Qantas is facing calls to pay back the funds it received in pandemic assistance, after revealing a profit forecast of around $2.5 billion.
Qantas is facing calls to pay back the $2 billion it received in pandemic assistance, after the airline revealed a profit forecast in the realm of $2.5 billion.
On Tuesday, Qantas Group posted a market update to the ASX, crediting “very positive” trading conditions for the record-breaking $2.45 to $2.47 billion dollars of estimated profit for the 2023 financial year.
With domestic travel returning to and exceeding pre-Covid averages, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce cited heightened demand for travel, new aircraft and higher fare and freight prices as reasons for the Group’s “strong balance sheet.”
The enthusiastic announcement was not well-received by the Transport Workers Union, who is still engaged in a legal battle with Qantas over the firing of roughly 1700 ground staff at the height of the pandemic.
The union’s national secretary, Michael Kaine, described the profit forecast as “obscene” and a “kick in the guts” for workers and passengers, and called for the airline to pay back the taxpayer-funded assistance.
“This obscene profit forecast is the result of Qantas management bleeding dry workers, passengers and the taxpaying public,” said Kaine.
“The right thing to do would be to pay back every dollar of no-strings government handouts Qantas received from Scott Morrison before it trashed every essential section of the airline to prop up executives and shareholders.”
“Qantas passengers have faced chronic airport chaos because those 1700 families lost their livelihoods, which has been found twice by the Federal Court to have been illegally motivated to avoid them accessing their industrial rights.”
Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, criticised Qantas for its business practices, and implored the federal government to crack down on the airline’s use of legal “loopholes”.
“Qantas workers know that a huge share of this profit is the result of outsourcing their jobs to multiple companies,” said O’Neil of the profit announcement.
“Qantas has set up labour-hire companies, enabling the airline to drive down wages and conditions for the benefit of outgoing chief executive Alan Joyce and Qantas shareholders.”
