Qantas Domestic announces Markus Svensson as new CEO amid slew of senior appointments

The flying kangaroo has announced a new chief executive for its domestic operations, in a series of new senior appointments at the airline.

Qantas Domestic has appointed a new chief executive officer (CEO) after the retirement of Andrew David in September last year.

Qantas Group’s current chief customer officer, Markus Svensson will take over the role in November, when current CEO Alan Joyce resigns and is replaced by Vanessa Hudson.

Mr Svensson was one of the many new senior appointments and new vacancies announced on Wednesday.

The airline’s current strategy, people and technology executive Rob Marcolina has been promoted as the airline’s new chief financial officer.

Catriona Larrit, who is now the executive manager of Qantas Freight. will become the chief customer and digital officer.

Markus Svensson has been appointed as the new Qantas Domestic CEO. Picture: Supplied

The Qantas Group also announced a yet-to-be-filled new role for chief people officer, which will combine human resources and industrial relations duties.

This comes as the airline has faced a protracted legal battle and a barrage of criticism from the Transport Workers’ Union’s (TWU) over the outsourcing of 1700 ground handling jobs during Covid.

The airline has also created a chief risk officer role, which will be filled by manager of safety executive Andrew Monaghan.

Ms Hudson said the new appointments, largely from internal hires, would offer the airline a degree of stability.

“We have a deep bench of experience at Qantas, which means we’re able to recruit internally for many senior executive roles when they come up, and that makes transition a lot smoother,” she said.

“The structural changes announced today are about increasing our focus on a few key areas as we move from recovery to growth, especially when it comes to things that matter most to our people and our customers.”

The new appointments will begin their roles once Vanessa Hudson becomes CEO in November. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

Qantas Group is no doubt currently licking its wounds after it was demoted from fifth to 17th place in the 2023 World Airline Awards, compiled by Skytrax.

On Monday, the airline gave customers a until December 31 to use up $400m in flight credits accrued due to pandemic cancellations.

About 80 per cent of that figure can also be claimed as refunds, or used on flights until December 2024.

This was the third time the airline has extended the deadline, with customers able to use a newly launched ‘Find My Credit’ tool using their original booking reference.

Originally published as Qantas Domestic announces Markus Svensson as new CEO amid slew of senior appointments