Alan Joyce grilled over Qantas still owing $150 million in flight credits
Qantas boss Alan Joyce and his top executives have been forced to admit the airline owes at least $150 million more in flight credits to customers than previously estimated.
NSW
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Qantas boss Alan Joyce and his top executives have been forced to admit the airline owes at least $150 million more in flight credits to customers than previously estimated.
A class-action lawsuit has begun to try and get the flight credits refunded before the end of December deadline Qantas has arbitrarily put in place to claim them.
At the Senate Cost of Living Committee hearing in Melbourne yesterday former Transport Workers Union boss Tony Sheldon repeatedly asked how much money was owed and why it was not being refunded.
“What’s stopping you from refunding the money just directly?” Mr Sheldon asked.
Jetstar boss Steph Tully said there were “lots of reasons” why customers were not being contacted and offered their money back including that many flights were codeshare with other airlines.
“Not surprisingly, I don’t expect all of you have run an airline (or) to understand the complexity of an airline ticketing system,” she said.
Last week Qantas announced a bumper $2.47 billion profit and said outstanding credits owed to customers totalled $370 million. But under intense questioning Ms Tully conceded there were at least another $100 million in credits owed to Jetstar customers and at least $50 million to customers overseas.
“You have not been transparent,” Mr Sheldon said. “We just learned that there’s another $100 million above the $370 million and there could be something like $50 million for these overseas credits.”
Legal firm Echo Law filed a class action in the Federal Court last week to get the money refunded. Partner Andrew Paull accused Mr Joyce of “rewriting history” by claiming passengers were told how to get their money back.
“There is a wealth of written evidence showing that Qantas misled its customers by failing to clearly acknowledge their entitlement to a refund,” he told The Australian.
Mr Joyce told the senate inquiry that a deal had been reached with travel agents for the airline to start contacting customers directly. “Next week, we’re going to be sending text messages to people to start reminding them of it,” he said.
Mr Joyce was also quizzed on the flying kangaroo’s opposition to Qatar being allowed to double its flights into Australia.
“We did put our case to the government and we said to the government that capacity was coming back,” he said. “And that granting a carrier double their traffic rights in the short term would cause distortion.”
But senators on the inquiry repeatedly returned to the point that fares were up by more than 50 per cent for the same flight before Covid and that increased competition would cut prices for passengers.
Committee chair and Liberal senator Jane Hume said: “I just want to be very clear here, more competition is not in the national interest. Is that what you‘re saying?”
Mr Joyce said Australia had one of the most competitive aviation markets in the world and that Australia needed to protect its national interest.
Earlier Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones defended the government’s decision on the Qatar flights, telling the Australian Financial Review that doubling the carrier’s capacity could drive prices down to “a level where it’s actually unsustainable” to run an airline.
Virgin Australia Chief Corporate Affairs Christian Bennett said that favouring Qantas over Virgin, which partners with Qatar, pushed up airfares and denied the Australian tourism industry $500 million in economic stimulus.
“Australian consumers are paying on average 50 per cent more today for international flights than they did in 2019. This is due to a lack of capacity,” he said.
Mr Joyce said flight cancellations on Sydney to Melbourne routes of 8.5 per cent because of a shortage of air traffic controllers were necessary to minimise disruption to regional routes. By contrast the committee heard cancellations on regional carrier Rex were at just 2.8 per cent.
At the hearing Mr Joyce was also asked if he was “embarrassed” to take home his $125 million pay packet earned over his 15 years at the helm of the airline when thousands of staff had been laid off.
Mr Joyce said his salary was voted on by shareholders who had seen the Qantas share price double on the back of record profits.
He also defended deferring his bonuses so that he could take them when the airline returned to profit.
Qantas boss to be quizzed by senator members of exclusive club
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has described the invitation-only Qantas Chairman’s Lounge as the most exclusive club in the country.
He may be comforted to know that three of the six senators on the cost-of-living inquiry he will be grilled at this afternoon are members of that exclusive club.
Mr Joyce has been compelled to attend the hearing in Melbourne to be quizzed on the airline’s bumper profits, sky-high airfares and more than $400 million in rapidly expiring flight credits.
Former Transport Workers Union chief, Senator Tony Sheldon is not on the committee but will be attending the hearing to ask questions.
Unlike Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne, National Matt Canavan and Labor’s Jana Stewart, he does not have the black card that gives him access to the discreetly wood-panelled lounges in six of Australia’s domestic airports.
“Alan Joyce has turned around and made close to 10,000 workers redundant, 1700 illegally sacked, and has not invested in the workforce,” Mr Sheldon said in an early indication of the approach he will take to questioning.
“He has become corporate Australia’s biggest mongrel on the hill – every other company looks at him and thinks if he can get away with it so can we.”
The Daily Telegraph asked the three committee members who have been invited into the Lounge and its complimentary Perrier Jouet French champagne if that would colour their questions or even make them step aside.
The committee deputy chair Senator Allman-Payne did not respond. Mr Canavan came back with a firm “no” to both questions while Ms Stewart will be travelling and not attending.
When she is travelling she enters an exclusive world through a secret door that allows her to order whatever she wants to eat to be cooked by a special chef.
Among the other club members are not only Prime Minister Anthony Albanese but his 23-year-old son Nathan, whose membership he did not need to declare because he is not a dependent. However the disclosure of his membership came as the Government blocked Qatar airways from expanding into Australia in a move seen as protecting Qantas.
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