Alan Joyce has won plaudits for his streamlined management of Qantas and his strong-arm tactics with unions. But he is also facing allegations of declining customer service levels and employee morale | newsandimages
Geoff Dixon, who was the chief executive of Qantas for seven years, used to joke that he never stood on the street with any of his three potential successors behind him, less they push him in front of a bus. In contrast, Alan Joyce, the pint-sized Irish mathematician with a thick brogue, who succeeded Dixon and built a reputation as aviation’s hard man, has never had to watch his back.
It is possible that Joyce, 55, will stay on as CEO to oversee the delivery of Project Sunrise, which promises to deliver the first non-stop flights from Australia’s east coast to New York and London by the end of 2025. The project has been a passion of Joyce’s, and if he does stay until those first non-stop flights, then he will have been at the helm of Qantas for 17 years.
Labour shortages have affected airlines globally as a strong rebound in travel stretches an industry still fragile from the pandemic, during which many workers were laid off.Qantas hasn’t announced what it is spending to recruit additional staff, although an airline spokesman said the company intended to have 1500 staff in its call centres in the next few months, which is double what it had pre-COVID.
Qantas, which says it lost between $15 billion to $20 billion in revenue during the pandemic, has seen its dominance in the domestic market grow over the past two years. It now commands 70 per cent of the domestic market, when it was hovering between 60 and 65 per cent before COVID-19.Qantas’ domestic fleet, which includes Jetstar, is operating at 100 per cent capacity, although it has cut its number of flights because of higher fuel costs, which have been driven up by the war in Ukraine.