iscover
Qantas has allocated $90 million to pay its employees a one-off bonus to recognise their efforts in turning around the airline group.
The bonus payment will be made to all Qantas, Jetstar and Qantas group employees whose collective agreements included an 18-month wage freeze, Qantas said on Friday. The payment, worth five per cent of their base annual salary, would be made after the company handed down its 2014/15 full year results on August 20 and be booked in its 2015/16 financial accounts.
Those staff who have yet to finalise a new enterprise bargaining agreement will also be eligible for the bonus should their new agreement include an 18-month wage freeze.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline group’s staff had made a big contribution to improving the company’s long-term competitive position and in delivering on the three-year cost reduction transformation plan.
“The rapid turnaround of the Qantas Group has only been made possible through the dedication and hard work of all our people,” Joyce said in a statement.
“Our ability to make these bonus payments reflects a bright future for the Qantas Group, provided we stay focussed on fully delivering the transformation program that has brought us this far.”
The three-year transformation plan has targeted $2 billion of savings by 2016/17. Qantas said it expected to have achieved $875 million in savings by the end of 2014/15. The forecast was unchanged from the airline’s investor day in May.
Up to 28,000 Qantas staff were eligible for the bonus, which does not cover those employees on management bonus schemes.
The airline group is expected to announce a bumper full year net profit when it hands down its 2014/15 financial results in August, with market consensus sitting somewhere north of $600 million as the airline group benefitted from lower fuel prices, a more benign domestic market and slower capacity growth on international routes into and out of Australia.
Raymond
says:I can smell the 787 order!
michael jones
says:they should use the money to buy 40 boeing 787-9 and boeing 777 8 9x
Red Barron
says:Share it with staff. It’s a good way to bring up morale.
GAGA
says:Michael, I don’t think $90Million will get many Boeing 787s or 777s.. You might get a single 737 if it were heavily discounted.
John Harrison
says:Nice to see at last Qantas senior management looking after their staff for a change. Anything would be better than nothing, as in the past all management did was to kick its staff when they are down. Many many moons ago, there was a great CEO and gave the staff extra staff travel tickets. It was great, I wish all current staff good luck with the bonus, enjoy it.
James
says:$90 million ? What a waste of money. Next year, they’ll have their hands out again for more.
Michael
says:James, you said – what a waste of money!
You are entitled to your opinion, however I do not believe many would agree.
You clearly have no idea what the QF staff have been through during the past
years due to cost cuttings and other changes. Qantas have two great assets, one
is their staff, as John Harrison said Qantas senior management looking after their staff for a change.