Category Archives: Qantas

Perth airport runway undergoes emergency repairs after Qantas plane takeoff

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Video of QF71 taking off on Sunday shows parts of airport’s damaged main runway lifting up as plane accelerates

An accelerating Qantas plane has caused extensive damage to a Perth runway, forcing its closure and emergency repairs.

Video of Singapore-bound QF71’s takeoff at about midday on Sunday shows the plane increasing speed as a large part of Perth airport’s main runway lifts up behind the plane.

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Bridget McKenzie forced to deny her oped on aviation divestiture signals support for breaking up Qantas

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Just hours after opinion appears in AFR, shadow minister clarifies divestiture as ‘one of the various tools the treasurer needs to look at’ but not Coalition policy

The shadow transport minister, Bridget McKenzie, was forced to clarify the Coalition does not support breaking up Qantas just hours after floating the possibility of forced divestiture powers in the aviation sector.

McKenzie warned the competition watchdog’s review of the aviation sector “will be a failure if it does not address the role of divestiture” in an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review on Monday.

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Qantas profit down 16% to $2.1bn as surging demand for cheap fares helps Jetstar

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International business revenues fell significantly on last year’s result, while budget carrier’s earnings rose 23%

Qantas Airways has posted a $2.1bn annual underlying profit – down 16% from last year’s record result – amid a surge in demand for budget Jetstar fares and mounting public anger at its service and ticket policies.

Australia’s biggest airline said bookings and travel demand remained stable across its flying brands, although moderating air fares had eroded profits, especially on international flights.

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New Australian aviation ombudsman could force airlines to pay cash compensation for delayed flights

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Carriers and airports will have to adhere to customer rights charter setting out ‘reasonable and fair’ conduct – or be penalised

An ombudsman will police how airlines treat customers and enforce a passenger rights charter to ensure timely refunds and possibly cash compensation for delayed and cancelled flights under landmark Australian aviation reforms.

The Albanese government will release its much-anticipated aviation white paper on Monday which will also boost protections for passengers with disabilities who have historically been mistreated by airlines. Carriers will have to adhere to new standards and accommodate a broader range of wheelchairs.

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As many as 360 workers sacked at Rex with hundreds more jobs to go

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Employees reportedly told the airline will no longer operate flights between capital cities

As many as 360 staff at Rex Airlines have been sacked already and hundreds more are on the chopping block after administrators were called in to run the embattled carrier, with remaining staff told they may not get paid until a new buyer is found.

It comes amid speculation that Asia-based private equity firm PAG, which funded Rex’s $150m expansion to jet operations, was considering becoming the airline’s new owner out of administration.

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Microsoft IT outage: Australian airlines, banks and supermarkets begin return to normal operations

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IT support staff need to implement the fix in person, one computer at a time, experts have said

Supermarkets, banks, airlines and industries across Australia are slowly recovering on Saturday morning from the massive global Windows outage caused by a CrowdStrike software update gone wrong, with experts warning it could take weeks to resolve.

On Friday morning, the CEO of the Texas-based cybersecurity company, George Kurtz, apologised for the outage, and said it was not a cyber-attack, but a software update issue on its cloud-based cybersecurity platform Falcon for Microsoft Windows. It had since been fixed.

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Australian CEOs made less in 2023-24 but still earned on average 50 times a typical worker’s wage

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Audit also finds CEOs are more likely to be sacked than not get their bonus

Chief executives across Australia’s largest companies are making slightly less money, but are still taking home on average 50 times the pay package of a typical worker.

In its annual audit of CEO pay, the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (Acsi) found chief executives at the 100 largest listed businesses averaged $5m in the 2023 financial year, down from $5.2m the previous year.

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Vanessa Hudson has provided a soft landing for Qantas as the airline cuts deal with ACCC

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While the new CEO has stemmed some of the reputational damage of the past, the $120m fine is a clear success for the ACCC

In agreeing to pay a $100m penalty and compensate tens of thousands of customers to the tune of $20m for selling them tickets on already-cancelled flights, Qantas has abandoned its farcical claim that as an airline it doesn’t sell seats on a specific service, but rather a “bundle of rights”.

For new CEO Vanessa Hudson – who stepped into the top job eight months ago after allegations aired in the consumer watchdog’s legal action against Qantas hastened former boss Alan Joyce’s retirement – the landmark settlement is a retreat from her predecessor’s confrontational style that many argued had trashed the airline’s brand.

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Qantas passengers’ personal details exposed as airline app logs users into wrong account

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Airline investigating whether privacy breach allowing customers to view others’ account details was caused by ‘recent system changes’

Potentially thousands of Qantas customers have had their personal details made public via the airline’s app, with some frequent flyers able to view strangers’ account details and possibly make changes to other users’ bookings.

Clare Gemmell from Sydney said that she and four colleagues encountered the problem shortly after 8.30 on Wednesday morning.

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Qantas pauses Perth to London route due to expected Iranian attack on Israel

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Airline’s Perth to London flights will now stop over in Singapore to avoid Iranian airspace amid fears Tehran will strike Israel

Qantas has been forced to pause its non-stop flights from Perth to London to avoid Iranian airspace amid fears Tehran is planning an imminent attack on Israel.

As the world braces for a potential flare up in the region, the airline’s Perth to London flights will instead operate via a stop in Singapore for the foreseeable future.

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It may not be winning back many hearts, but Qantas is making serious money

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The airline is flush with enough cash for a $400m share buy-back, a great transfer of wealth from customers to shareholders

It may be slightly less profitable and boast a friendlier CEO who says she does “a lot more listening than talking”, but Qantas remains an airline making serious money that could do much more to win back Australians’ hearts.

The $1.25bn pre-tax half yearly profit unveiled on Thursday, while down 13% on the same period last year, was still 40% higher than the last half-year trading period before the pandemic upended travel.

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Police investigating after Qantas crew pin down passenger on flight from Bali to Melbourne

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Video shows airline staff and other passengers holding a man down after disturbance on flight on Sunday

Federal police are investigating after Qantas cabin crew were forced to pin down a disruptive passenger on a flight from Bali on Sunday.

Video shows Qantas staff and other passengers holding the man down after a disturbance on a flight from Bali to Melbourne.

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Australia news live: only 54.3% of Virgin flights and 66.3% of Qantas flights on time last month, transport minister says

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‘Very disappointing results, it is no wonder that so many Australians remain fed up with our major airlines,’ Catherine King says. Follow today’s news updates live

‘Very, very clear’ renewables are the cheapest form of energy, Bowen says

Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy, including its storage and transmission costs, the energy minister told ABC RN.

Its conclusions this year are unimpeachable and very, very clear.

The cheapest form of energy is renewable energy, even including the costs that go with renewable energy around storage and transmission.

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Two in five Australians had flight cancelled or delayed over 12 months, survey says

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Choice poll also finds less than half of all flight refunds are received within a month as government considers additional regulation

Less than half of Australians who seek a refund for a cancelled flight receive it within a month while one-fifth of those seeking a refund wait more than six months, a poll has found, as the government considers a compensation scheme and a passenger bill of rights.

The consumer advocate Choice also found, in a survey of about 9,000 Australians, that two in five respondents had a flight cancelled or delayed in the 12 months between October 2022 and this year.

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Flight delay compensation would stop Australian airlines from acting like a ‘mafia of the skies’, MP says

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Exclusive: Independent MP Monique Ryan ramps up calls for proposed scheme after Sydney airport CEO accuses airlines of ‘slot hoarding’

Australian airlines are acting like a “mafia of the sky” in continuing to strategically cancel flights they never intended to operate, an MP has claimed, arguing for the urgent introduction of compensation laws so carriers are deterred by immediate penalties.

Monique Ryan, the independent member for Kooyong in Melbourne, has ramped up her calls for a mandatory compensation scheme for airline passengers, saying allegations levelled by Sydney airport this week showed such laws were needed as a matter of urgency and could not wait until the government’s aviation white paper, which is due by the middle of next year.

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Air fares likely to stay stubbornly high as travel-hungry Australians’ tastes change

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Higher prices see the phenomenon of ‘revenge travel’ turn into a willingness to spend more on bigger trips, industry watchers say

International air fares are set to remain stubbornly high throughout the first half of next year, but the preferences of travel-hungry Australians are shifting.

After the broad reopening of borders by mid-2022, international airlines have largely enjoyed bumper profits by operating fewer flights than an average pre-pandemic year, all while Australians’ pent-up demand for travel meant they were able to charge eye-watering amounts for tickets.

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Qantas chairman heckled by shareholders at AGM as investors reject executive pay plans

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Shouts of ‘shame on you’ after shareholder Chris Maxworthy’s microphone cut off

Qantas’s annual general meeting erupted with shareholders shouting “shame on you” at the board’s chairman, Richard Goyder, as investors overwhelmingly rejected the embattled company’s executive pay deal.

That result, which marked one of Australia’s largest ever protest votes against executive pay, came after Goyder and the airline’s chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, apologised to investors for a year of sagas that had seen the company’s share price plummet.

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Labor accused of ‘dragging feet’ on reinstating program that monitors airlines for potential price-gouging

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Opposition says there’s ‘no excuse’ for further delays on the government reviving the ACCC flight monitoring regime


More than two weeks after announcing it was reviving an airline industry monitoring program, the Albanese government is yet to formally direct the competition watchdog to conduct the investigation.

After months of scrutiny into Qantas’s influence in the government’s decision to block rival Qatar Airways’ push to boost its flights to Australia, the Greens and independent senator David Pocock in October knocked back a proposal to extend a Senate inquiry on the topic.

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Wiggles ‘deeply disappointed’ over use of Hot Potato to deter homeless people – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Watts has gone on to confirm that there are still 65 Australians stuck in Gaza that the government is “supporting” and are being provided consular assistance.

Watts says Dfat is working to get those individuals to the Rafah crossing and out of Gaza “as soon as possible”.

We know this is an incredibly distressing time for Australians in Gaza and their families and we are providing all possible support we can, communicating through all available channels the best information and options we have about their safety in a very difficult situation.

The circumstances on the ground are incredibly challenging and they are changing on a day to day basis. This is a conflict zone. It is a very difficult operating environment so we do the best job we can in the circumstances.

Crossings like this are the result of an enormous effort from Australian consular officials and diplomats in the region. So many conversations at the ministerial level, foreign minister Wong spoke with her counterparts in the region and we’re grateful that this initial cohort has made the crossing from Gaza to Egypt.

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Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce avoids Senate inquiry after push to extend probe knocked back

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Coalition motion to reconvene committee fails after Greens and David Pocock side with government

The former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce will not be forced to appear before a Senate inquiry after a Coalition proposal to extend the probe was knocked back by the Greens and David Pocock.

It comes as the federal government announced on Wednesday that the competition watchdog would recommence quarterly flight monitoring before the end of the year.

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