Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson to earn $5.3m if she stays in her role at airline for three years

Vanessa Hudson will receive a retirement jackpot of $5.3m in her top job, more than eight times the $690,000 that experts estimate the average Australian worker needs.

New Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson will receive cash of about $5.3m if she retires after hanging on for just three years in the top job.

Ms Hudson does not need to earn a bonus in order to receive the retirement jackpot, which she is entitled to as a member of a lucrative defined benefit scheme that has been closed to new Qantas employees since April Fools' Day in 1995.

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson will receive millions in a payout if she stays at the helm for three years. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

The payout, which will increase with every extra year of service, is more than eight times the $690,000 that experts estimate the average Australian worker needs to have socked away in super before retiring at age 67.

Ms Hudson, who is 53 and has been at Qantas for 29 years, is among executives and board members on a gravy plane that has cost the airline $49.5m over the past five years and who are now confronted with a company mired in chaos following the early exit of Alan Joyce as CEO last week.

Qantas declined to comment on Ms Hudson’s gold-plated retirement scheme.

The board, led by chairman Richard Goyder, faced calls to resign this week after the High Court dealt Qantas a fresh blow by unanimously upholding earlier rulings that the airline illegally sacked 1700 ground staff during Covid.

It added a compensation bill estimated at about $200m to a long list of costly problems left behind by Joyce.

The airline will have to refund $570m in Covid-era flight credits and was facing legal action from the consumer regulator alleging it sold tickets to cancelled flights that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

On Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission hit Qantas again, saying it plans to cancel permission for the airline to co-ordinate flights between Sydney and Shanghai with rival China Eastern.

Then Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce (L) and Chief Financial Officer and CEO designate Vanessa Hudson both worked for the airline for decades. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

Qantas also needs to spend $15bn on new planes to update its elderly fleet.

Transport Workers Union boss Michael Kaine, who led the legal challenge to the sackings, called for the entire Qantas board to be sacked.

Speaking after the High Court handed down its unanimous ruling on Wednesday, he said Qantas had been “a spiteful corporate dictatorship and the board has been right behind Alan Joyce in that spite every step of the way”.

Independent Federal MP for Tasmania Andrew Wilkie said Mr Goyder, who also chairs the AFL commission and oil and gas company Woodside Energy, was wearing too many hats.

“It’s entirely reasonable for the community to be asking if Mr Goyder is spread too thin, especially when you consider the problems in Qantas and the AFL,” Mr Wilkie said.

“How any one person can effectively lead the board, set the strategic direction and monitor the business activities of both of these behemoths, in addition to Woodside and other ventures, genuinely escapes me.”

Mr Goyder was approached for comment.

As the airline battled ongoing problems with cancellations, it can also be revealed that Qantas has two A380 aircraft out of service because they are waiting for maintenance work offshore, according to the airline’s engineers union.

Head of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association Steve Purvinas wrote a letter to Mr Goyder this week, demanding he resign over his decision to hire the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to help the airline.

“The situation is so bad that Qantas employees are being abused on the street for simply wearing a Qantas uniform,” he wrote in a letter seen by this masthead.

“If Qantas is determined to fix problems and deliver consistency, you cannot engage BCG or other similar consultants. These bean counters are the problem.

Qantas has been battling a range of woes since the pandemic. NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

“Instead, you need to talk to staff.”

Mr Purvinas said BCG staff did not have the expertise to advise the airline, when staff knew how to turn the company around.

“Qantas’ direction must change. If the Qantas board of directors do not understand the problem, there must be board room change,” he wrote in the letter, which was sent via email with Ms Hudson copied in.

“If Qantas engages Boston Consulting Group, we call on you to resign your position as Qantas Chairman without delay.”

Investors who have seen the Qantas share price tumble 12 per cent in a month also poured pressure on the board and management following the High Court decision.

Louise Davidson, the CEO of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, which represents Qantas shareholders including Australia’s two biggest funds, AustralianSuper and Australian Retirement Trust, said the High Court decision “will further tarnish the company’s reputation”.

Then Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Hudson and Qantas Group Chairman Richard Goyder at the airline’s head quarters earlier this year. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

“Investors will be expecting the Qantas board to reflect upon the various performance issues emerging in their consideration of pay outcomes for Alan Joyce and other executives, as well as broader accountability issues,” she said.

It is not clear if Mr Goyder and other board members are aware of the consequences of Ms Hudson’s membership of the defined benefits scheme.

While Ms Hudson’s membership was disclosed in a footnote in last year’s Qantas annual report, details of the resulting multimillion-dollar liability were not provided to investors when the airline announced her pay package as CEO on May 5 this year.