Qantas issues not "all the CEO's fault" argues chairman

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder has said Alan Joyce and his executive team have done “exceptionally well” in a strongly-worded riposte to the CEO’s critics. Writing in the AFR, Goyder hailed his senior staff for steering the airline through a pandemic that “sent other airlines and their creditors packing”. It comes amid criticism that Joyce’s annual salary increased by 15% to $2.27m despite a string of problems to plague the business, including record delays and hours-long call wait times. The piece argued most aviation companies globally are grappling with the same problems as Qantas. “This is what happens when you shut down an entire sector for more than two years,” he wrote. “Companies make deep cuts to survive. Skilled people walk away because the uncertainty seems endless.” He said Qantas is now well on its way to fixing its problems, quipping, “If you haven’t heard this, it may be because the data showing the improvement received far less media attention than stories showing how bad things got. In the meantime, the corporate obituary writers have been busy. Their analysis has (mostly) been unencumbered by what’s happening at other airlines, or that Qantas’ performance has turned around.”<br/>