[cwoodward]

Qantas is now searching for a new board chairman and two new directors is reported by ‘ch-aviation’
Qantas made the announcement on October 11, saying the departure of Richard Goyder was needed ‘to support restoration of trust in the company’.
Also heading out of the door are two long standing board members who were apparently also asked to resign. Others are up for re-election at the upcoming AGM and may not survive ether.

‘As a Board, we acknowledge the significant reputational and customer service issues facing the Group and recognise that accountability is required to restore trust, said Goyder’.

The airline was also hit this morning with a second customer class action this for a billion A$ from customers legal team re unpaid refunds and cancelled flights, according to reports in the Australian media today.

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MarcusGB

[Rferguson2]

I see this as more of a gain than a problem.

The board OK’d every single decision Alan Joyce made yet remained anonymous to the public fury in the main. Again the parrallels once more between BA/QF. Alex Cruz and Willy Walsh both got (rightfully) hung out to dry by the media whilst the board who either ignored or OK’d each decision remained.

The QF Chairman initially refused the idea of resigning saying he had the confidence of shareholders and ‘people wanted him in that position’.

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Abidjan, TupeloKid, fqtvgla, Jacob, DerekVH, cwoodward

[MarcusGB]

Melbourne 3rd November 2023

At the Qantas AGM on 3rd November 23, a Shareholders “Revolt”, voted 83% AGAINST the Executive remuneration report..
It gives them the right now to be able to vote to remove the whole Board!
.
Now we know Shareholders views and intent!

Issues seem to arise so often of customers poor experiences, across all media – via TV, news, social media, newspapers, radio, ordinary Australians get to voice their strong issues about the Airlines decline in services, yet extremely high travel costs.
There is an inbuilt expectation and regulatory requirement, that the Airline must serve rural and remote Australia with these vast distances within the Country.
For many there is no alternative but having to fly, with few other viable options of rail or many hours of driving.
The UK could fit into The State of NSW over 6 times alone. Melbourne to Sydney takes approx 12 hrs to drive one way.

Flights and the Qantas network, is an essential service, part of life living in Australia. Hence feelings are broad, and everyone has a view.

Also Electric vehicles here due to the distances and terrain, are being generally seen as simply just not suitable for this Country, outside of the cities.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/qantas-chairman-acknowledges-opposition-remuneration-report-2023-11-03/

[cwoodward]

Qantas as is no longer even the dominant domestic Australian player that it once was.

The airline now carries less than 40% of domestic mainline (state capital city traffic) and a less and diminishing amount on all of the dozens of local routes with now large and fast expanding Virgin and Rex gobbling up more of the traffic month by month .

The airline needs a new international trained senior management along with a new board including a replacement CEO. Alan Joyce trained and long serving Vanessa Hudson is in the view of many not up to the job of turning the fast failing airline around a view to which I am inclined to agree.

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MarcusGB, Jacob

[Rferguson2]

QANTAS has offered a service that has fallen well short of what consumers should expect.

Saying that, Qantas seems to have a similar love/hate relationship with the Australian public as BA does here in the UK. Many still believe that Qantas should serve the needs of Australians almost as a public entity instead of the for-profit organisation it is.

Some examples:

The a public expectation for Qantas to offer services equally to the large cities: Qantas has just come under fire for terminating the MEL-PER sector of the MEL-PER-LHR route as the load factor on that segment are generally very low. Yet, read the majority of the comments on this in forums/blogs/news articles and the general consensus is that Qantas should serve Melbourne to London on the sole basis of the fact it also serve Sydney to London. A little like the BA LHR vs UK regions argument we hear often here.

Covid credits: Qantas came under fire for not extending its COVID credits. It responded by extending them indefinitely. Competitor Virgin Australia however has maintained that Covid Credits for their own passengers will expire soon despite some of their customers holding thousands of dollars in credits for routes like SYD-LAX. Virgin no longer operates long haul routes and many of these customers originally booked on these flights are saying Virgin should re-book them on partner flights. Virgin Australia is however hiding behind its insolvency agreement with the new owners. Of course no national outcry as Virgin just doesn’t pull at the heartstrings of Australians….it isn’t ‘their’ airline.

Blocking Qatar from boosting flights to OZ: Any airline in any country in any market will raise an objection to a competitor boosting flights. Competition competition. Absolutely. But how do you as a business, respond to airlines that have an unfair advantage in competing? Unwavering government financial and logistical support, huge budgets for customer proposition and an overall goal of not so much making profit but by keeping their home countries on the map and expanding their influence.

Qantas’ ‘dominance’ at Sydney Airport: This one I find funny and typically Australian. I am Aussie and I am not afraid to say that we can have an inward sense of view of the world – a little like our American friends dare I say it. So Qantas has a ‘dominance’ of the slots at Sydney airport the public complain. The ACA which controls slot at Sydney airport claims Qantas and Jetstar combined have 52% of the slots. Now, I don’t even have to put comparisons here for the likes of BA at LHR, KL at AMS, AF at CDG, QR at DOH etc etc.

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MarcusGB, DerekVH, cwoodward

[Rferguson2]

Link regarding Virgin Australia Covid Credits:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-31/virgin-australia-future-flight-credits-730/103039110

[MarcusGB]

Qantas are also being “Let Go” by Flying blue along with 10 partnership airlines, where currently you can earn XPs, and miles and equate some benefits in Frequent Flying Blue frequent flyers. 1st April 24, there will be no reciprocal benefits, earning of miles or status / XP’s.

Just weeks ago, Qantas had made a further a agreement to link AF / KLM flights for incoming Qantas flights passengers and Frequent flyers?
So why is this being pushed out quietly n, when it is clearly a poor strategy, creating a huge area Worldwide, East Asia to Australia passengers will have no services or Partners Regionally?

Any info anyone, or Alex at BT?

[cwoodward]

Of course Qantas does still have its OW alliance partners and does codeshare on Cathay on some Asian routes. (or did ?)

‘Cathay Pacific flights between Hong Kong and Perth, Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Seoul, Nagoya, Sapporo’.

The airline seems to me to have been run more like A. Joyces private fiefdom in recent years than an international airline overseen by a compliant lazy board of airline amateurs and a senior management with little international experience or recent qualification.

The board has been booted out in its entirety and if the new one has any sense they will in turn boot out many of the poor senior management team including the CEO who has been with the airline for a lifetime but is just not qualified to run a large international airline that is dire need of a strong turn-around’ executive team .

[LetsFlyNow]

@MarcusGB
That’s not quite accurate. AF-KLM will still channel passengers to Australia with QF and one can earn miles and XPs as long the flights are sold or marketed by AF or KLM which in that case the flights with have an AF (codeshare) flight number. In other words, the flight must have a AF/KL flight number to get XPs.

For example if you booked a flight with AF CDG-SIN-SYD it’d have the flight numbers AF0256 for the CDG-SIN leg on AF metal, then SIN-SYD on the QF A380 as AF9665. You get your miles, XPs and all the usual priviledges.

What no longer counts is just crediting a flight without a AF/KL flight number to Flying Blue. There you’ll only get miles but no XPs.

Currently it’s possible to credit flights bought directly from say QF SIN-SYD with just the QF flight number to FB and you’d earn miles as well as XPs. Means you could earn a FB Elite Plus status by not once stepping foot on AF/KL metal. That’s no longer the case from April 1st 2024 regardless of when you bought your ticket. Same applies to Japan Airlines, Air Mauritius, Copa Airlines, China Southern & Malaysia Airlines just to name but a few.

AF-KLM did indeed extend the partnership esp. in light of the upcoming PER-CDG flights and i’d expect more codeshares on the AF network to be added.

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cwoodward

[cwoodward]

From news reports today

‘Qantas has faced court for its first hearing in action brought by the consumer watchdog over the airline’s decision to sell thousands of tickets for cancelled flights (and seemingly pocket the cash).
The ACCC is suing the airline in the Federal Court over allegations Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by continuing to sell thousands of tickets for flights that were cancelled.

The consumer watchdog alleged Qantas did not notify existing ticket holders for 10000 cancelled flights for an average of 18 days and up to 48 days, between May and July 2022.
A quarter of the airline’s flights were cancelled between May and July 2022, which accounted for about 15000, the watchdog said.
The ACCC is seeking penalties, injunctions, declarations and costs.

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Jacob

[Rferguson2]

I think what is a little sad is that QANTAS is trying to argue the charge on some stupid technicality about not selling a seat on a particular flight but instead a ‘bundle of rights’.

I really think that given the new leadership in place, given that QANTAS is desperately trying to get the Australian public back on side, to try and garner some trust again and to quell some anger the best way forward for them would have been to put their hand up, admit they were wrong, say what they have put in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again and beg the ACCC for leniency.

Going down this path of trying to defend an indefensible position just absolutely flies in the face of all the ‘we’ve changed’ speeches that the new leadership has been making and instead shows that nothing really has changed.

Talk is cheap. Show there is a change of culture by action.

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cwoodward, esselle, Ekond222

[cwoodward]

The Qantas AGM was today. There is a good report on the Sydney Morning Herald and also the AU ‘Financial Revue – it is free to read.
Not as many fireworks as might have been expected but most of the board is going /gone.

[Bath_VIP]

In addition to all of the issues highlighted here, I wonder if Qantas’ prominence in advocating for a YES vote in the recent referendum on The Voice will hurt their image?

Qantas went as far as to paint a call to vote YES on their planes, that is how public their advocacy it was. Think of what might have happened if BA had painted vote Remain on their planes in 2016.

The Voice was defeated 60-40 with all 6 states voting NO with demographic divides very similar to that seen in the US and UK in 2016 so Qantas run the risk of being seen as part of an establishment whose call was ignored.

For those who are not familiar with the Voice, this wikipedia link gives background and link to the results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Australian_Indigenous_Voice_referendum

[Johnnyg]

Also in todays Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/03/qantas-chairman-heckled-by-shareholders-at-agm-as-investors-reject-executive-pay-plans

[Author]

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