Qantas boss says demand for premium class seats at record levels

Qantas Airways CEO Vanessa Hudson said premium-class bookings are at record levels as air travel brushes off a global cost-of-living crisis. Demand for seats in the airline’s first, business and premium-economy class cabins is “stronger than ever,” Hudson said at an investment conference hosted by Macquarie Group Ltd. in Sydney on Wednesday. Overall demand on Qantas’s domestic and international network “continues to be really good,” she said. Qantas’s international capacity should also return to pre-Covid levels this month, Husdon said. Premium economy is the industry’s most profitable class of travel, she added. At the conference, Hudson struck a positive, though conciliatory, tone. After taking the top job in September, she’s spent much of her time cleaning up the reputational mess left by her predecessor Alan Joyce. This week, Hudson announced a A$120m ($79m) settlement with Australia’s antitrust regulator after selling tickets on thousands of phantom flights. “This is not job done,” Hudson said, referring to the work required to repair the airline’s brand. Qantas must ensure that recent improvements in flight reliability are consistently delivered if the airline is to win back disaffected customers, she said. To justify the high fares Qantas charges, flights must depart and arrive on time, and those better reliability levels should also feed into higher earnings, she said. “When your network is operating to schedule, you’ve got the most efficient service levels,” she said. When flights run on time, the airline can avoid the extra costs of shuffling around crews and planes.<br/>