Embattled Qantas chairman Richard Goyder has dismissed calls to step down, as the airline’s CEO Vanessa Hudson claimed it was “an important part of democracy” that its plea to the government to block extra air rights for Qatar Airways be kept private.
Appearing before a Senate inquiry on Wednesday, Hudson also reiterated former Qantas boss Alan Joyce’s claims that Qatar Airways’ proposed expansion would have distorted the aviation market when it was requested in October 2022.
After repeating a public apology, Hudson declined to answer questions on whether Qantas’ position had changed given the considerable recovery the aviation market has since made. She also said Qantas’ opposition was not about its own financial benefit.
“(In October 2022) the international market had not yet recovered from Covid and our submission pointed to that. We felt that it was it was important that the market returned to 100% before we structurally changed,” Hudson told the inquiry.
Hudson and Qantas’ general counsel Andrew Finch gave permission for the submission which the airline prepared in October 2022 to be provided to the committee in redacted form, provided it was not made publicly available.
Finch said this was due to a “desire to ensure that corporates and individuals feel comfortable when they make submissions to the government … and particularly when they’re invited to do so that their submissions are kept confidential”.
Asked by the Liberal senator Simon Birmingham if it would make a version of the submission public, Hudson backed Finch’s reasoning for not wanting the submission made public, saying “we think that that’s an important part of democracy”.
Goyder defended his decision to ignore broad calls to step down from his position. He said he had met with major shareholders in recent weeks, after Joyce’s retirement and other crises were known.
“Major shareholders are very strongly supportive of me staying and I would also argue that my history in business has been one of high ethics, looking to create value for all our stakeholders,” Goyder told the inquiry.
“I’ve navigated a company through the Global Financial Crisis, chaired Qantas through the most existential crisis we’ve ever had as an airline, and right now, the major shareholders and the board feel that I’m the best person to chair the board to navigate us through the current situation,” Goyder said.
Goyder denied ever having spoken with a member of government about the Qatar Airways decision. He also defended the decision to outsource 1,700 ground handlers during the pandemic, which was found by courts to be illegal and for which the airline now faces a compensation claim in the hundreds of millions of dollars. After questioning from senator Tony Sheldon, Goyder apologised to the affected workers.
Earlier, Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka told the Senate inquiry she found out about the government’s decision to block its partner airline Qatar Airways from expanding flights to Australia through the media, adding the ruling lacked any “coherent logic” and was contrary to the national interest.
Hrdlicka said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, also did not reveal the decision to her during their discussion on 13 July – three days after transport minister Catherine King had made the decision.
Qatar Airways executives told the Senate inquiry they were “surprised and shocked” that the Australian government “unfairly” rejected its request to expand in Australia, while insisting an infamous 2020 incident at Doha airport will never be repeated.
The Virgin boss told senators the carrier had “naively assumed” it would be an “easy decision” for the federal government to grant the extra flights as it would improve Virgin’s competitive standing, lower flight tickets for consumers and provide overall benefits to the economy.
King made the decision to reject Qatar Airways’ request to run 28 additional weekly flights to Australia on 10 July, and later informed Anthony Albanese “prior to the decision being made public” on 18 July.
Hrdlicka told the inquiry she had met with King twice in 2023 – once in January and again on 1 May.
The two had discussed the Qatari bid for “five minutes at best” during the one hour January discussion, where King informed Hrdlicka that former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce had been in touch with the minister’s office to speak with her as he was “not happy”.
“Nonetheless, I was left with a very clear impression that the decision to proceed was very compelling and imminent. Based on this conversation, I felt comfortable that Qatar would be granted additional air rights,” she said.
“I was so sufficiently comfortable that I did not raise Qatar with the prime minister when I hosted him at the Australian Open in January as part of my responsibilities as the chair of Tennis Australia.”
Hrdlicka told the inquiry during a second meeting in May with the minister, the 2020 Doha airport incident was raised by King as presenting a “challenge” to the Qatar decision.
Hrdlicka told the inquiry she later met with Albanese on 13 July, who also raised the Doha incident but did not tell her of King’s ruling three days earlier.
The Virgin CEO said she had found out about the decision days later on 18 July after the Australian Financial Review sent through a media enquiry about the decision.
“I regret that we did not lobby on this issue more actively and aggressively,” Hrdlicka said.
“The case for granting rights, however, seemed so compelling that we did not believe … it either necessary, or indeed, appropriate. We, in hindsight, naively assumed that the overwhelming economic benefits to Australia from 28 additional flights a week from Qatar would win the day.”
A spokesperson for King said: “We don’t comment on the content of private conversations.”
Earlier, Qatar Airways executives made their first public appearance in Australia to discuss the rejected request.
“We were surprised and shocked by the decision of the Australian government to reject our application for additional flights to Australia. Even more surprising was that the government gave us no reason for rejecting our application,” Qatar Airways’ senior vice-president of global sales, Matt Raos, said on Wednesday.
Qatar Airways’ senior vice-president of aeropolitical and corporate affairs, Fathi Atti, told the inquiry he believed the application for extra flights had “been unfairly rejected”.
Atti claimed the airline first learned about the rejection via media reports on 10 July 2023. He said the airline received a letter on 20 July informing them of the decision..
The letter had been sent to the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA), dated 14 July. As the government regulator, the QCAA lodges such requests with foreign governments and communicates decisions to an airline.
However, these dates were questioned by senators who pointed out the first media report on the decision only appeared on 18 July.
A letter that King sent to Australian women suing Qatar Airways over a 2020 Doha Airport incident where female passengers were invasively examined without consent, informing them that Australia was not considering further bilateral air rights, was dated 10 July. But the government claims it was not sent until 17 July.
King initially denied the Doha airport incident was a factor in the rejection before later conceding it provided context for her decision.
Atti told the inquiry the Australian government did not raise the Doha airport incident during the process of applying for extra air rights, nor did it flag its employee conditions, its ability to fly to secondary city airports or fly larger planes under existing permissions – all reasons since provided by King.
“We’re completely committed to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again,” Raos said of the Doha incident. “We see this as a one-off, isolated incident.”
Raos also told the hearing the airline had estimated the extra flights would have generated about $3bn in economic benefits over five years.
