Attacks on Qantas boss Alan Joyce have no basis

All the attacks on Alan Joyce are silly and ‘miss the mark’ by billions of dollars when he should really be getting applause for building and saving Qantas.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce during a senate hearing into the cost of living. Picture NCA NewsWire / Aaron Francis

Alan Joyce has been unambiguously and quite simply undeniably a very good CEO of Qantas, both before and then through the existentially threatening two long, very long, wasted and unnecessarily so, years of Covid.

The $2.5bn pre-tax profit unveiled last week was - and should indeed have been universally hailed as - the triumphant culmination of his 15 years of leadership; of his fundamental remaking of Qantas, in strategic and in tactical operating terms.

Let me get this figure in right upfront: the flight bans, the lockdowns, stripped Qantas of a thumping, a quite staggering, $25bn of revenue.

That it is still standing – correction, flying – is no small miracle. And for which Joyce can take the credit. And indeed the cheques he’s well and truly earned.

It also puts in context the total of around $1.5bn Qantas received from the federal government in direct Covid-related assistance over the three years from 2019-20 through 2021-22.

A significant part of the $1.5bn, by the way, was not a simple Covid-style handout, but straight ‘fees-for-services’, to pay for emergency-style flights that Qantas provided as the ‘national airline’, able to be called upon in times of national need.

In sum, the government stripped it of $25bn by prohibiting it from flying and gave less than 10 per cent of that -$1.5bn – back. Plus another $900m or so in JobKeeper payments, that just flowed straight through to its staff like with every other business and every other employer.

It’s absurd to characterise the $2.5bn as an extortionate profit.

Yes, it’s double the $1.3bn Qantas made in the last pre-Covid year, 2018-19. But it came after operating losses of $1.8bn and $1.9bn in the main two Covid years.

Over the four years to 2022-23, and so including the latest profit, Qantas has had an aggregated operating loss of $1.1bn.

That’s hardly indicative of gouging. It is very indicative of the magnificent job Joyce – and the rest of the people at Qantas -did.

They had $25bn of revenue just evaporate. Yet they were able to keep the cumulative loss over the three Covid years to just $3.6bn after getting just $1.5bn in government aid.

This would have been extraordinary in any business. In one like Qantas with its massive investment in aircraft and highly-trained and well-paid crew, it shows a tactical agility and, yes, necessarily ruthless effectiveness.

It is though utterly ludicrous to blame the high international fares on Qantas, as if it is the only airline flying in and out of Australia.

Qantas, including Jetstar, has around 25 per cent of the inbound and outbound seats. Are all the other airlines, including Virgin and its partners, just powerless price-takers?

It does though point to two other important issues.

The guilty party in relation to high fares is the federal government and transport minister Catherine King in particular; captured in the ban on more Qatar flights.

To say nothing of her utter incoherence in (not) explaining it.

The second is the most important thing Joyce did for Qantas. And indeed for flyers. Forging the strategic partnership with Emirates.