From the CEO
There is no doubt that the aviation industry is facing its greatest-ever challenge.
Necessary travel restrictions introduced to contain the global spread of the coronavirus have largely eliminated the demand for air travel. All airlines have had to take drastic action in response, including dramatically reducing the amount of domestic and international flying we do and suspending many routes altogether.
We’ve also had to park most of our aircraft, close all of our lounges and stand down the majority of our amazing employees.
These are incredibly difficult decisions to make but they will ensure that Qantas (and Jetstar) come through this period in a strong position and have jobs to offer our people once we’re flying again.
In the meantime, it’s been great to see some of our partners, particularly Woolworths, come forward with temporary jobs for our staff, given the huge demand its supermarkets are seeing during the crisis. And we know the travel restrictions are having a significant impact on our customers, especially our most loyal flyers.
Our Frequent Flyer family is an incredibly important part of our business. We know how much you love to fly with us and we know that the restrictions are affecting you more than most. Almost all of you will be reading this at home, instead of on our aircraft. So it’s been heartening to see the many messages from our Frequent Flyers offering words of encouragement to Qantas and our people and expressing their excitement at the prospect of flying with us again. To minimise the impact on you, we’ve put in place an automatic 12-month extension of membership tier status for Frequent Flyers to preserve the benefits you’ve accrued through your loyalty.
We’ve also launched Points Club, which gives people who earn points on the ground more advantages, such as discounts on purchases at the Rewards Store, complimentary Qantas Wine premium membership and more. We know that this crisis will pass and when it does, we can’t wait to get back to doing what we do best – connecting Australians with each other and the world. We’ve put teams in place to ready the business to respond as soon as we see the return of demand.
From all of us at Qantas, thanks for your ongoing loyalty. We look forward to the day we can take you to some of the amazing places featured in the magazine this month.
In the meantime, stay safe.