Summary
- Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce has retired early within the face of accelerating turmoil.
- Recent actions have painted Qantas as out of touch resulting in Joyce’s hastened departure.
- Despite the challenges, Joyce leaves behind a fundamentally strong airline with a transparent vision for the long run.
The turmoil engulfing Qantas has claimed the most important scalp of all, with Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce accepting what was fast becoming inevitable and leaving his role today. Joyce has been the face of Qantas for greater than 15 years, and with the airline fast descending to latest depths of public opinion his retirement has been brought forward by two months.
The Joyce Era is over
Photo: Qantas
For his part, Joyce said in today’s statement that the give attention to Qantas and events of the past make it
“The perfect thing I can do under these circumstances is to bring forward my retirement and hand over to Vanessa and the brand new management team now, knowing they’ll do a superb job.
“There’s quite a bit I’m happy with over my 22 years at Qantas, including the past 15 years as CEO. There have been many ups and downs, and there’s clearly much work still to be done, especially to ensure we all the time deliver for our customers. But I leave knowing that the corporate is fundamentally strong and has a vivid future.”
His ignominious end has only been hastened by yesterday’s Qantas response to the legal motion taken by Australia’s competition regulator accusing the airline of misleading and deceptive conduct. As Easy Flying reported yesterday, that missive quoted no one and addressed nothing of substance but relatively tried to place the give attention to post-COVID upheaval and uncertainty for these very serious transgressions.
Photo: Ryan Fletcher / Shutterstock
In brief, recent actions have painted Qantas as being out of touch with reality and a company that was digging a deeper hole for itself. Today in Australia the media is throughout yesterday’s developments, so it comes as no surprise to anyone that the Qantas Board and Joyce have concluded his time is up sooner relatively than later, with CEO-designate Vanessa Hudson now taking on from tomorrow relatively than on the Qantas Annual General Meeting in November.
Here’s what Qantas said
An official Qantas statement was released this morning in Australia advising that Group CEO Alan Joyce had advised the Board he’ll bring forward his retirement by two months “” In consequence, CEO Designate Vanessa Hudson will assume the role of Managing Director and Group CEO effective 6 September 2023. Qantas Chairman Richard Goyder said:
“Alan has all the time had the most effective interests of Qantas front and centre, and today shows that. On behalf of the Board, we sincerely thank him for his leadership through some enormous challenges and for pondering well-ahead on opportunities like ultra long-haul travel.
“This transition comes at what is clearly a difficult time for Qantas and its people. We’ve got a very important job to do in restoring the general public’s confidence within the form of company we’re, and that is what the Board is targeted on and what the management under Vanessa’s leadership will do.”
What’s the Joyce’s legacy?
Joyce has been with the Qantas Group for 22 years and was the primary CEO of Jetstar when it launched in 2004 before taking on as Group CEO in 2008. He has seen the airline through some very tough times, including the grounding of all the Qantas fleet in 2011, the worldwide financial crisis, SARs and COVID-19.
Photo: Peterfz30 | Shutterstock
He has been the driving force and champion of the ultra-long-haul Project Sunrise, which is able to see Australians connecting to any point on the globe nonstop in the subsequent few years. He has been a controversial, outspoken and single-minded leader of Qantas, which stays one in every of the few investment-grade airlines on the planet.
Photo: Airbus
This shouldn’t be the top he or Qantas envisaged but because the saying goes The case with the regulator will probably be settled sooner or later, the kerfuffle around Qatar Airways wanting more flights will soon subside, COVID-era refunds will probably be available eternally and more airline seats will push prices downward.
A brand new era has began at Qantas and Joyce is leaving a fundamentally strong airline for Vanessa Hudson and her team to place their stamp on. A glance around the globe shows few airlines have such a transparent vision for the long run already mapped out, and that vision is what Joyce is abandoning.