Under new CEO Alan Joyce, the airline is trimming staff and aircraft in a bid to return to winning form.
By Geoffrey Thomas
Sydney
Air Transport World, June 2009, p.26
IT SEEMS IRONIC WHEN ALAN JOYCE, THE DRIVING FORCE behind the rapid rise of Qantas's low-cost subsidiary Jetstar, in his new role as CEO of Qantas Group states emphatically that "premium carriers are not dead." Joyce, 42, is not a born-again legacy airline enthusiast; he is a realist with a keen sense of what works and, more importantly, what does not. At the July 2008 press conference announcing his appointment, he joked to the media that "hopefully the only difference [the staff] will notice between me and Geoff [Dixon] is an Irish accent." The reality has been that virtually every aspect of the carrier's operation is changing. While this has been accelerated by the recent sharp decline in air travel, Joyce's elevation over previously anointed successors was a clear sign that a new direction was needed to meet the gathering storm clouds.
