The ghost of Alan Joyce is still haunting Qantas

Alan Joyce is the hangover that keeps on giving for his Qantas alma mater.

Friday’s $105 million settlement for Qantas’ COVID credit voucher debacle brings to roughly $340 million the tally of fines, penalties and compensation it has chalked up thanks to actions under Joyce’s regime.

This is the chief executive that walked away with $14 million lining his pockets and who last year received an additional $3.8 million trailing compensation as part of contracted long-term bonus payments.

And remember this was the chief executive whose former chairman at Qantas, Richard Goyder, described as the best chief executive in the country.

Curiously, while “new” Qantas is desperate to close the chapter on its historic behavioural shortcomings, the long (kangaroo) tail of Joyce continues with an announcement that his great tell-all memoir is to be released in July.

Our sister column CBD reports the book’s marketing proclaims that, “Despite the turbulence, Alan Joyce’s legacy is formidable: he modernised Qantas, championed diversity in corporate Australia, and led the company through some of the industry’s darkest moments. To his detractors, he was combative and uncompromising. To his supporters, he was the captain who kept Qantas flying. His memoir reveals how Joyce has never shied from controversy, and captures a fearless leader who took on critics and championed equality while steering Qantas through its stormiest skies.”

Maybe it could have mentioned stormiest “but expensive” skies.

Customers will be able to buy a copy from the proceeds of this latest class action settlement which provides compensation for those “hundreds of thousands” who received flight credits with a sunset clause, rather than cash, for COVID flights that Qantas cancelled.

Of the roughly $2 billion of these vouchers that were issued during COVID, around $340 million remain unredeemed.

Apart from the brand and reputation damage done to the airline – which is impossible to measure – the total tally of $340 million also includes $120 million in fines and customer compensation paid by Qantas on the back of what has been dubbed the “ghost flight” episode.

This scandal, which was litigated by the consumer regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, involved allegations that Qantas had sold and offered tickets on flights that had been cancelled affecting 880,000 customers who had been misled by the airline.

The remainder of the $340 million total was the amount paid to 1800 workers and their union after their sackings had been found illegal – in contravention of the Fair Work Act.

In handing down his Federal Court decision last year in that case, Justice Michael Lee spoke of “a sense of disquiet and uncertainty as to precisely what went on within the upper echelons of Qantas leading up to the outsourcing decision”.

A board review of governance in the wake of Joyce’s departure found that he exercised a “control and command” style of management that led to centralised decision-making. This phrasing amounts to sanitised business speak for: Qantas was Joyce’s show.

Under the current chief executive and senior corporate-mess-cleaner, Vanessa Hudson, there is a focus on avoidance of the repetition of old mistakes.

The cancellation of flights booked through Qantas (but flown by Emirates metal) to the Middle East and to Europe through the Middle East has resulted in another round of challenges.

For those who cannot be accommodated on other flights (through Singapore or from Perth direct to Europe), Qantas will issue cash refunds.

Yet the ghost of Joyce still seems to haunt the airline’s Mascot HQ. But the current management won’t be conducting any seances.

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