Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, has had to implement drastic changes over the course of the pandemic.
As COVID-19 arrived in Australia in March 2020, Qantas like other airlines around the world saw operations ground to a halt.
Nineteen months on and the airlines international fleet such as the iconic A380 is still grounded – and many domestic aircraft have now been forcefully parked due to current lockdowns and restrictions around the nation.
According to KPMG, the financial losses incurred by the global aviation industry was expected to top $252 billion in 2020 as multiple airlines were forced to follow government guidelines. Those guidelines forced carriers to comply with border closures, passenger flight caps which went on to see airlines forced to ground majority of their fleet.
Qantas jets parked on Melbourne Airport runway (Image: Qantas Newsroom)
From staff redundancies, outsourced ground operations to the CEO, Alan Joyce taking a major pay cut – the airline is doing all that it can to survive.
Qantas’ financial performance took a dive in the first year of the pandemic, recording major losses as states imposed hard border closures, international travel was cut and passengers lost both the ability and the confidence to fly.
Qantas’ loss last year was its first major hit to the airline since 2011 – when the airline was thrown into financial turmoil following industrial action, an emergency landing of Flight QF32 and the entire QF fleet grounded for a week.
Qantas Financial Performance – 5 year history
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What helped the airline survive a slow down of operations?
Qantas says its International business, Qantas International Ltd, remained profitable all due to the heavy demand of freighter flights carrying cargo shipments as well as repatriation flights ordered by the Australian Government.
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Executives take paycut to help airline survive:
All Qantas executives, including CEO Alan Joyce took a pay cut in 2020 as part of the airlines COVID recovery plan.
The Qantas Executive Remuneration Framework, as it applies to the CEO and Executive Management, is summarised on pages 32 to 35 of the Qantas financial report of 2020.
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The airline noted no cash bonuses (known as STIP) were awarded to executives or the CEO in 2020.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and staff pictured pre-pandemic
Chairmans notes:
The airline’s chairman Richard Goyder AO says Qantas has endured many challenges in its 100 year history, but never has it seen an impact like COVID-19.
“Our revenue was $4 billion lower in FY20 compared with the prior year, with most of that fall happening within three months.”
Over 6,000 jobs have been lost at Qantas after executives were forced to make drastic cuts to staff. Though some received JobKeeper in 2020, the continuous halt in operations – such as no international travel for passengers, meant many others couldn’t return to the skies wearing the Qantas uniform.
