Qantas’ ‘tough’ decision as airline ramps up domestic and international flight schedule

Qantas’ CEO Alan Joyce has addressed one of the company’s most controversial decisions as the airline gets ready to ramp up its flight schedule again.

Qantas is just days away from restarting its international schedule with the national carrier kicking off flights between Sydney and London and Los Angeles from November 1.

But it’s been a long road back for the once-incredibly successful airline, with the coronavirus pandemic and the international travel ban crippling the company.

Speaking at Illuminate today, Flight Centre’s annual corporate travel conference, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said the airline had been forced to make a number of “necessary” and “terrible” decision to keep the airline afloat.

“We had to make some terrible decisions, like make 9500 people redundant. I wish I could’ve avoided that, but when you look back on that, there’s no way we could’ve avoided it,” he said. “The company is going to take a while to come out of this, we’re going to have to repair the damage that was done during Covid.

“We lost $20 billion in revenue, we’ve made $2.5 billion lost on average for the past two years … we’ve borrowed over $2.8 billion that we’re going to have to pay back.

“And to do that, we had to make that restructure. If there was a way to avoid it, and I racked my brains on it, to try and figure how we could not make that many people redundant, I would’ve avoided it but unfortunately I think it was necessary so we can grow in the future.”

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. Picture: Brent Winstone

Mr Joyce addressed the redundancies after he was asked if Qantas had learnt any lessons during the pandemic.

The Qantas CEO referred to a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, a former president of the United States.

“He said, ‘At the time of decisions, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing.’ And I think over the last 18 months, more so than ever, we’ve just done things, made them happen and if they weren’t working, fixed them after.

“So actually, of all the major things we’ve done, I don’t regret a single one of them because it’s set Qantas up really well for the future.”

Almost 10,000 Qantas workers are still stood down, with Mr Joyce prioritising getting aircraft back in the sky.

The rush of getting back to travel would also mean “attractive” airfares for Australians.

“There’s huge interest in people planning their trips for next year … we’ve already had Jetstar offer $22 fares domestically to get people travelling again, you’ll see more of that to get people travelling on the network,” Mr Joyce said.

“I’m very optimistic about our ability to stimulate demand … and get our employees working, which is our priority at the moment.”

Mr Joyce also made some predictions around the rest of Australia’s flying market – predicting Western Australia would be last to rejoin the nation.

“Every state is moving towards living with it (the virus) … It looks like for Christmas, we’re going to get every state opened up, except for Western Australia,” he said.

“Western Australia, domestically, we’re hoping it’ll open up early in the new year, we’re assuming around February.”

A Qantas plane comes in to land at Sydney Airport. Picture: Toby Zerna

Qantas is currently planning to get to 100 per cent of its domestic schedule back by the end of the year, with Mr Joyce hoping the airline will be running above that by next year when Western Australia opens.

The Qantas CEO shed some light on how heavily the airline had been impacted by border closures.

The route between Melbourne and Sydney, an extremely popular business route, and one of the busiest domestic flight paths in the world, has been one of the hardest hit.

Before the pandemic, Qantas was running 55 flights a day between Sydney and Melbourne.

The airline currently runs a single return flight between the two capitals a day but will up that to 15 flights a day from early November.

By Christmas, Qantas hopes to run 30 to 40 flights a day.

“They’re all good moves in the right direction,” he said.

Mr Joyce also praised NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s decision to cut any and all quarantine for fully vaccinated Australians flying into Sydney.

“This is the way the rest of the world is going … we know that it’s only available now to citizens and residents, at least until Christmas, but the intent for the Federal and State Government is to open that as soon as possible to foreign residents as well,” he said.

“We think that will be great to get the international schedule back.”

Qantas planes on the tarmac at Sydney Airport. Picture: Christian Gilles/NCA NewsWire

Before Christmas, Qantas will ramp up double daily flights between Sydney and London and Sydney and Los Angeles, and will also begin flying to Canada, Singapore and Tokyo.

Qantas hopes to have all of its aircraft back in the air by July next year, except for its massive A380s, which take longer to get ready.

“Hopefully, this is a one way direction, that’s what the premiers are saying, that’s what the Federal Government is saying, so I’m optimistic about this. We weren’t there six months ago but we are there today,” he said.