Home » News » “I congratulate them:” Joyce commends Qantas pilots amid airline mishaps

3 February, 2023

“I congratulate them:” Joyce commends Qantas pilots amid airline mishaps

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has written to the airline’s 14 million frequent flyers in a bid to add context to a number of safety issues which has brought the flying kangaroo some unfavourable press over the past fortnight.

Six months ago the national carrier was under immense pressure as nearly 50 per cent of its flights were late, misplaced baggage rates had more than doubled and up to 7 percent of flights were being cancelled.

Now, in early 2023 Qantas is in the press again, this time amidst a slew of safety concerns, spearheaded by a story that took the nation by storm.

Over 1 million people were reportedly recorded on live flight trackers as QF144’s engine ‘blew up’ over the Tasman Sea on 18 January. In the following days there were more engineering mishaps to follow and now, Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce has made a statement on the airlines safety.

Qantas plane on tarmac being inspected by ground staff. (iStock – ddisonphotos)

Joyce made it clear that the airline had made improvements in areas they were criticised in last year. “We’ve been the most on-time of the major domestic airlines for five months in a row. Our service levels – bags, cancellations, catering and the call centre – are back to what customers expect from us. And we’re working to make it better.”

Prior to getting into the details of safety, Joyce also mentioned the price of air fares, an issue not unique to Qantas.

“Higher fares also reflect inflation in general and higher fuel prices in particular, which are up 65 per cent in the past six months compared with pre-COVID. Naturally, that flows through to how much you pay for a flight,” Joyce said.

The recent media covering surrounding Qantas stemmed from multiple flights being forced to return or make unscheduled landings as a result of engineering incidents as well as a five customers and one crew member being taken to hospital after a ‘sudden turbulence event’ earlier this week on a Qantas Link flight.

“These have received a huge amount of attention because we had several in quick succession, but despite the hype, they are actually a symptom of strong safety systems,” Joyce said.

“Our pilots always err on the side of caution because that’s what we train them to do. If an onboard system isn’t working the way it should, they will often decide to land rather than pressing on to the destination.

“I congratulate them for doing that and encourage them to keep doing it. And despite the obvious inconvenience, I think most of our customers do, too.

“Globally, the industry sees well over 10,000 air returns a year. Looking at our data, there’s no change from our average rate of turn backs before and after COVID, which for Qantas is around 60 a year or 1 per 2,000 flights. Our regional arm QantasLink has more, at over 200 a year, because they have more flights and it makes more sense to return to a major city than fly on to a remote town that doesn’t have the same level of technical support.

“If you’re flying on an aircraft that has an issue, it’s not because it’s not well looked after. It’s because they are incredibly complex pieces of equipment with many layers of redundancy.”

An investigation is underway to determine the cause of QF144’s engine failure on the way to Sydney from Auckland, however, due to the ‘sudden nature’ of the turbulence that hit the Qantas Link flight it will not be investigated.

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