As the airline’s long-serving CEO retires, another senior Qantas executive will take his place. As a result, Qantas will undergo some significant management changes. As of November 2023, Alan Joyce will be retiring from Qantas. Joyce, 56, has held the position of CEO of Qantas for 15 years.
He is one of the industry’s longest-serving CEOs because it is uncommon for them to hold that position for that long. Joyce was supposed to retire around the time the pandemic started, but she ended up staying on through it at the board’s request.
It is to Joyce’s credit that he has always led the airline in a conservative and disciplined manner, and the company has survived numerous storms under his direction. Under Joyce’s direction, some cool innovations have been implemented, such as the introduction of nonstop flights from Perth to London, the purchase of Airbus A350s for the world’s longest flights, which will be called “Project Sunrise,” and a refresh of the narrow-body fleet.
Vanessa Hudson, New CEO of Qantas
The way Joyce has approached labor relations, on the other hand, is what really stands out to me about him. He has always thought that staff members can be replaced completely, and he has cut back on labor in a pretty brutal way, from outsourcing to hiring staff under new contracts.
Besides, there’s no rejecting that the view of Qantas has crumbled fundamentally in Australia during the pandemic, as the carrier isn’t the dearest public aircraft that it used to be. However, the decline in airline perceptions is not unique to Australia.
Alan Joyce will be succeeded as CEO of Qantas by Vanessa Hudson, who will take over as CEO of the airline in November 2023. She has worked for the airline group for more than 28 years, most recently as SVP for the Americas and New Zealand and Chief Customer Officer. She is currently the Chief Financial Officer of the Qantas Group.
