My last crisis, says Qantas CEO Alan Joyce

CEO Alan Joyce says he won’t be around for the next big crisis that Qantas will have to face.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has indicated the current pandemic will be the last crisis through which he guides the airline. Picture: AAP

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has revealed the current pandemic will be the last crisis through which he steers the airline, as he outlined his vision for post-COVID air travel.

In a wide-ranging interview broadcast by Brussels-based aviation safety organisation Eurocontrol, Mr Joyce said the rule of thumb in the industry was to expect a major crisis every seven years.

“I’m not going to be here in ten years time, because I’m not going to go through the next crisis. But there’s a few things that are going to change in the industry,” Mr Joyce said.

“First I think it will recover and there will be huge demand for aviation and transportation, it’s such an important part of the world economy. Like every other crisis and Qantas has gone through 100 years of operation, you do rebound out of it and it does get to a stage where you grow past it. That’ll happen again.”

It is the first time the long-serving CEO has hinted he might be planning life after Qantas, after joining from Ansett in 2000.

He was appointed CEO in November 2008, and has handled his fair share of crises, from swine flu and SARS to the industrial unrest that resulted in his grounding of the airline in 2011.

Last year Mr Joyce announced he had agreed to stay on until at least 2023 to see through the airline’s COVID recovery plan.

On Wednesday Mr Joyce said he was happy with Qantas’s strategic position coming out of COVID, with changes in the Australian aviation market serving the airline well.

“Our major competitor in Australia went into voluntary administration. It’s going to be a lot smaller, and our major competitor in the low cost market, Tigerair, has gone out of business so Jetstar has that space,” said Mr Joyce.

Qantas is operating at around 60 per cent of its full domestic capacity. Picture: James Gourley

“Virgin Australia is going into the middle part of the market, so Qantas will have an advantage in the premium end of the market as a consequence.”

Apart from the repositioning within the Australian market, Mr Joyce said he expected the shift towards contactless travel to remain, and for travellers to avoid hubs and stopover destinations when international flights resumed.

He said that would make Qantas’s ultra-long range Project Sunrise flights an even stronger business case, despite being temporarily on ice due to COVID.

“We still want to revisit it at the end of 2021 with the potential for doing it in 2024 onwards,” said Mr Joyce.

“We’re still very keen on it and we think that’s one of the big things that will change in the next decade and allow us to have a sustainable competitive advantage that nobody else is probably going to introduce.”

As well as Sydney-New York, and Brisbane-London, Mr Joyce said Qantas was hopeful of doing non-stop flights from Australia’s east coast to Rio de Janeiro, Capetown, Chicago, Paris and Frankfurt.

“Rebuilding our international network post-COVID is a priority, (and) Project Sunrise enhances that dramatically and aids our domestic and loyalty businesses,” he said.

“Qantas’s international market is really focused on where the corporate market wants to go (and) it’s very much aspirational for a lot of our leisure customers which in turn is a big driver of our loyalty program.”

On the current state of affairs, Mr Joyce said Qantas had returned to about 60 per cent of pre-COVID domestic capacity but remained frustrated by constant state border changes which he described as a “nightmare”.

He said New South Wales had developed the “gold standard” for COVID management and other states and territories should follow suit.

“We get frustrated about some of the other states and the approach of zero risk they take on that. We even had over Christmas, in Victoria where Melbourne is based actually lock its own residents out if they had visited Sydney,” Mr Joyce said.

“I don’t think we’ve seen that anywhere else in the world. My brother couldn’t literally get back home until the rules changed just last week.”

Qantas remained committed to a policy of “no vaccination, no travel” when international flights resumed, to maintain their reputation as one of the world’s safest airlines.

Mr Joyce said insisting all travellers were vaccinated against COVID would increase confidence, and ensure the health and safety of employees and passengers.

“When we do market research on it, 89 per cent of our customers say they think it’s an important requirement and fully support it,” he said.