Out with the old: who will survive the Qantas board shake-up?
A 65-inch TV screen has pride of place in Vanessa Hudson’s office at the Qantas headquarters in Mascot, monitoring in real-time the airline’s schedules across its domestic and international markets.
It was installed in June last year by Hudson’s predecessor, Alan Joyce, when Qantas’ on-time performance plunged to just 50 per cent, more baggage was lost than found, and services were being cancelled at an alarming rate.
If looks could kill: Vanessa Hudson sits beside outgoing chairman Richard Goyder at the Senate Inquiry. Alex Ellinghausen
Joyce was fixated on the sea of red plastered on his TV, calling in executives as he attempted to triage Qantas’ performance in an environment where every airline in the world was suffering the same three issues around getting parts, people and planes.
At the same time as the giant TV was being installed, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges, Qantas was selling seats on 8000 cancelled flights.
The ACCC case and chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb’s public declaration that the watchdog will seek record penalties of at least $250 million has derailed Qantas’ strategy – and the composition of its board – in more ways than one.
First, it led to Joyce’s exit eight weeks before his long farewell was due to conclude in November, and increasing shareholder anger over his bulging pay packet, which could be as high as $29.7 million for his final year if his awards survive board scrutiny. There is also the looming capital expenditure bill handed to Hudson.
Second, the ACCC’s case has destroyed the trust of shareholders, who still have questions over why – knowing the ACCC was lurking – Qantas chairman Richard Goyder allowed Joyce to sell $17 million worth of shares near the top of
Read more on afr.com
