Qantas Stole Customer Money, Sold Ghost Flights, And Illegally Fired Workers — Now Alan Joyce Wants To Explain It Away

Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been gone three years, but he’s back dredging up and making excuses for all his passenger-unfriendly missteps in a new book ‘sorry, not sorry’ offering mea culpas that really serve as justification for stealing customer money and breaking employment law all in service of the corporate purse. Joyce says Qantas made mistakes coming out of the pandemic. He regrets blaming passengers for airport chaos. He would handle flight credits and “ghost flights” differently. He wishes the airline had not illegally outsourced 1,820 ground workers. And he says personally selling A$17 million of Qantas stock knowing regulators were about to sue the airline is a decision he would change with hindsight. But each concession comes with a justification. COVID was unprecedented. Qantas was weeks from running out of cash (he lobbied the government against broad bailouts, hoping to drive competitor Virgin Australia into insolvency). Decisions were made in good faith, there were other airlines who handled credits and refunds even more abusively (Cf. United, JetBlue, Lufthansa). And, most importantly, Qantas survived because he ruthlessly “got more things right than we got wrong.” That’s not an apology, it’s a surreal defense. Ethics and laws aren’t things to observe only when you have margins fat enough that they aren’t inconvenient. And if you have to resort to stealing from customers, your business shouldn’t survive. Joyce Says He’s Sort Of Sorry Joyce’s memoir, Riding the Jet Stream, and his accompanying media tour are an effort to reclaim his legacy. He led Qantas for nearly 15 years, built Jetstar, and cut costs, becoming one of Australia’s highest-paid executives. But the airline’s reputation collapsed under his leadership and he was forced out ahead of his own schedule. The end of his tenure was the worst. Qantas came out of the pandemic with cancelled flights, lost bags, decimated call centers and angry customers. Joyce blamed the customers, saying travel frustrations were because they were no longer “match fit” for airport security. He admits that remark was “insensitive and stupid” and says he is sorry. During the pandemic, then American Airlines CEO and now Qantas board member Doug Parker described his own airline’s customers as “somewhat different from our normal clientele.” Joyce treats that comment as though it were his principal failure. The comment mattered because it revealed his instinct: when the airline dismantles its capacity, dismisses experienced staff and couldn’t operate reliably, he blamed the passengers. And throughout the book he uses circumstances to blame his own failures, and he was the one being paid tens of millions of dollars to manage through them. Qantas Really Did Steal Customer Money Instead of honoring refunds for cancelled flights and significant schedule changes (as required by law, and the airlines own terms), Qantas made refunds difficult and misled passengers to believe their only choice was flight credits. They agreed to a A$105 million settlement this year, notifying customers who received credits for cancelled flights that they are entitled to refunds for money the airline kept years-earlier. Separately, the airline sold flights it knew it would never operate. Joyce says they didn’t do it on purpose. Schedules changed constantly during Covid. But they admitted that it misled consumers by offering tickets on tens of thousands of flights it had already decided to cancel and by failing to tell existing customers when their flights were cancelled. That wasn’t just at the beginning of the pandemic. It continued through August 2023 for flights scheduled as late as May 2024. And the airline admitted that senior managers knew cancelled flights were not being removed from the schedule even as they continued to sell the flights. This only benefited the airline. It collected money from customers who might have chosen another flight or airline. It retained customers who became less likely to switch airlines when they learned closer to departure that the flights were cancelled. And they didn’t spend the money on system updates. Joyce isn’t lying when he says there was never a corporate meeting where they settled on a plan to sell imaginary flights, but that this was the effect underscores the priorities of the airline under his leadership. He justifies it saying that other airlines did things that were worse. Illegal Layoffs Australian labor law is insane. But those are the rules they operate under, what their competitors live with, and the context in which they make money. And the airline illegally outsourced 1,820 baggage handlers, cleaners and other ground workers during the pandemic. Joyce admits his workers were illegally dismissed, in retrospect he should have made a different decision, but he spent years fighting that conclusion in the courts all the way to the High Court before eventually agreeing to A$120 million in worker compensation and receiving a record A$90 million penalty. The decision cost the airline more than A$200 million, so CEO Joyce would definitely do things differently because it worked out badly for the Qantas bottom line. Federal Court Justice Michael Lee described Qantas’s “performative remorse” over the issue, and said they were “the wrong kind of sorry.” That’s also a perfect description for Joyce’s current book tour. He says this all felt like cutting off his own arm, when it was the workers who actually lost something. He Sold His Stock In Advance Of The Fines And Settlements In June 2023 Joyce sold about A$17 million of Qantas shares. Weeks later, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigation into cancelled flights became public, and the airline’s legal, political and reputational problems drove down its share price. Joyce says the sale is another decision he would change with hindsight. The board later reduced Joyce’s FY2023 compensation by A$9.26 million, including forfeiting A$8.36 million in stock. Qantas said events under his leadership caused “considerable harm” to its relationships with customers, employees and other stakeholders. This was presented as accountability, though Joyce had earned well over A$100 million at the airline and later received another long-term incentive payout as Qantas shares recovered. Retiring two months earlier than planned, publishing a memoir and saying he would choose a better date to sell shares is something I guess. Joyce’s Tenure Was Terrible For Customers Joyce lobbied for protectionism, and gave special treatment to lawmakers and their families, keeping fares higher and limiting customer choices. Blocking the expansion of flights into Australia by Qatar Airways was the perfect example. His deferring replacement aircraft to such an extent that Qantas’s own chairman last year conceded the fleet “should have been replaced earlier” and identified it as the reason for poor cabin conditions, mechanical problems and cascading disruptions. Qantas Frequent Flyer cut points-earning, eliminated business and first class any seat awards, jacked up surcharges on Emirates redemptions, increased premium award prices just before the pandemic and reduced the value of Points Plus Pay. Alan Joyce’s parting gift to customers? Three and a half months before departing the airline, he added former American Airlines CEO Doug Parker to the board. It hardly surprises we’ve seen cabin densification plans developed in the years since. We’re supposed to feel badly for Joyce because the accumulated stress of running Qantas, including through Covid, was rough. But he was the CEO. And he became very wealthy in the role. No one forced him to do it. Giving him credit for every good outcome, and accepting excuses for every failure isn’t even leadership. During Joyce’s tenure, Qantas achieved an annualized return of 7.5% assuming full reinvestment of distributions. That compares to 8.6% for the Australian Stock Exchange 200 as a whole, and 13.9% for the S&P 500. $10,000 invested in Qantas at the beginning of Joyce’s tenure would have been worth $29,100 at the end – or $68,000 if it had been invested in the broad U.S. index. In other words, Joyce wasn’t just bad for customers, he wasn’t great delivering value for shareholders either. Topics on this page