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Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has downgraded Qantas’s credit rating from BBB minus, it’s lowest investment grade rating, to so-called junk status, but Qantas says it is “business as usual”. Separately, fellow ratings agency Moody’s said on Thursday night it had placed Qantas on negative watch but that it was maintaining its Baa3 investment

Qantas has asked the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to place its shares in an immediate trading halt. “The trading halt is requested pending receipt of information from Standard and Poor’s in relation to Qantas’s credit rating, which is likely to be materially price sensitive,” company secretary Taryn Morton wrote to the ASX. This content is

Warren Truss, the minister responsible for the transport portfolio, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott have both used separate media engagements to hose down expectations that the federal government will provide financial support to Qantas. “The government isn’t a banker and there are no doubt lots of companies or private individuals that would like government to

Virgin Australia has issued a sharply worded statement disputing Qantas’s assertions that it benefits from having foreign government owned airlines as its major shareholders. “The proposition that Virgin Australia has access to cheaper capital by virtue of our shareholder base is completely false,” the statement reads, before noting that Air New Zealand and Singapore Airlines

An expected financial loss of $250-300 million for the first half of the current financial year is seeing Qantas slash “at least” 1,000 jobs among a range of other measures as it struggles to further cut costs in a deteriorating airline travel market. “We will do whatever we need to do to secure the Qantas

Jetstar has flagged cutting operations to Avalon Airport, saying that flights to the Melbourne secondary airport have been “underperforming for some time”. “We are continuing to monitor the services of our Avalon routes and are yet to make a decision on the future of those services,” the airline said in a statement issued Thursday morning.