To be honest, it would be good if the first thing you do when planning an international trip would NOT be: how to avoid flying Qantas...More bad news for Qantas,
I haven't used Qantas for years.
Alarms will be sounding at Qantas, but not in the cockpit
It’s not as though Qantas can look at its latest result in the World Airline Awards and shrug its shoulders. Instead, it should roll up its sleeves.www.theage.com.au
It seems that Qantas and its new chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, have been doing a lot of apologising lately. And so they should, with the latest World Airline Awards showing our national carrier’s decline from fifth in 2022, to 17th in 2023, to a new low of 24th in the latest results. When an airline descends that rapidly, alarms usually go off: not in the cockpit, in the boardroom.
The Skytrax World Airline Awards have been described as the Oscars of the aviation industry. So it’s not as though Qantas can look at this result and shrug its shoulders. Instead, it should roll up its sleeves.
Certainly sad.... Now they are going to acquire mid-life Q400 Dash 8 aircraft to get rid of the older ones... Unheard of... There was a time where Qantas would buy new aircraft and OTHER carriers would line up at the gate wanting our mid-life aircraft, but here we are.... Now that is a fine indication of the carriers health.To be honest, it would be good if the first thing you do when planning an international trip would NOT be: how to avoid flying Qantas...
This is our 2024 step 1.... and I have a Qantas ff card from the last century....
I liked the time we were proud, "call Australia home" style and felt nearly back already when boarding in a European or Asian airport.Certainly sad.... Now they are going to acquire mid-life Q400 Dash 8 aircraft to get rid of the older ones... Unheard of... There was a time where Qantas would buy new aircraft and OTHER carriers would line up at the gate wanting our mid-life aircraft, but here we are.... Now that is a fine indication of the carriers health.
Yes Allan Joyce certainly did a number on them, slash and burn from premium to budget, with a premium price.I liked the time we were proud, "call Australia home" style and felt nearly back already when boarding in a European or Asian airport.
There is a place for a pride , national airline..and Qantas really pushed a lot to become so bad
I missed the 7:30 report so thanks for the heads up. As a Qantas customer from the days of TAA and one of the inaugural members of Frequent fliers and that lounge and also friends of a couple of past senior pilots, I look forward to the results of Aston's research and his views on the demise of the brand.Google : " The PM and Quantas " folks , for last night's ABC TV 7.30 Report with former AFR scribe , the irrepressible Joe Aston .
I've got his new book " The Chairman's Lounge " . Comes with a foreword by a certain Lilliputian sulking over a Guinness in his Dublin bolthole. ( Naah , just kidding . It's a cracker of a read though . Highly recommend it . )
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Google : " The PM and Quantas " folks , for last night's ABC TV 7.30 Report with former AFR scribe , the irrepressible Joe Aston .
I've got his new book " The Chairman's Lounge " . Comes with a foreword by a certain Lilliputian sulking over a Guinness in his Dublin bolthole. ( Naah , just kidding . It's a cracker of a read though . Highly recommend it . )
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Before I buy Aston’s book I thought I would give my thoughts on the Chairman’s Lounge. Some of the dates are to the best of my failing memory. I was one of the early frequent flyer members, joining when it was novelty in 1987. I was flying some TAA but mainly Ansett.I will have a look if I can buy it in the Qantas shop with my FF points.
Every month outback grazier Sarah Acton loads her car with luggage and drives three hours with her son, William, to the nearest airport.
It is another two hours on a plane before the pair arrives in Brisbane from Mount Isa for his medical treatment.
Their most recent trip in late October cost "the price of an international trip" — it was more than $2,500 for two return tickets.
Rising costs and recent changes to flight schedules are frustrating many people in outback Queensland who feel they are at the mercy of the major airlines.
Online cost comparisons show flights between Mount Isa and Brisbane have increased by roughly $350 over the past two months.
Travellers can now expect to pay anywhere between $840 and $1,350 return, depending on what day of the week the flights are booked on and that is before any remote living discount is applied to eligible customers.
As if the flight costs were not enough, Ms Acton was annoyed to find she and her son were flying on a smaller Alliance plane leased by Qantas.
In a statement, Qantas confirmed flights to and from Mount Isa would use smaller aircraft until April 2025.
It said it was redeploying its Boeing 737s to "other markets" to support its fleet renewal and pilot training elsewhere.
In the western Queensland town of Longreach, where Qantas had its early roots, frustration is also growing among passengers who have been left waiting for luggage that did not arrive.
There have been numerous cases of Qantas leaving bags off planes due to weight restrictions and inclement weather.
Last month 38 bags were left behind on a flight from Brisbane to Longreach.
Regular flyer David Walker had his bags left behind on three separate occasions in the past few months.
It is the lack of transparency that annoys him most.
"It really comes down to communicating that's what's about to happen," he said.
" I think there'd be plenty of people who would at least ask to retrieve some things from checked-in luggage."
MickOn November 8, 2024, a Qantas Boeing 737 suffered an engine failure during takeoff at Sydney Airport. Disaster was narrowly averted, thanks to the exceptional skill of the pilot and crew. This incident, however, sparked a storm of criticism around Qantas’s reluctance to renew its ageing fleet.
The aircraft was 19 years old, nearing its operational “life limit”. This revelation paints a stark picture of a national carrier that may have neglected safety in favour of short-term shareholder returns.
This critique is not new, but the engine failure incident has thrust it into the national consciousness, reigniting debates around the practice of share buybacks commonly used by Qantas and the wider corporate world.
When individuals accept a position as directors, they pledge to act in the company’s best interests. This is a cornerstone of corporate law worldwide. However, this duty is frequently misinterpreted and often conflated with acting in the best interests of shareholders. Shareholders are not the company, and they do not share the same interests. This confusion is not trivial – it has profound implications, particularly when a board authorises share buybacks that prioritise immediate shareholder returns at the expense of the company’s long-term viability.
Share buybacks provide a vivid illustration of this misalignment. When a board chooses to repurchase shares, it boosts metrics such as earnings per share and stock price. This may satisfy investors and inflate executive bonuses, but it comes at a cost: less capital is available for investment in critical infrastructure, research and development and safety.
A share buyback reduces the number of outstanding shares on the market. This drives up EPS – a key metric tied to executive compensation – and puts cash directly into the hands of shareholders.
Under former chief executive Alan Joyce, Qantas embarked on an aggressive program of share buybacks. Between 2015 and 2019, the airline spent nearly $2bn repurchasing its own shares. While this buoyed the share price and enriched shareholders, it coincided with a stark increase in the average age of its fleet, from under eight years in 2015 to nearly 15 years by 2022.
Compared to competitors such as Singapore Airlines (average fleet age of 6.9 years) and Emirates (8.9 years), Qantas’s fleet is significantly older, which translates to higher maintenance costs, lower fuel efficiency and diminished customer satisfaction.
Critics argue that Qantas’s capital allocation decisions reflected a preference for financial engineering over operational excellence during this period.
The alignment between CEO payments and share buybacks is critical to understanding the issue. Executive compensation often hinges on financial metrics such as EPS and share price, which are directly influenced by buybacks. For a CEO, authorising buybacks can lead to an immediate executive bonus, even if the company’s long-term interests are compromised.
In the case of Qantas, Joyce’s remuneration package heavily emphasised financial performance. Each buyback not only enriched shareholders but also bolstered Joyce’s personal compensation. This alignment of incentives underscores how buybacks can create conflicts of interest for corporate leaders, prioritising short-term gains over strategic imperatives such as fleet renewal and workforce investment.
The Qantas example is far from isolated. Across industries, companies have used buybacks to bolster financial metrics, often at the expense of long-term sustainability. Boeing’s pre-pandemic focus on buybacks, which contributed to underinvestment in safety and quality, is another high-profile case. Similarly, General Electric’s aggressive buybacks in the 2000s left the company over-leveraged and vulnerable to market shifts.
When companies divert cash reserves or take on debt to fund buybacks, they often forgo critical investments in innovation, infrastructure or employee development. This trade-off can erode a company’s competitive position and leave it ill-prepared for economic downturns or industry disruptions.
The hard questions
The Qantas engine failure raises urgent questions about corporate governance and fiduciary responsibility:
• Did the board discharge its fiduciary duty by prioritising shareholder interests over the long-term viability of Qantas?
• Did the board put monetary returns for shareholders ahead of safety and even threaten the lives of its customers and staff?
• Does the board that approved Qantas’s buybacks bear legal responsibility for passenger and staff safety henceforth?
• Should the Australian government recognise the inherent conflict of interest in share buybacks and ban them?
As the dust settles on the Qantas engine failure incident, these questions demand answers – not just from the airline but from policymakers, regulators and corporate Australia as a whole.
drum roll..Joe Aston is the best columnist in Australia atm. and is missed at the AFR. Always replied to emails and a thorough gentleman. I hope he resumes a column somewhere.
gg
I for one will be eager to have a read/listen to what he has to say.drum roll..
Joe Aston will return to The Australian Financial Review as a monthly columnist under a new agreement with his former masthead.
Aston’s column will appear online and in AFR Weekend and coincides with the creation of his new publishing and podcasting business, Rampart, which is expected to launch on 10 February.
ah what bitchiness a duopoly can generate. From The AustralianJoe Aston will return to The Australian Financial Review as a monthly columnist under a new agreement with his former masthead.
Aston’s column will appear online and in AFR Weekend and coincides with the creation of his new publishing and podcasting business, Rampart, which is expected to launch on 10 Feb
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