilitates the partnership between Virgin and Qatar cannot be indefinite.

Businesses can rack up millions of dollars in tolls annually moving goods around Sydney

One business is paying $7.4m in Sydney road tolls

Data compiled by the NSW government shows the high cost of tolls for companies as the state pushes ahead with new laws to monitor the prices motorists are being charged.

The Port of Newcastle wants to diversify away from coal exports and build a container terminal.

Port of Newcastle’s container terminal pitch tempts foreign investors

The world’s biggest coal export hub has been approached by big investors who want to help fund an expansion that is expected to cost well above $2.5 billion.

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Sydney Metro boss Peter Regan was more into finance than trains as a child.

Sydney Metro’s boss learnt from London’s ‘failed experiment’

Peter Regan found out the hard way how to strike a good public-private partnership for transport.

October

Optus pushed phone and internet plans on vulnerable people despite knowing they could not afford them, the ACCC has alleged

Optus ‘exploited’ vulnerable people, ACCC alleges

The telco group sold phone plans to people who could not use them at home because there was no Optus coverage where they lived, the competition watchdog claims.

Broken Hill mayor Tom Kennedy.

Broken Hill pushes for ‘tens of millions’ in compensation

Broken Hill mayor Tom Kennedy says Transgrid could be fined tens of millions of dollars if its emergency back-up systems are found to be flawed.

Optus has denied claims that its 2022 cyberattack was not very sophisticated

Optus disputes ACMA’s ‘not highly sophisticated’ cyberattack claim

The hacker in Optus’ 2022 data breach had “a high degree of knowledge” of the telecommunications group’s confidential systems, Optus has claimed.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Leichhardt Festival on Sunday.

PM in tangle over Qantas lounge plus ones

Both Anthony Albanese’s fiancee and son are members of Qantas’ exclusive Chairman’s Lounge despite the prime minister saying his son was effectively his “plus one”.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/jenny-wiggins-j7gf5