Australia – Alan Joyce, the current chief executive officer of Qantas has announced that he is stepping down from his role fom the company. This comes after the Australian flag carrier came under pressure from legal proceedings made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over its alleged misleading advertising of tickets.
According to a press statement from Qantas, Joyce will be replaced by Vanessa Hudson, who now takes the role of managing director and group CEO for the airline. This takes effect on September 6 this year.
In a statement by Joyce, he said that the focus on Qantas and events of the past make it clear to him that the company needs to move ahead with its renewal as a priority.
“The best thing I can do under these circumstances is to bring forward my retirement and hand over to Vanessa and the new management team now, knowing they will do an excellent job,” he said.
He added, “There is a lot I am proud of over my 22 years at Qantas, including the past 15 years as CEO. There have been many ups and downs, and there is clearly much work still to be done, especially to make sure we always deliver for our customers. But I leave knowing that the company is fundamentally strong and has a bright future.”
Meanwhile, Richard Goyder, chairman at Qantas, commented, “Alan has always had the best interests of Qantas front and centre, and today shows that. On behalf of the Board, we sincerely thank him for his leadership through some enormous challenges and for thinking well-ahead on opportunities like ultra long-haul travel.”
He added, “This transition comes at what is obviously a challenging time for Qantas and its people. We have an important job to do in restoring the public’s confidence in the kind of company we are, and that’s what the Board is focused on, and what the management under Vanessa’s leadership will do.”
Last week, the ACCC filed an action against Qantas at the Federal Court of Australia over the airline’s misleading conduct of advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights that it had already cancelled but not removed from sale.
According to the commission, Qantas kept selling tickets on its website for an average of more than two weeks, and in some cases for up to 47 days, after the cancellation of the flights.
It also alleges that for about 70% of cancelled flights, Qantas either continued to sell tickets for the flight on its website for two days or more, or delayed informing existing ticketholders that their flight was cancelled for two days or more, or both.
Speaking on their investigation, ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlie said, “We allege that Qantas’ conduct in continuing to sell tickets to cancelled flights, and not updating ticketholders about cancelled flights, left customers with less time to make alternative arrangements and may have led to them paying higher prices to fly at a particular time not knowing that flight had already been cancelled.”
In response, Qantas previously said that during the ACCC conducted the investigation, it was a time of unprecedented upheaval for the entire airline industry, and that they have always practiced a longstanding approach to managing cancellations for flights, with a focus on providing customers with rebooking options or refunds.
“All airlines were experiencing well-publicised issues from a very challenging restart, with ongoing border uncertainty, industry wide staff shortages and fleet availability causing a lot of disruption,” the company said back then.
