Alan Joyce is stepping down after 15 tumultuous years. Photo / File
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce leads another push across the Tasman for the airline this week on one last big mission.
He’s in Auckland to launch Qantas’ new Auckland-New York service with a round of media appearances, a keynote speech to the Trans-Tasman Business Circle, a cocktail event and another celebration at the airline’s lounge ahead of the flight’s departure on Wednesday evening.
Joyce has launched scores of new routes during 15 years in the top job. The 14,200km Auckland to New York flight in direct competition with Air NZ will be one of Qantas’ longest and involve perhaps his last inaugural event.
He will step down at the end of the year as one of the airline’s most successful, and controversial, of the 12 chief executives in its 102-year history.
The 56-year-old has attracted flak for an enormous salary and famously grounding the airline 12 years ago in a showdown with unions. But he’s also overseen record profits, expansion and a spectacular post-Covid recovery.
He had planned to retire before now but stayed on as the pandemic hit and Qantas faced a fight for survival. He says the airline was burning through cash at one point so fast it had 11 weeks left to survive.
Airlines are tough businesses and Joyce has faced crises before, then enjoyed a remarkable turnaround. In 2016, a Business Herald story was headlined ’'King of the comeback’' and now he’s done it again.
Back in 2011 he grounded the airline’s fleet during a high-stakes industrial battle. A profit downgrade the following year saw the airline’s value plunge by more than A$1 billion ($1.1b) leaving it a takeover target. And in 2014 the airline laid off 5000 workers to cut costs.
From a A$2.8 billion loss in 2013-14, the airline booked a pre-tax profit of $1.5b two years later. Throughout the second half of the last decade, Qantas consistently earned profit margins that were among the industry’s best.
But like many other airlines it came close to collapse when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and paralysed travel. It reported near-cataclysmic losses.
Qantas got a A$2bn government bailout and cut 8000 jobs. But the airline is now enjoying a remarkable turnaround, with surging profits and net debt that spiralled to $5.8b in 2020 falling to $2.4b at the start of the year.
It estimates its underlying profit for the full year could be $A2.47b. But that comes as passengers face high fares and service often far below that pre-pandemic as the aviation system suffers from labour and equipment shortages.
Joyce has faced worker anger in taking a tough line with unions, and over the last year he’s been the target of customer ire as the airline was accused of being too slow to respond to complaints. Last year he had his Mosman home in Sydney pelted with eggs and toilet paper. It was unclear at the time who was responsible but suspects included disgruntled passengers, crew angry about their – and his – pay, and former staff.
Joyce can be disarmingly chatty and appear relaxed, especially on a flight. On a multi-day Dreamliner delivery trip in 2017 from Seattle to Sydney he was every bit the happy traveller. But as one of the top earning chief executives in Australia and in a high profile job in the often bruising world of airlines, he has a tough hide.
In the depths of Qantas’ financial troubles a decade ago he was under pressure to quit. “I remember doing an interview on Australian TV and we had two commentators who had done a poll - 90 per cent said I should resign and they asked my reaction.”
He told the Business Herald his reply was blunt: “It’s not a popularity contest.” What mattered to him was whether the board and shareholders thought the airline was on track. They did, and Qantas stuck with him.
While the airline has enjoyed the financial spin-off aside, from the Covid years, so has Joyce. In 2017 he became one of the world’s highest-paid airline executives, near-doubling his annual pay packet to A$24.5m following a turnaround.
Early in March 2020 when the pandemic hit in force he gave up his salary for the rest of that financial year although his remuneraton the previous year totalled $23.8m.
From a working class family in Dublin, Joyce gained a Masters degree in mathematics from prestigious Trinity College and started his aviation career at Aer Lingus, where he was involved in setting up its low-cost arm.
In 1996 he took a job at Ansett, an Australian icon but with high costs and a jumbled fleet. It collapsed five years later under Air New Zealand ownership, the 2001 terror attacks the final straw. Sydney journalist Matt O’Sullivan’s book Mayday says Joyce and other executives were sidelined by Air NZ bosses.
Joyce became part of the exodus from Ansett to Qantas and was escorted off the Ansett premises by a security guard when he told his bosses he was leaving. It’s doubtful if this left any hard feelings towards Air New Zealand, certainly not on a personal level.
He had a good matey relationship with former chief executive Christopher Luxon and is in regular contact with current boss Greg Foran. The airlines united last week to slam Auckland Airport’s plans to hike charges and under Luxon agreed on a far-reaching partnership for each other’s domestic routes. This same spirit of co-operation doesn’t apply to international flying, particularly longhaul. The Qantas Auckland-New York route is bad news for the Kiwi carrier.
Joyce was the founding boss at Qantas budget arm Jetstar in 2003 before landing the big group job in 2008. Besides being in charge through extreme financial and labour relations volatility, Joyce has overseen what was described as a ‘’seismic’' partnership with Emirates and a driving force in the move towards what will be the final frontier in commercial aviation: Project Sunrise.
After some delays, not helped by the pandemic, Qantas plans in late 2025 to fly Airbus A350-1000 planes fitted with some luxurious suites on non-stop flights from Sydney or Melbourne to London and New York.
The airline’s newest executive appointment, former Air New Zealand boss Cam Wallace, will oversee the project from now in the prestigious job as head of Qantas International.
When current chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson was announced in May as his successor, Joyce explained he had intended to leave in 2020, Qantas’s 100th year and praised the airline’s board on its selection of chief executives.
Joyce has pushed for diversity in the airline. He is gay and has been recognised internationally for using his position to campaign for same sex marriage. He’s also a member of the Australian republican movement.
‘’There’s not many female CEOs in the worldwide aviation industry and it’s a credit to this country that a gay Irishman was appointed 15 years ago to be CEO of the company and now we have the first female.’’
He has just sold $A17 million worth of shares in the airline days after reportedly buying purchasing a penthouse in The Rocks overlooking the Sydney Opera House for $9m.
He will focus on community involvement and when the handover was announced, said he would look out for other opportunities. ‘’I’m still young, I have a lot of other things I’d like to do past this, but this is certainly going to be a bittersweet moment for me. I’m passionate about Qantas, it’s been my life for so long but the timing is right.’'
Alan Joyce
Chief executive and managing director of Qantas since November 2008.
Age 56
• From 2003, founding chief executive of Jetstar for five years. Before his appointment at Jetstar, he spent over 15 years at Qantas, Ansett and Aer Lingus.
• Chairman of the International Air Transport Association between July 2012 and June 2013.
• In 2015 named Airline CEO of the Year by CAPA Centre for Aviation.
• Most influential gay business leader in the OUTstanding / Financial Times list of “Top 100 Leading LGBT Executives”.
• Director of the Business Council of Australia; Member of the Male Champions of Change; Ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation NSW.
• Bachelor of Science (Honours) in applied science (physics and mathematics); Master of Science in management science.
Work on one of the biggest wooden hangars in the world is back on track.