Cam Wallace has been running Qantas International for 12 months in what has been one of the airline’s most tumultuous times in its 103-year history.
It looked sweet when he started. The former Air New Zealand veteran walked into an airline that had ambitious growth plans with massive aircraft orders and one on the verge of reporting a record A$2.47 billion ($2.66b) profit.
But a storm was about to break.
A trickle of bad news became a torrent of stories about poor airline performance when fares were soaring, legal challenges to its sacking of workers during the pandemic (later upheld), and the sale of tickets on flights that didn’t exist - a case it later settled out of court.
The Australian institution’s reputation was in tatters. Chief executive Alan Joyce, whose whopping pay had always been a target of opponents, exited early; the board was shaken up, and under new boss Vanessa Hudson most of the last year was spent clearing house.
In an industry full of optimists, Wallace stands out. Airlines are naturally volatile and he’s no stranger to a rough patch. He started at Air New Zealand soon after it nearly collapsed in 2002 and was a prominent face of the airline as it free-fell again when the pandemic hit in 2020.
The risk to Qantas was different and alongside surviving executives, he had to quickly grasp the scale of the threat.
“Well, this was unique in terms of us attempting to restart the organisation quickly post-Covid because we could sense the pent-up demand and the opportunity.
“But there’s no doubt that we didn’t service our customers as well as we could have,“ he told the Herald on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting in Dubai.
“We’ve spent the last six to nine months really reconnecting to our people, reconnecting with our customers and making sure we live that service promise every day,“ he says.
“We believe that we’re coming back strongly, but we’ve got a lot more work to do and we don’t take the trust for granted.“
As Qantas international boss he has one of the most prestigious airline jobs in the Southern Hemisphere and with freight also in his remit he oversees around A$9.6b ($10.3b) in revenue, compared to just on $6b Air New Zealand earned at a peak when he was revenue boss there.
At the IATA gathering it’s a whirl of meetings with airline partners, suppliers and industry officials for Wallace. He’s used to being busy at Qantas, with early thoughts of commuting from his Auckland home to Sydney soon forgotten and he’s relocated across the Tasman.
“Qantas is a sophisticated and complex business around our loyalty business, our freight business, our international, the Jetstar franchise and our strong domestic business too.“
Australia’s airline and travel industry sectors are dynamic, fast-moving and very competitive.
“People want to win and it’s a good place to work and play - sometimes,“ he says.
Qantas flies to every continent apart from Antarctica and Wallace says the aim is to make it the world’s leading ultra-long haul, non-stop carrier.
There’s growing demand for the 15.5 hour-plus flights and best of all there’s a skew towards premium cabins and that’s where airlines make their best yields, if they get it right.
The flights of up to 20 hours have been delayed but its Airbus A350-1000 planes have had an extra fuel tank approved by regulators and the planes are now being built for delivery around the middle of 2026.
Wallace inherited an international division that was set up for success.
“There’s been some fantastic decisions made over the last five to 10 years in terms of our fleet.“
Wallace says the airline has yet to decide which of London or New York it will fly to first.
It has already proven the economic case for Project Sunrise with its ultra-long range flying out of Perth to Europe and to the United States from eastern cities.
A multi-billion dollar order announced last year is split between 12 Airbus A350s and 12 Boeing 787s arriving from the 2027 financial year and into the next decade.
It has also negotiated additional purchase right options, split evenly between both manufacturers, to give flexibility for future growth and ultimately replace its 10 Airbus A380s with A350s.
That’s on top of 125 aircraft the airline (excluding Jetstar) has.
“Qantas International has got a tremendous amount of capital deployed,“ says Wallace.
“With that capital comes huge responsibilities because in the international context, any airline can drive losses quite quickly if things don’t go well. We’ve got to be really quite thoughtful and purposeful about how we deploy our network.“
That’s what has just happened in China. It resumed its Sydney-Shanghai service in October last year after it was paused during Covid, however demand has not recovered as anticipated. It put in 100 per cent capacity but demand was down by a third.
“I think we’ve got to become more nimble and faster in some of those decisions, speed can be used by an airline for competitive advantage,“ he says.
“I was asking the team, why do we have a right to win in China? And in a constrained world of being some aircraft short why wouldn’t we redeploy that capacity?“
There will be harder scrutiny of routes.
“I think you’ll see us doing more of that certainly in the next two or three years as we move towards the fleet reinvestment. We don’t want to be continuing to serve markets where we don’t think we’re getting productive use out of our assets.“
One market Wallace knows like the back of his hand is the Tasman and although yields are softening, Qantas is bullish about serving New Zealand.
With Jetstar it will this year have more transtasman flights to and from both Wellington and Christchurch than Air New Zealand. It is flying more than before Covid and following a deal with Perth Airport it will restore non-stop flights between Auckland and Perth next year and look at services to Christchurch too.
Qantas last flew between Perth and New Zealand non-stop in 2018 and sees strong signs of demand from Kiwis flying in and out of mining areas, those visiting friends and relatives and Kiwis who want to connect on direct flights to London, Paris, and Rome from Western Australia.
As part of the 12-year agreement, Perth Airport will invest about A$3b ($3.25b) in new terminal facilities and a new parallel runway.
Perth Airport will also invest in upgrades to Terminals 3 and 4, the current home of Qantas domestic and international flights, to create additional capacity while the new terminals are built.
The Terminal 3 and 4 upgrades will enable Qantas to add services and more destinations from Perth, including cities in New Zealand and to Johannesburg - a popular destination from this country with South African ex-pats.
Wallace wants to make Perth a “western fortress” for Qantas.
There are other possibilities for more transtasman flying with the addition of Airbus A320 aircraft that are starting to enter the fleet.
When more arrive those planes or aircraft could be used or free up other aircraft for new city pairs such as Canberra into this country or smaller holiday spots in Queensland.
Wallace says the big surge in demand post-pandemic has washed through and transtasman prices are returning to normal seasonal levels.
There will be more sale fares released into the market and following the overhaul of the Qantas loyalty scheme more seats available for members out of New Zealand later this year.
Flights from Sydney to Auckland and non-stop New York were launched a year ago.
It flies four times a week, will go up to six times in October and he’d like to go daily.
“We’re very pleased with the performance of that both in terms of our ability to go into JFK and connect into our partner American Airlines.“
Qantas goes head to head on the the New York route with Air New Zealand which is facing a tough year with planes out of service due to engine issues and delays to new Dreamliners. This is on top of sagging domestic demand.
Under Wallace, Qantas is flexing its muscles against his former employer. So how are relations?
He says they’re just fine. He and Hudson caught up with Air NZ chief executive Greg Foran recently and the pre-Covid domestic codeshare deal that also covers safety and sustainability was working well.
“The relationship is enduring and solid and we continue to have a good code share partnership, it works well for our customers and we want to continue that.“
Wallace is in regular contact with another former boss, Christopher Luxon, whose progress as Prime Minister he follows with intense interest.
“I’m extremely proud of what Christopher has done. He’s gone from a big job at Unilever to a big job at Air New Zealand and he’s taken on public service which is great and it would be good if more people did that,“ he says.
Luxon’s Government was having to make some tough choices during a recession.
“He’s taken on a real turnaround job.“
Wallace says he’s been welcomed warmly at Qantas. He made contacts while working on the code share deal and had worked in Australia for three years early in his Air New Zealand career.
“People have been encouraging and warm but still giving me a hard time about footy and things like that at the same time.“
Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.
The Herald travelled to Dubai courtesy of IATA
The airline sold its last slots at Heathrow in 2020.