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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...‘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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Services are in addition to Qantas flights and come amid ‘highly challenging and rapidly changing’ situation
Australia is arranging at least two charter flights to help citizens to flee Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, on top of the two Qantas services already announced.
The Australian government described the situation in the region as “highly challenging and rapidly changing” but said on Friday there had been “no evacuation” of the Australian embassy in Tel Aviv.
Continue reading...Committee seeks more time so it can quiz former Qantas boss Alan Joyce about the Albanese government’s Qatar Airways ruling
The Albanese government should immediately review its decision to block Qatar Airways from launching extra flights to Australia, a Senate inquiry has recommended, as it called for a significantly expanded role and powers for the competition and consumer watchdog in the sector.
The Senate select committee on bilateral air service agreements – set up to examine the rejection of Qatar Airways’ request to almost double its flights into Australia’s major airports – has also recommended its own extension to November so the former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce could front members upon his return to Australia, and so other Qantas representatives who provided “unsatisfactory” responses could be re-quizzed by senators.
Continue reading...David Pocock and Barbara Pocock are the latest in a string of independent and minor party politicians to renounce the ‘Canberra bonus’ in the name of integrity
A number of MPs and senators are handing back their access to Qantas’ prestigious chairman’s lounge in the name of integrity after a series of sagas that have painted the domestic carrier in negative light.
It comes as the airline has come under fire in recent months over its influence in federal government and a recent high court ruling finding it had illegally sacked workers during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Exclusive: federal government coordinated letters to the women and Qatari officials when they formally rejected the request for extra routes
The coordinated timing of two key letters sent by the federal government about its decision to block extra flights for Qatar Airways, released under freedom of information, raise fresh questions about the role an incident at Doha airport played in the rejection.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) was consulted over a letter that the transport minister, Catherine King, was preparing to send to five Australian women suing Qatar Airways, telling them the airline’s push for more flights had been rejected, FoI documents reveal.
Continue reading...Transport minister says it is ‘long-standing practice’ not to appear and says she is doing the ‘hard work the Coalition never did’
Transport minister Catherine King has shot down calls for her to appear before a senate inquiry examining her decision to reject Qatar Airways’ request for extra flights to Australia, labelling the probe “a political stunt”.
The senate select committee on bilateral air agreements was launched in response to outcry from the aviation and tourism sectors over the Albanese government’s decision to block Qatar Airways proposal to almost double its flights into major cities, and questions about the influence of key rival Qantas in the process.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Gina Cass-Gottlieb says ACCC needs greater powers to help new entrants compete with Qantas and Virgin
The head of the competition watchdog has called for a fresh mandate from the Albanese government to monitor the airline industry and help new entrants compete with established players Qantas and Virgin.
The chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, said the regulator sees “a case” for a mandate to look into competition, prices and industry practices after an earlier direction expired in June.
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