It’s been a rough week for Qantas but easing the pain for Alan Joyce will be $10m in shares

The Qantas CEO’s week just got drastically better after he was awarded bonuses, and he isn’t the airline’s only executive to benefit.

Alan Joyce and his Qantas executives have been awarded a swag of extraordinary bonuses of up to $10 million, despite facing major court action and claims that only one airline in the world cancelled as many flights as the national carrier.

In a case of unfortunate timing, the airline was required to report to the ASX on Friday details of the share parcels handed to key executives under a recovery and retention plan and long term incentive scheme.

Mr Joyce received 1.74 million shares valued at just over $10m, and chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson pocketed close to $2m worth.

The bonuses would form part of Mr Joyce’s final package of an expected $24m to be announced ahead of the Qantas AGM in November.

The ASX announcement came as Qantas faced increasing fallout over Australian Competition and Consumer Association allegations that the airline axed 15,000 flights scheduled for May, June and July 2022, and continued to sell tickets on more than half of them.

Across all other airlines worldwide only American Airlines axed as many services in that period despite being nine-times the size of Qantas.

It’s understood the Qantas cancellations calculated by the ACCC took in re-timed and rescheduled flights months before their intended takeoff.

The approach resulted in a much higher figure than that reported by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics in its monthly on-time performance data.

The consumer watchdog was seeking a penalty of more than $250m against Qantas over the ghost flight ticket sales which it alleged amounted to “false, misleading or deceptive behaviour” under Australian Consumer Law.

Bonuses have been very lucrative for Alan Joyce and will benefit his successor, Vanessa Hudson. Picture: Christian Gilles

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said she wanted a penalty that would “deter conduct of this nature”.

“The ACCC is on a path of wanting to substantially increase the penalty that large corporations pay in relation for serious misconduct that fails consumers, so this is going to be an important test for us,” said Ms Cass-Gottlieb.

“We think penalties should be in the hundreds of millions not the tens of millions, so this will be an important case for us.”

Qantas was intending to respond fully to the allegations in the Federal Court but as yet no date had been set for the first hearing.

Airline executives kept their heads down on Friday after a tumultuous week that saw Qantas under fire over its role in the decision to block Qatar Airways’ flights, and the staggering amount of travel credits leftover from the Covid pandemic.

It was revealed $570m remained in Qantas’ coffers out of $2bn collected from customers whose flights were cancelled by Covid disruption.

Forager Funds Management chief Steve Johnson. Picture: Hollie Adams

After a heated Senate committee hearing and pressure from the ACCC, Qantas finally agreed to scrap the December 31 expiry date, giving customers unlimited time to use the credits or seek a refund.

The move was described as proof “we are listening” Alan Joyce claimed in a video message, but for many it was too late.

Former Qantas investor Steve Johnson of Forager Funds said it seemed “bizarre” that it had only just dawned on the company the imminent expiry of so many travel credits was not going to be controversial.

“I’ve actually been trying to redeem some myself and it is near impossible,” he said.

“They send you to a different website, you’ve got to put in a voucher number and a pin that I don’t have the faintest idea where that is, or even what it is. So to work out what you’ve got is still nigh on imposible.”

Former tourism and aviation executive Simon Westaway agreed Qantas had an image problem but he said it was repairable thanks to the airline’s emotional connection with Australians.

“I believe Qantas and its brand still resonate with many Australians,” Mr Westaway said.

“That’s because Qantas has 100-years of ‘operational pedigree’, safely carrying hundreds of millions of flyers and helping to connect Australians to the world.”

Originally published as It’s been a rough week for Qantas but easing the pain for Alan Joyce will be $10m in shares