One airline is set to emerge from Covid mess stronger than ever

It’s the final Wednesday of January 2020, the coronavirus has yet to claim anyone outside of China, and Qantas CEO Alan Joyce is all smiles and handshakes. He’s flown almost two hours north from Sydney to the mining town of Toowoomba to open a pilot academy. In the sweltering heat of the open hangar, he tells a crowd of staff, students and local politicians that graduates will one day captain the giant Airbus A380s or Boeing Dreamliners that anchor the iconic Australian airline’s long-haul network. There’s little mention of the virus that weeks later would lay waste to global aviation. Yet on the plane trip back to Qantas’s headquarters that afternoon, Joyce is already focusing on the looming battle. In an interview from his usual seat -- 1A -- he says he’ll do whatever it takes to come out of the pandemic on top. “It’s survival of the fittest,” he predicts. That was an early glimpse of the determined, even ruthless, approach that has seen Qantas not just survive the biggest crisis in aviation history, but become almost unassailable in its home market. While losses at airlines globally from Covid-19 are set to surpass $174 billion by the end of 2021 -- wiping out half a decade of profits -- Qantas has become one of the most financially secure carriers anywhere in the world. Its stock has surged 120% from a March 2020 low -- almost double the return of the Bloomberg World Airlines Index -- and its market value has swollen to A$8.9b ($6.7b). Qantas says net debt has peaked and it’s on track to deliver an underlying profit for the year ending this month. Story has more.<br/>