Qantas wings clipped but spirit of Australia still there

Delivering some of the worst news in Qantas’s history has taken a heavy toll on CEO Alan Joyce.

A grounded Qantas plane is parked on the tarmac at Sydney Airport. Photo: Getty Images

As the chief executive officer of Qantas, Australia’s most recognisable international brand, Alan Joyce has a reputation for being a shrewd, strategic and ruthless businessman.

He is respected but perhaps not loved by many of his 29,000 employees, who are wary of the CEO who brazenly grounded the airline and locked out workers to break a union stand-off in 2011.

The bad blood was stirred again in 2018 when a record profit was delivered with the promise to reward workers with a generous bonus that turned out to be conditional on employees signing new enterprise agreements — some several years away.

But any discord that may have existed was notably absent on Thursday when Mr Joyce delivered, with considerable emotion, more bad news in what has become a year of misery for the airline.

This year was to have been Qantas’s year of celebration — its centenary year marking 100 years of continuous operation.

For starters, there was the $2.7bn statutory loss for the 2020 financial year, a result unimaginable to almost anyone after the airline’s strong half-year profit.

Qantas CFO Vanessa Hudson and CEO Alan Joyce. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

There would be no international flying for a year and domestic flying was at a mere 20 per cent of capacity, not the 45 per cent Mr Joyce had hoped to have operating by this point.

‘Thank you sincerely for your service’

But worst of all, were the job losses — previously expected to be around 6000 and now likely to be even more, with 4000 people to leave the company by the end of September.

Thousands of others would remain stood down for a long time and it was clear this was the hardest news to deliver.

“I’ve seen people leave the company who I’ve known for 20 years, people who have served the company for over 40 years, people through no fault of their position or the company’s position have had to leave this organisation. Great people,” said Mr Joyce, his voice crackling.

“I want to thank you sincerely for your service.”

He also thanked the airline’s millions of customers for their support and understanding, and offered the assurance Qantas would be ready to fly them where they wanted and needed to go as soon as borders reopened.

“Our message is simply this: the Flying Kangaroo wings are clipped for now but it’s still got plenty of ambition and we plan to deliver on it,” Mr Joyce said.

“We are and always will be the spirit of Australia.”