While remembered in the short term for a range of grievances against the airline, the departed CEO deserves credit for a legacy that has and will improve the travel experience of Australians.
A career of more than 20 years working for an airline is not unusual. Once aviation is in your blood it’s almost impossible to remove. While some may drift away from aviation for a period, they tend to gravitate back to aviation roles. It is therefore hardly surprising that Alan Joyce has spent the vast majority of his career working for airlines.started his aviation career in his native Ireland for the national carrier Aer Lingus.
I worked closely with Gregg and thought he was a shoo-in. There was clearly something that the CEO and the chairman of the Qantas Group saw in Joyce at the time that gave him a sufficient point of difference to land him one of the most important CEO jobs in Australia.Soon after his arrival into the job Joyce faced significant challenges. The first was the global financial crisis. Joyce was only six months into the role when he learnt that the group’s revenue had plunged by 6.
During this period, I saw Joyce in full flight. He was calm and measured, and wanted to understand the drivers of the revenue outcome so that he could put forward a solution to the board. In 2014, Joyce had to deal with further turbulence. He was the presiding CEO over one of the worst financial results in corporate Australia history at the time, with a statutory loss before income tax of almost $4 billion. He was under incredible pressure to resign after six years in the job. To his credit, he was able to ride out that storm and report a significant profit the year after.
He also should be given credit for the start of non-stop flights from Perth to London and Rome, which have been amazingly successful, as well as Project Sunrise, under which Australians will shortly be able to fly non-stop from the East Coast to London and New York, saving hours in transit stops. In my view this is going to be a game-changer for the Qantas Group and for Australian travellers.
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