The Qantas Group has announced this morning that all regularly scheduled Qantas and Jetstar international flights from Australia will be suspended from the end of March until at least the end of May 2020. The Group will maintain connectivity to almost all Australian domestic and regional destinations that Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar operate.
In order to preserve as many jobs as possible longer term, Qantas and Jetstar will stand down the majority of their 30,000 employees until at least the end of May 2020. During the stand down, employees will be able to draw down on annual and long service leave and additional support mechanisms will be introduced, including leave at half pay and early access to long service leave. Employees with low leave balances at the start of the stand down will be able to access up to four weeks’ leave in advance of earning it. Unfortunately, periods of leave without pay for some employees are inevitable.
Senior Group Management Executives and the Board have increased their salary reductions from 30 per cent to 100 per cent until at least the end of this financial year, joining the Chairman and Group CEO in taking no pay. Annual management bonuses have also been cancelled.
“The efforts to contain the spread of Coronavirus have led to a huge drop in travel demand, the likes of which we have never seen before. This is having a devastating impact on all airlines,” said Group CEO Alan Joyce.
“We’re in a strong financial position right now, but our wages bill is more than $4 billion a year. With the huge drop in revenue we’re facing, we have to make difficult decisions to guarantee the future of the national carrier.
“The reality is we’ll have 150 aircraft on the ground and sadly there’s no work for most of our people. Rather than lose these highly skilled employees who we’ll need when this crisis passes, we are instead standing down two-thirds of our 30,000 employees until at least the end of May.”
“Most of our people will be using various types of paid leave during this time, and we’ll have a number of support options in place. We’re also talking to our partners like Woolworths about temporary job opportunities for our people.
“This is a very hard set of circumstances for our people, as it is for lots of parts of the community right now.
“No airline in the world is immune to this, with the world’s leading carriers making deep cuts to flying schedules and jobs. Our strong balance sheet means we’ve entered this crisis in better shape than most and we’re taking action to make sure we can ride this out.
“Since this crisis started, there has been overwhelming support from our customers. That gives me even more confidence that we’ll get through this.”
CUSTOMER INFORMATION
Customer contact centres are currently experiencing long wait times from people seeking to change their travel plans as a result of the Coronavirus. To help manage the demand customers are asked to call only if they have travel within the next 48 hours.
To avoid further inconvenience, Qantas & Jetstar are converting all bookings on cancelled flights to a travel credit, which can be used anywhere on the respective networks. Affected customers will be contacted directly from next Monday, 23 March 2020. Any customers travelling before the end of May 2020 who wish to change their booking are also eligible to receive a travel credit instead.
If flights were booked through a travel agency or third-party website (e.g. Webjet, Booking.com), customers will need to contact them directly to make changes to their booking.
SHAREHOLDER IMPACT
Given the current extraordinary circumstances, a decision has been made to defer payment of the shareholder dividend announced on 20 February from 9 April until 1 September 2020. This is in addition to the cancellation of the off-market buy back, previously announced.
