Qantas shares mounted an impressive recovery on Tuesday afternoon after earlier dipping below the psychologically important $4 mark.
At 10:15am, stocks in Australia’s flagship carrier were valued at just $3.89, a three-year low. Two hours earlier, the company announced it was making capacity cuts equivalent to grounding 38 aircraft.
However, shares recovered to close out the day on $4.45, significantly higher than yesterday’s low of $4.15, when the ASX suffered its worst day since the global financial crash.
Meanwhile, Virgin Australia appeared to ride out a turbulent few weeks, with shares finishing at $0.075.
The share plunge came on a day of high drama at Qantas, with the airline announcing unprecedented measures to combat the effect of coronavirus.
Chief executive Alan Joyce announced he would give up his salary for the rest of the financial year, and the airline added that all but two Airbus A380s would be temporarily taken out of service.
Chief executive Alan Joyce said, “We’re in a good position to ride this out, but we need to take steps to maintain this strength. We want to avoid job losses wherever possible.
“Annual management bonuses have been set to zero and the group executive team will take a significant pay cut.”
Red Cee
says:Good to see the management taking a pay cut to help the company overall. Well done to the team at Qantas.