Joyce ‘retires’ early 👍
Rene Rivkin was jailed for insider trading…. He bought 50,000 Qantas shares before the sale of Impulse, which earned him a $2500 profit. He was also banned for life from stock broking.
FIFY: …will continue to have the green light…
I find it mildly intriguing where director Todd Sampson sits in all of this. Presumably brought to the Board as an advertising and marketing specialist, he is now witness to an absolute trashing of the brand by one man. It would be interesting to get his thoughts on the situation and find out whether this all happened despite his advice.
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I find it mildly intriguing where director Todd Sampson sits in all of this. Presumably brought to the Board as an advertising and marketing specialist, he is now witness to an absolute trashing of the brand by one man. It would be interesting to get his thoughts on the situation and find out whether this all happened despite his advice.
Realistically, up until now, marketing Qantas has not been hard. For general consumption, you simply have to run up an ad with a few bouncing kangaroos, some happy smiling kids in white shirts and a plane flying through the sky and you're done. The formula hasn't changed in 40 years. For corporate, you have Chairman's Lounge which is the greatest piece of legal influence peddling known to Australian business. It is now, when Qantas is well and truly "on the nose" with the public and toxic for the government that Todd's alleged skills may be needed.
The pile on continues
MICHAEL SAINSBURY
SEP 07, 2023
2
Give this article
INCOMING QANTAS CEO VANESSA HUDSON (IMAGE: AAP/BIANCA DE MARCHI)There was a certain sense of timing when one of Qantas’ oldest long-haul planes, an A330, was damaged by a pushback tug (used to tow vehicles) in Brisbane on Monday night. It happened just as Alan Joyce was penning his resignation letter as Qantas CEO two months early, handing the reins to his successor, Vannessa Hudson.
The tug was one of a fleet gifted to company Dnata in Joyce’s spree of outsourcing and asset sales, which has left the company “like a skinny dingo, all skeleton and barely alive, just getting by in a long drought”, as one engineer put it. He added that the “fat reserves are all but gone. That is how we feel right now. But there is hope that with a bit of rain, things will turn around.”
It was the second twin-aisle plane — after a belt loader hit a 787 on August 19, according to engineers — that has had major damage inflicted by outsourced, often low-paid and casual staff driving essential ground equipment. “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” a Qantas pilot said, adding that such accidents had noticeably increased since Joyce started outsourcing staff and running down on-the-ground resources.
A QANTAS A330 DAMAGED BY A PUSHBACK TUG MANNED BY OUTSOURCED LABOR IN BRISBANE, SEPTEMBER 4 (IMAGES: SUPPLIED/PRIVATE MEDIA)It is this skinny dingo that Hudson must try, somehow, to make healthy once more. And while she has been complicit in the running down of Qantas in her four years as chief financial officer — and 19 years in the finance department before that — the truth is, she’s still been flicked a hospital pass by her old boss.
“Our world-class flight simulators are a shadow of their former selves,” the engineer said. “Joyce wrote down the value of aircraft years back to claim a huge loss on paper, further devaluing Qantas assets. There is nothing left to sell. He gifted all of the cargo loading and ramp equipment to Dnata and Swissport when he sacked 1700 ramp workers. The list goes on.”
The problem for Hudson is that she has been in lockstep with the strategy established by the board and Joyce. As CFO, she was responsible for ripping $1 billion in costs out of the company during COVID, including the unlawful sacking of 1700 baggage handlers in a case now waiting for judgment by the High Court. Hudson promised further cost cuts of $300 million only last month.
In her first video address yesterday, she told staff the company needed to get the “balance right” between customers, staff and the business. “Right now, achieving this balance must first start with our customers, and that’s what we will be focused on with our new management team,” she said. It left many of them cold.
“I can’t help but feel that they cut the cancer out but the metastasis has spread already,” one international pilot said. “I laughed when Hudson said she was confident she could count on the help of employees to show customers ‘why we deserve to be their trusted first choice’. Wait a minute, she was part of the management team that burned the place down.”
A Qantas corporate executive had a similar view. “It was pretty bland. References a new management team, but they are really just internal movements. It’s very hard for new people to come into the organisation at a senior level. And then she thanks Alan … embarrassing and cringy, time to move on. I am not sure she is really a break from the past. Time and actions will tell.”
A Qantas engineer said that the maintenance crew had been in a jovial mood on Tuesday. “But we all wait with bated breath for what the next chapter brings. Everyone lives in hope that Vanessa will finally think of more than shareholders and share prices.”
“What she needs to realise is that she won’t get customers back until she gets the staff back,” another pilot said.
Hudson already has industrial problems looming at the Perth-based Network Aviation (NA), where flight attendants restarted negotiations — on Joyce’s last day at the company — after management took fright after they gained protected industrial action. Management has resuscitated an offer it made earlier in the year, but tinkered with to the point that the attendants had had enough, insiders said.
They are hardly treated well. There are multiple stories of flight attendants being left in far-flung Western Australian towns like Geraldton without overnight accommodation. In some instances, they have been forced to sleep on benches in terminals after aircraft breakdowns, insiders told Crikey. COVID-era cost-cutting has seen all pillows and blankets taken off flights and unreturned.
Network Aviation started life as a mining charter specialist, catering to the countless thousands of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers who operate Australia’s mines. But it has expanded into regular passenger services, taking over routes from Perth to Darwin, and plans to add flights from Perth to Adelaide and Hobart are well advanced, insiders said. Yet it pays wages that are, in many cases, below award, according to comparisons provided by the Australian Federation of Air Pilots.
Any strike action has the capacity to severely throw a major spanner in the mining sector’s operations — heaven forfend. Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest would not be happy with Qantas chair, and fellow Western Australian, Richard Goyder.
So Vanessa Hudson has jumped, going on the front foot and flying to Perth today to meet with NA pilots.
The new CEO’s choice is invidious: ”For her sake, I hope she is not going empty-handed,” one insider said. Pilots at NA have told Crikey they are serious about an initial strike for 24 hours. “But of course, if Hudson doesn’t come empty-handed, then everyone will see that the real threat of industrial action gets results.”
It will be the first of many such choices that will reveal, soon enough, whether Hudson is the change the company needs and customers demand, or simply same ****, different channel
‘All skeleton’: Can Qantas’ new CEO salvage an airline amid the wreckage?
'What she needs to realise is that she won’t get customers back until she gets the staff back,' a pilot told Crikey.MICHAEL SAINSBURY
SEP 07, 2023
2
Give this article
INCOMING QANTAS CEO VANESSA HUDSON (IMAGE: AAP/BIANCA DE MARCHI)There was a certain sense of timing when one of Qantas’ oldest long-haul planes, an A330, was damaged by a pushback tug (used to tow vehicles) in Brisbane on Monday night. It happened just as Alan Joyce was penning his resignation letter as Qantas CEO two months early, handing the reins to his successor, Vannessa Hudson.The tug was one of a fleet gifted to company Dnata in Joyce’s spree of outsourcing and asset sales, which has left the company “like a skinny dingo, all skeleton and barely alive, just getting by in a long drought”, as one engineer put it. He added that the “fat reserves are all but gone. That is how we feel right now. But there is hope that with a bit of rain, things will turn around.”
It was the second twin-aisle plane — after a belt loader hit a 787 on August 19, according to engineers — that has had major damage inflicted by outsourced, often low-paid and casual staff driving essential ground equipment. “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” a Qantas pilot said, adding that such accidents had noticeably increased since Joyce started outsourcing staff and running down on-the-ground resources.
A QANTAS A330 DAMAGED BY A PUSHBACK TUG MANNED BY OUTSOURCED LABOR IN BRISBANE, SEPTEMBER 4 (IMAGES: SUPPLIED/PRIVATE MEDIA)It is this skinny dingo that Hudson must try, somehow, to make healthy once more. And while she has been complicit in the running down of Qantas in her four years as chief financial officer — and 19 years in the finance department before that — the truth is, she’s still been flicked a hospital pass by her old boss.‘Good riddance’: in the event of severe turbulence, please eject the CEO
Read MoreWhen Joyce walked out on Tuesday evening, the charade was up. There was nothing left to sell and the pillaging for the greater corporate good was complete. He had sold everything: the corporate headquarters, sold and leased back; all of the catering centres and the revenue that provided food for customer airlines are gone; the airport terminals, gone; large properties of corporate real estate, gone; the last tract of Qantas land in Sydney flogged off by Joyce for $800 million to cover a recent debt crisis.“Our world-class flight simulators are a shadow of their former selves,” the engineer said. “Joyce wrote down the value of aircraft years back to claim a huge loss on paper, further devaluing Qantas assets. There is nothing left to sell. He gifted all of the cargo loading and ramp equipment to Dnata and Swissport when he sacked 1700 ramp workers. The list goes on.”
The problem for Hudson is that she has been in lockstep with the strategy established by the board and Joyce. As CFO, she was responsible for ripping $1 billion in costs out of the company during COVID, including the unlawful sacking of 1700 baggage handlers in a case now waiting for judgment by the High Court. Hudson promised further cost cuts of $300 million only last month.
In her first video address yesterday, she told staff the company needed to get the “balance right” between customers, staff and the business. “Right now, achieving this balance must first start with our customers, and that’s what we will be focused on with our new management team,” she said. It left many of them cold.
“I can’t help but feel that they cut the cancer out but the metastasis has spread already,” one international pilot said. “I laughed when Hudson said she was confident she could count on the help of employees to show customers ‘why we deserve to be their trusted first choice’. Wait a minute, she was part of the management team that burned the place down.”
A Qantas corporate executive had a similar view. “It was pretty bland. References a new management team, but they are really just internal movements. It’s very hard for new people to come into the organisation at a senior level. And then she thanks Alan … embarrassing and cringy, time to move on. I am not sure she is really a break from the past. Time and actions will tell.”
A Qantas engineer said that the maintenance crew had been in a jovial mood on Tuesday. “But we all wait with bated breath for what the next chapter brings. Everyone lives in hope that Vanessa will finally think of more than shareholders and share prices.”
“What she needs to realise is that she won’t get customers back until she gets the staff back,” another pilot said.
Hudson already has industrial problems looming at the Perth-based Network Aviation (NA), where flight attendants restarted negotiations — on Joyce’s last day at the company — after management took fright after they gained protected industrial action. Management has resuscitated an offer it made earlier in the year, but tinkered with to the point that the attendants had had enough, insiders said.
They are hardly treated well. There are multiple stories of flight attendants being left in far-flung Western Australian towns like Geraldton without overnight accommodation. In some instances, they have been forced to sleep on benches in terminals after aircraft breakdowns, insiders told Crikey. COVID-era cost-cutting has seen all pillows and blankets taken off flights and unreturned.
Network Aviation started life as a mining charter specialist, catering to the countless thousands of fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers who operate Australia’s mines. But it has expanded into regular passenger services, taking over routes from Perth to Darwin, and plans to add flights from Perth to Adelaide and Hobart are well advanced, insiders said. Yet it pays wages that are, in many cases, below award, according to comparisons provided by the Australian Federation of Air Pilots.
Qantas’ bloated profit is built on underpaid workers and overpaying passengers
Read MoreNA pilots voted this week on their own protected industrial action, and pilot sources say the affirmative vote is expected to be near 100%. A stop work looms as pilots demand the closure of the yawning 40% pay gap between them and Qantas mainline pilots for flying essentially the same single-aisle jets (A320 v 737s). Pilots at two other Qantas regional arms, Eastern and Sunstate, are taking similar action.Any strike action has the capacity to severely throw a major spanner in the mining sector’s operations — heaven forfend. Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest would not be happy with Qantas chair, and fellow Western Australian, Richard Goyder.
So Vanessa Hudson has jumped, going on the front foot and flying to Perth today to meet with NA pilots.
The new CEO’s choice is invidious: ”For her sake, I hope she is not going empty-handed,” one insider said. Pilots at NA have told Crikey they are serious about an initial strike for 24 hours. “But of course, if Hudson doesn’t come empty-handed, then everyone will see that the real threat of industrial action gets results.”
It will be the first of many such choices that will reveal, soon enough, whether Hudson is the change the company needs and customers demand, or simply same ****, different channel
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The QANTAS board, Vanessa Hudson and all who work under her should heed Don Kendell's quote to his pilots many years ago which was " the customer is your paymaster, not me"
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It will be interesting to see if the new CEO understands how to go about satisfying customers in an airline. My opinion is that salaried staff on a good wage will result in a similar customer experience as the next airline, whereas staff who have pride in their organisation will achieve an excellent customer experience. The cabin crew, check in staff, dispatchers, pilots and Engineers who are proud to be part of their organisation will actively seek to make each flight top notch. They’ll communicate more, and in a different way. They’ll make phone calls to ensure smoother outcomes, they’ll go sick less often and generally be personally invested in doing a great job. Staff who are embarrassed to be associated with their organisations behaviour won’t achieve anywhere near the customer satisfaction.
I suspect many Qantas staff have had their professional pride stripped away little layer by little layer over the last decade. Is it even possible to build it back up? Will the new CEO try? Unsure.
I suspect many Qantas staff have had their professional pride stripped away little layer by little layer over the last decade. Is it even possible to build it back up? Will the new CEO try? Unsure.
Nails it
Mid air - the captain of my Qantas plane just announced: “in breaking news CEO Alan Joyce has just resigned and that’s all I have to say about that”.I wasn’t aboard the same plane as Alice Workman when the news of Joyce’s early departure as Qantas CEO broke. I was flying a non-Qantas aircraft home from Vanuatu because I, and many of my fellow pilots and other staff, took redundancy during COVID.
I worked for Qantas for most of my flying career, the last quarter of a century as an international captain. I had the privilege to work for an airline with an unprecedented safety record, a record I managed to help maintain when, along with four other crew, we nursed the stricken QF32 back to Singapore when the A380 suffered an uncontained engine failure in 2010.
We were so proud of that safety record. It was Qantas’ calling card for many years, and it was brought about by like-minded staff who loved turning up to work. Whether it be check-in staff at the airport to service staff onboard, flying the planes or maintaining that complex piece of machinery between flights, we were masters of our craft.
This idyllic picture may be seen through rose-coloured glasses by a person no longer in the business. I will be accused of being a sentimental old fart. However, we built up that level of respect to the point that you, the travelling public, would trust us, the airline, to deliver you and your family to your destination safely and in comfort. You relied upon us. We were proud that you did. And we paid you back for that trust by serving you with the utmost dedication.
But the decline from those who would steer the Qantas ship from the boardroom rather than the cockpit has been on a downward trajectory for many years. This downward trajectory has been described as “moral blindness”, with a focus on the bottom line above all else.
David Evans at the controls. Vanessa Hudson now in control. CREDIT: ARESNA VILLANUEVA The latest research from Roy Morgan shows how steeply Australians’ faith in Qantas has dropped, with its brutal workforce management, penny-pinching strategies and terrible recent customer service forcing it from the pedestal of one of the most trusted Australian companies to one of the most distrusted.
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine summarises this unprecedented decline in trust over the past few years as moral blindness everywhere, including:
Play video
2:07
Rebuilding Qantas customers' trust will be a priority for the airline's new boss Vanessa Hudson as she takes charge today.
While all the commentary on Qantas has been about one man, I think it’s important that the incoming CEO remembers the airline built its reputation on the sum of its parts rather than accounting wizardry by the person at the top.
Vanessa Hudson has a corporate task analogous to the one my colleagues and I faced in the frantic cockpit of QF32 above Singapore. A misstep could prove fatal. The Spirit of Australia is about trust, which must be restored between the passengers and the airline.
My message to Hudson is to practise empathy. Open those lines of communication with your travelling clients and have the “Customer Care” centre actually engage with those clients. Simplify the online booking process, so it doesn’t require a degree in computer science to navigate. Do not praise your predecessor for his outstanding work, as under no metric do I consider his work outstanding. And above all else, give people their money back, without restriction, promptly, if for no fault of theirs you don’t fulfil your travel contract.
I hope that the steady hand of Hudson at the controls can turn around its moral compass and steer this Australian icon back on course
OPINION
A mayday message from the flight deck for Qantas’ new CEO
David Evans
Former Qantas captainSeptember 7 2023 “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have breaking news from the flight deck: CEO Alan Joyce has just resigned and that’s all I have to say about that.Mid air - the captain of my Qantas plane just announced: “in breaking news CEO Alan Joyce has just resigned and that’s all I have to say about that”.I wasn’t aboard the same plane as Alice Workman when the news of Joyce’s early departure as Qantas CEO broke. I was flying a non-Qantas aircraft home from Vanuatu because I, and many of my fellow pilots and other staff, took redundancy during COVID.
I worked for Qantas for most of my flying career, the last quarter of a century as an international captain. I had the privilege to work for an airline with an unprecedented safety record, a record I managed to help maintain when, along with four other crew, we nursed the stricken QF32 back to Singapore when the A380 suffered an uncontained engine failure in 2010.
We were so proud of that safety record. It was Qantas’ calling card for many years, and it was brought about by like-minded staff who loved turning up to work. Whether it be check-in staff at the airport to service staff onboard, flying the planes or maintaining that complex piece of machinery between flights, we were masters of our craft.
This idyllic picture may be seen through rose-coloured glasses by a person no longer in the business. I will be accused of being a sentimental old fart. However, we built up that level of respect to the point that you, the travelling public, would trust us, the airline, to deliver you and your family to your destination safely and in comfort. You relied upon us. We were proud that you did. And we paid you back for that trust by serving you with the utmost dedication.
But the decline from those who would steer the Qantas ship from the boardroom rather than the cockpit has been on a downward trajectory for many years. This downward trajectory has been described as “moral blindness”, with a focus on the bottom line above all else.
David Evans at the controls. Vanessa Hudson now in control. CREDIT: ARESNA VILLANUEVA The latest research from Roy Morgan shows how steeply Australians’ faith in Qantas has dropped, with its brutal workforce management, penny-pinching strategies and terrible recent customer service forcing it from the pedestal of one of the most trusted Australian companies to one of the most distrusted.Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine summarises this unprecedented decline in trust over the past few years as moral blindness everywhere, including:
- Appalling call centre delays;
- Cancelled flights and snail’s pace fare refunds;
- Leaders turning a blind eye to the anguish of tens of thousands of once-trusting customers;
- Refusing to pay back any of the $2 billion in corporate welfare, despite the company surging back to billion-dollar profitability post-COVID;
- Australia’s competition regulator announced it was launching legal action against Qantas for allegedly selling tickets to thousands of flights in 2022 that had already been cancelled.
Play video
2:07
New Qantas boss Vanessa Hudson takes charge today and pledges to rebuild customers' trust
Rebuilding Qantas customers' trust will be a priority for the airline's new boss Vanessa Hudson as she takes charge today.
While all the commentary on Qantas has been about one man, I think it’s important that the incoming CEO remembers the airline built its reputation on the sum of its parts rather than accounting wizardry by the person at the top.
Vanessa Hudson has a corporate task analogous to the one my colleagues and I faced in the frantic cockpit of QF32 above Singapore. A misstep could prove fatal. The Spirit of Australia is about trust, which must be restored between the passengers and the airline.
My message to Hudson is to practise empathy. Open those lines of communication with your travelling clients and have the “Customer Care” centre actually engage with those clients. Simplify the online booking process, so it doesn’t require a degree in computer science to navigate. Do not praise your predecessor for his outstanding work, as under no metric do I consider his work outstanding. And above all else, give people their money back, without restriction, promptly, if for no fault of theirs you don’t fulfil your travel contract.
I hope that the steady hand of Hudson at the controls can turn around its moral compass and steer this Australian icon back on course
I am amazed that QF still operates such an old fleet. Outdated elderly B737s and A330, the A380 being a much needed capacity solution. The recent Airbus A321/350 orders being so late mean a few years more with the old uneconomic types. It will also take time to completely train the QF 737 crews to Airbus too.
Sad to read.
AJs mate,Willie Walsh late of BA, had a similar bad press when recovering his Company from near bankruptcy some years ago. But at least he had the foresight to order A320/A321/A350 and 787- 9/10 and 777-300. Many are now in operation and new hulls being delivered monthly. Ditto the A380, all 12 being returned to service within about six months of C19 ending.
Sad to read.
AJs mate,Willie Walsh late of BA, had a similar bad press when recovering his Company from near bankruptcy some years ago. But at least he had the foresight to order A320/A321/A350 and 787- 9/10 and 777-300. Many are now in operation and new hulls being delivered monthly. Ditto the A380, all 12 being returned to service within about six months of C19 ending.
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I see in the Media that the " Hero Pilot " Richard Dec...........has given his expert opinion as well. QF is saved now that GT and our " hero " reckon all will be well.
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Actually, I was pleasantly surprised: what Wretched Discrepancy said was pretty fair, he stated what the problems were and how the airline should fix it. He wasn't praising GT or Joyce.
I seem to recall, that back in recent history, there was another Joyce, who wasn't too popular either. His ending was pretty terminal, but obviously the latest one will not suffer the same fate, just reviled by almost everyone.
He is a member of the Remuneration Committee so cannot claim to have no part in the ridiculous benefits they allowed AJ to receive. My guess he will say nothing. He has about 250,000 reasons every year to assume this position.
Realistically, up until now, marketing Qantas has not been hard. For general consumption, you simply have to run up an ad with a few bouncing kangaroos, some happy smiling kids in white shirts and a plane flying through the sky and you're done. The formula hasn't changed in 40 years. For corporate, you have Chairman's Lounge which is the greatest piece of legal influence peddling known to Australian business. It is now, when Qantas is well and truly "on the nose" with the public and toxic for the government that Todd's alleged skills may be needed.
Realistically, up until now, marketing Qantas has not been hard. For general consumption, you simply have to run up an ad with a few bouncing kangaroos, some happy smiling kids in white shirts and a plane flying through the sky and you're done. The formula hasn't changed in 40 years. For corporate, you have Chairman's Lounge which is the greatest piece of legal influence peddling known to Australian business. It is now, when Qantas is well and truly "on the nose" with the public and toxic for the government that Todd's alleged skills may be needed.
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They don’t plan to have any 737 crews ‘transfer’ to the Airbus as part of aircraft retirement. Despite what they say! Mainline Domestic is on a slow decline to majority Outsourcing to what are currently ‘Link’ branded companies unfortunately.
Realistically, up until now, marketing Qantas has not been hard. For general consumption, you simply have to run up an ad with a few bouncing kangaroos, some happy smiling kids in white shirts and a plane flying through the sky and you're done. The formula hasn't changed in 40 years.
https://www.tiktok.com/@matt.and.ale..._t=8fSUC3Mv7B4
Really? How so? Do you think Mainline is getting 75 321’s? To ‘replace’ 75 737’s while expanding the markets immensely with 29+ 220’s, expanded 320’s NA RPT flying and Alliances E190’s. Or is it a vastly reduced Mainline Domestic plan?
How much can be expected from Vanessa Hudson, in her previous position as Chief Financial Officer would she not have been up to her neck in the payment for cancelled flights affair, she may even been the brains trust who thought up the scheme
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Could be a short tenure if that’s true and the ACCC decide to use their teeth.