Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has insisted he has the full support of the Qantas board and its shareholders, despite the airline recording a half year loss of $235 million.
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During a heated exchange with Labor Senator Sam Dastyari during a senate inquiry examining proposed changes to the Qantas Sale Act, Mr Joyce defended his tenure at the airline and brushed aside questions about under what circumstances he might resign.
The federal Coalition has passed changes through the lower house that would lift the foreign ownership restrictions on Qantas and rules around where maintenance is performed on the airline's planes, but the government lacks the support to pass its changes through the Senate.
In a late-night hearing in Canberra into the changes, Mr Joyce lashed unions for arguing the repeal of the Sale Act would raise safety risks by sending maintenance work offshore.
But Mr Dastyari honed in on Mr Joyce's tenure as chief executive, pointing out that Qantas' share price had fallen from $2.35 in December 2008 – when Mr Joyce took over – to $1.09 on Tuesday, while the airline's market capitalisation had fallen from about $4.5 billion to about $2.4 billion.
“How much of the responsibility for the situation, for the low share price and the loss of shareholder value rests with management?” Senator Dastyari asked.
Mr Joyce replied that since 2008-09, 46 per cent additional capacity had been added to the Australian international market where the world-wide average was just 21 per cent.
But Senator Dastyari said he found that “hard to believe when Virgin has had an increase in its market capitalisation of 256 per cent and Air New Zealand share price has had a 115 per cent increase in the same period”.
“So you're telling me a successful model is when you have lost 50 per cent of your market capitalisation and 50 per cent of your share price, that's what you are saying us a successful model?”
A testy Mr Joyce replied: “Senator … let me talk about the facts, since 2009 Virgin has lost over $400 million, Tiger Airways has lost $250 million. Qantas has made until this year $2.3 billion.
“If you have a corner shop and the competitor down the road is willing to sell the same product and lose money, it doesn't matter how good your shop is.”
Mr Joyce said he had not spoken to each member of the board individually to test their support for his position because “it didn't work that way. "Maybe it works that way in politics, but its doesn't work that way in the corporate world.”
In his opening address to a Senate inquiry on Tuesday night, Mr Joyce said unions were running a line that the prospect of repealing a key part of the act would adversely affect safety.
"This is blatant fearmongering. It is playing the safety card as a tool of industrial relations," he said.
The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association last week released to a separate Senate inquiry a dossier detailing errors on Qantas planes following maintenance in Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. But Mr Joyce said people needed "no reminder of the absolute Qantas commitment to safety".
