Tough Joyce: Jetstar's difficult birth

[Hvr]

In July 2003, Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon called Alan Joyce, a fresh-faced young Irishman he had hired to the airline just over two years earlier, into his office to ask him to take the job of steering a project to start a low-cost airline.



Joyce had just turned 37, and willingly accepted the chance of a lifetime. Dixon had resisted the urgings of other senior Qantas executives to appoint someone they knew better, instead of the new recruit from Ansett. However, Dixon wanted an executive with out-of-the-box thinking. He did not want someone whose judgment would be clouded by historic aviation practices.

Edited extract from the book Mayday: How warring egos forced Qantas off course by Matt O'Sullivan, published on January 28 by Viking, rrp $32.99.

Read more: Tough Joyce: Jetstar's difficult birth
​

Looks like it might be an interesting book and will certainly shed light on what went on in Qantas during the times of change in the airline industry.

 

[opusman]

There was another extract published the other day relating to the fleet grounding: Grounded: How Alan Joyce brought Qantas and the nation to a standstill

 

[maninblack]

Thanks for the tip. I think I might go and pick that book up if it's in at the local bookshop.