AJ is sending you a "meta message" - an unspoken message that is implicit in what he has actually done.
By saying that "there are more changes coming in Two months" but not identifying what they are, who they will affect and how the change will be managed, Alan Joyce is deliberately ****ting in his employees faces.
I am sorry for the crudity, but Joyce is deliberately increasing his employees stress levels, because nobody likes change when it is applied to themselves, nobody likes uncertainty in their prospects and furthermore, since Joyce must know that what he did will injure his employees sense of self worth because he refuses to take them into his confidence, he is sending a message that his opinion of the employees affected is that they are scum whose feeling sdo not need to be taken into account: - "you will be informed in due course how we are going to destroy your career" is the message.
I was taught first in B school and later in the IT industry that there are Two dimensions to change management - speed (either slow or quick) and consultation ( either none or full ).
If your business is hemorrhaging cash, then you do a "quick and dirty" restructure. People get the pink slip Friday afternoon and are told don't come Monday. On Monday morning the CEO apologises for the shock and distress the action has caused, explains why it was absolutely necessary and promise that it won't happen again and that peoples jobs are safe.
If you need to restructure but have the time, or must make the time, then you do a "Slow and clean" restructure. You tell your workforce what has to happen, why it has to happen, who it must happen to and when it has to happen. You then start a process (consultants can do this in their sleep) of consultation, information sessions, offers of voluntary redundancies, bans on recruitment in other parts of the company and relocation of surplus staff into new positions there, you also offer career counseling and provide time off for, and assistance with, job seeking.
The other alternatives are totally unattractive. The "Quick and clean" option - walking out the door with a bucket of money so large you never work again is only available to executives.
But the absolute worst reorganization is the "slow and dirty" strategy that it appears Qantas has adopted. It sends all the wrong messages because it basically tells the staff that management has contempt for them by doing nothing to minimize the pain and distress reorganisation always causes.
To put it another way, Joyce should not have telegraphed the reorganization of International, he should have shut up about it completely or taken the affected staff into his confidence. He did neither.
Furthermore, it appears the Qantaslink management in Brisbane have adopted the same strategy, taking a leaf out of the bosses book.
I've been part of Four restructures over the years, One as victim, One as facilitator and Two as architect.