It takes a lot to beat the Melbourne Cup in Australian headlines, but Alan Joyce’s bold brinkmanship in Qantas’s battle with its unions has done it by a distance. As the airline begins to move stranded passengers, the Qantas chief executive should be grateful that the Tuesday’s Cup will finally distract public attention.
Mr Joyce should be commended for his dramatic, but successful, weekend gamble that a shutdown would force government action that has halted the strikes and got the airline flying again. Industrial action was costing it 5 per cent of revenues a week in lost sales. Two days of a total shutdown will have cost it more than twice that. Qantas can afford that to end the uncertainty. But Mr Joyce’s bolstered reputation (among executives at least) may not rub off on Qantas; the drama has only highlighted the critical nature of the issues behind the strikes – and these are not resolved.
Qantas is right to think that its future lies with increased operations outside Australia; it needs to cut costs in its international operations and focusing on Jetstar, its profitable budget line, is smart. Operating margins for Qantas – nearly three-quarters of the company’s available seats in kilometres, according to Standard & Poor’s – have averaged 0.7 per cent in the last three years, compared with 6 per cent for Jetstar.