Qantas: 'We were the best-performing ASX 100 stock in the last three years'

1 October, 2017

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce stated the carrier has been a strong performing airline over the past 12 months (Irish Times, 28-Sep-2017). "We were the best-performing ASX 100 stock in the last three years and in the last year", he said, adding: "We're the best performing airline stock for the past year. So shareholders who bought in a couple of years ago as part of the turnaround have done exceptionally well". On why the carrier's turnaround was successful, Mr Joyce said: "The secret of our turnaround was that it wasn't just happening as a top-down programme... We identified what we needed to do in terms of the AUD2 billion target and where we needed to get the balance sheet to". He also noted the importance of people to the carrier's success. "We gave our people the power to make the turnaround... It was the 30,000 people at Qantas who came up with 250 different projects and figured how we implement them. A lot of people make the mistake of coming up with great ideas, but the implementation falls apart". On the key of employee engagement, Mr Joyce said: "Get them engaged and get them to see the light at the end of the tunnel... We did make 5000 people redundant at the start of the programme. There were a lot changes that were just structurally problematic, like call centres; heavy maintenance bases because we had too many of them. But in the past year there have been huge benefits to the employee base; we've actually recruited nearly 1000 people because we've grown".