Alan Joyce writing a memoir

[paulmoore]

After reading the "Chairman's Lounge" book I have come to the conclusion that AJ and the board of directors have done immense damage to QA, not to mention the poor treatment of very loyal staff, unfortunately the board seem to have done precious little to change their ways and continue the rip off their (us) loyal customers and continue to employ staff on contract basis. Must do Better QA!

 

[MelbFlyer]

He surely wouldn't be honest and describe how he single handedly destroyed the brand during his tenure.

 

[747800intercon]

Will it be filed in the "True Crime" or "Horror" section of the book shop?

 

[Q Class Plebeian]

I am sure it will be "short".

 

[fletty]

I wonder if he will talk about why he intentionally participated in illegal behaviour. As far as I see he is a corporate criminal.

Looks like AJ is on 60 minutes this weekend. In the short (heavily edited) snippet on Instagram he says they were sacked illegally.

 

[Melburnian1]

There is an extremely lengthy article in 'The Weekend Australian' today by Caroline Overington about Alan Joyce, where he was interviewed over two days, the first of which was with a minder.

Worth buying the paper for. Issues are covered far more than will be possible in a televised '60 Minutes'.

The one comment I'd highlight is that Joyce said to the interviewer "We (Qantas) spent billions buying new aircraft."

Was this factual? In any case, during his tenure, the median aircraft age rose dramatically. QF now has one of the older fleets among any Australasian airline.

 

[SYD]

There is an extremely lengthy article in 'The Weekend Australian' today by Caroline Overington about Alan Joyce, where he was interviewed over two days, the first of which was with a minder.

Worth buying the paper for. Issues are covered far more than will be possible in a televised '60 Minutes'.

The one comment I'd highlight is that Joyce said to the interviewer "We (Qantas) spent billions buying new aircraft."

Was this factual? In any case, during his tenure, the median aircraft age rose dramatically. QF now has one of the older fleets among any Australasian airline.

He certainly was at the helm when billions of dollars in orders were placed - albeit quite late. Included A220s, A321s, PS A351 etc. How much was actually “spent” before he left - don’t know.

Qantas confirms future Airbus fleet

Australia’s Qantas Group has confirmed that it will order 12 A350-1000s, 20 A220s and 20 A321XLRs. The news was announced at a ceremony in Sydney attended by Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce and Airbus Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Airbus International, Christian Scherer.

www.airbus.com

 

[moa999]

Joyce had a lot of aircraft ordered by Dixon and Strong arrive under his tenure. He also cancelled a lot of aircraft ordered by Dixon (remember at one point QF Group had orders and options for 100+ 787s - ultimately 11 788s to JQ and 14 789s to QF were delivered from that order)

For mainline, all of the 787s, most of the 332s and 388s and about half the 738s came during the 15yrs of Joyce's tenure.

Jetstar also got a lot of investment over that period.

Qantas average fleet age dropped during his early tenure as the last 737s arrived in number, then began to increase.

 

[Rabs97]

Joyce had a lot of aircraft ordered by Dixon and Strong arrive under his tenure. He also cancelled a lot of aircraft ordered by Dixon (remember at one point QF Group had orders and options for 100+ 787s - ultimately 11 788s to JQ and 14 789s to QF were delivered from that order)

For mainline, all of the 787s, most of the 332s and 388s and about half the 738s came during the 15yrs of Joyce's tenure.

Joyce became CEO in November 2008
The A380s were ordered in 2000
The A330s initially ordered in 2000 with a follow up a few years later under Geoff Dixon.
The 738s initially ordered in 2001 with a follow up order in 2007 under Geoff Dixon.
The 787s (initially up to 115 frames) were ordered in 2005. These were not received until 12 years later.

After Joyce became CEO not a single new order for Qantas mainline was placed for 14 years til May 2022, which must be a record for a legacy airline.

The point being every new aircraft that arrived under Joyce was purchased by Dixon or even James Strong. Joyce cancelled more aircraft orders than he had deliveries of.

Qantas average fleet age dropped during his early tenure as the last 737s arrived in number, then began to increase.

Yes. That was in 2014. There was no fleet renewal plan put in place for the 6 years before Covid started, despite the oldest 738s and 330s already being 19 years old at that point.

 

[transpactraveller]

Expect a big media push on release.

It's already starting

Tonight's "60 Minutes" interview with ex-ACA host Tracey Grimshaw

 

[one9]

Whilst not defending Joyce, his last sentence in that sneak peak video about not needing to apologise for the airline going bankrupt is a good thing to keep in mind. The airline industry is a very tough one and if they had have treated customers too well, the airline would have gone bankrupt. However they did go too much the other way.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Whilst not defending Joyce, his last sentence in that sneak peak video about not needing to apologise for the airline going bankrupt is a good thing to keep in mind. The airline industry is a very tough one and if they had have treated customers too well, the airline would have gone bankrupt. However they did go too much the other way.

According to a news.com(.au) article this morning AJ was concerned/confused/shocked by a conversation with an employee about entitlements when he realised the worker didn’t share the same objectives [in saving Qantas] as he did.

The to me speaks volumes about any sort of open dialogue that might have happened. It’s all good for you to be doing something to save the company, but if you don’t consult and bring people with you, it’s not likely to end well.

 

[one9]

The airline didn’t go bankrupt as the government supported them during Covid

I wasn't just referring to during Covid. Airlines go bankrupt all the time around the world unless they are heavily government supported/operated. During Covid specifically, Qantas needed a lot less government support than they would have otherwise needed as they took measures like standing down staff, grounding aircraft, selling land around Sydney airport and raising 1 billion in new equity. The airline was 11 weeks away from declaring bankruptcy. Post pandemic, things changed quickly with everyone flying and Qantas making record profits. But Qantas didn't know things would turn around so quickly when they were running out of cash.

Virgin Australia didn't go bankrupt because of Covid, the pandemic was the final trigger for an airline that was already carrying a massive debt load and years of underlying financial losses.

People like Warren Buffet & Richard Branson have made many headlines about talking about airlines losing money and airlines being terrible investments. With the most famous being: "If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."

I'm not saying AJ did things the right way. As MEL_Traveller mentions above, he failed to consult and bring people with him. He concentrated too much on the dollars and lost sight of the people and the airlines reputation and goodwill. But I think it would have been better to have had him then someone on the other extreme who didn't take fast action and allowed the airline to end up with so much debt that the Australian government had to decide that they would need to let the airline go bankrupt as it would cost too much to bail them out. Of course having someone in the middle would have been the best result.

 

[Rabs97]

Whilst not defending Joyce, his last sentence in that sneak peak video about not needing to apologise for the airline going bankrupt is a good thing to keep in mind. The airline industry is a very tough one and if they had have treated customers too well, the airline would have gone bankrupt. However they did go too much the other way.

But how many airlines went bankrupt due to Covid? Only a few and mostly ones struggling prior. Major/legacies were supported by governments.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The airline was 11 weeks away from declaring bankruptcy.

If you believe that!

 

[one9]

airlines went bankrupt due to Covid? Only a few and mostly ones struggling prior. Major/legacies were supported b

The Australian government only had to provide less than $2 billion in support to Qantas where many other airlines received more than $10 billion each in support by their governments (eg. American, Delta, United, Southwest, Singapore, Air France, KLM, Lufthansa etc).

At the end of the day, we as taxpayers are the ones who pay for the government support. An extra $8 billion of support divided by 22 million adults would be an extra ~$350 that we would have each had to pay indirectly by way of tax.