Exclusive: ‘I take accountability’ for Qantas’ mistakes, says Joyce

“I was the CEO for a long period of time. So, I take responsibility for everything that went wrong. You have to, because the buck stops with the CEO, and that was always the case. And I’ve no problem with doing that,” he said.

“But, at the same time, I would say read the book because, we got a lot of things wrong, I take accountability for them – but we got a lot of things right, and I talk about the team all the way through it.

“I had somebody text me from the HR side. He says, ‘what’s really gracious about the book is how many times you mentioned the people that you worked with, the people that helped set Jetstar up, the people that got Qantas through COVID, the people that did the Emirates deal’.

“And that’s it – we were the team, and the team worked really well together, and got most things right. I got a number of things wrong, and I apologise for them, and I take accountability for them.”

In particular, Joyce acknowledged the unlawful outsourcing of Qantas ground workers during the pandemic was a mistake, but said “nobody went into it thinking that they were doing it for illegal reasons”.

“In Australian employment law, there is a reverse onus of proof on you, i.e. you have to prove you haven’t done something illegal. And we knew that going into it. The lawyers had looked at it. The argument that was being used is that those employees could have taken industrial action the next year, and the decision was made then to stop them taking that industrial action,” he said.

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“The law used to be, even if that was true, if the prime reason for doing it was a commercial reason, i.e. to save the airline – which it was, that was the prime reason – that would still be legal. That was changed under Julia Gilliard, and then we got caught by that.

“I think that’s one of the biggest regrets that we made. That if you could go back in hindsight, you’d look back on it. But when you look at the information we had, the QCs saying it was the right thing to do, it was lower risk … nobody thought it was going to be illegal.

“That was probably the only decision we could make at the time. But with hindsight, absolutely, would we have done that again? No. Would we have made a different decision? Yes.”

Joyce also gave the thumbs-up to the new management team under now-CEO Vanessa Hudson, saying he is optimistic about the Flying Kangaroo’s future.

“The management team that we had put in place are still there, which is a great sign. It’s a really good management team. I think Vanessa is doing a superb job. I think Steph Tully, who runs Jetstar, is doing a superb job,” he said.

“I’m a big fan of Markus [Svensson], who runs Qantas Domestic, and Cam Wallace, who runs Qantas International. They are all the team that we had in place, and they’re good. They’re really good. That’s why they’re there.

“Qantas has so much depth, and I could keep on going through the depth of people at the different levels through it. They’re a phenomenal team. They’re doing a great job, and I think the airline is in really safe hands.”

Alan Joyce was the keynote speaker at last year’s Australian Aviation Summit in Sydney.