Good to see VH is on top of all the problems. Never heard of this happening before.
IT’S FIGHT OR FLIGHT FOR QANTASAfter the reign of Alan Joyce in the top office of Qantas, and with Richard Goyder’s tenure as chair set to continue into next year, Australia’s national carrier is finding few friends.
Everyone’s got an opinion on what’s gone wrong with the Flying Kangaroo.
Now winging its way to Margin Call’s desk are details of a recent incident a fortnight ago on Qantas’s regular QF2 flight from Singapore to Sydney, where at least one prominent Australian businessman and passenger was left very cranky.
So angry, in fact, that former investment banker turned non-executive director Charles Kiefel ended up being escorted off the flight by the Australian Federal Police after a debate he was having with the pilot got out of hand.
Kiefel, the chair of Principals Funds Management and a one-time executive at Ord Minnett and ANZ Investment Bank, declined to comment when contacted about the unfortunate incident on the almost eight-hour international flight.
The argument, we understand, concerned repeated delays Kiefel had experienced courtesy of the airline, which we hear also misplaced his luggage. The bags were located and returned several days later.
However, we hear that once Kiefel, who in June 2019 was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to Australia-US relations and to philanthropy, had been walked off the plane by authorities he had calmed down considerably, with no further action taken and no charges laid.
Qantas also declined to comment on the matter. The AFP was also contacted.
Kiefel, 68, has had a long and illustrious career in finance. He has been a director of the Clean Energy Regulator, was a decades-long member of the Menzies Foundation Council and a member of advisory boards at private equity outfits PEP and CHAMP.