Qantas chairman to step down next year to repair airline’s reputation

SYDNEY – Qantas Airways chairman Richard Goyder will step down in 2024 as part of a boardroom clean-out as the carrier brings in fresh faces to repair its battered reputation.

Mr Goyder will retire before the airline’s annual meeting in late 2024, Qantas said on Wednesday.

Fellow directors Jacqueline Hey and Maxine Brenner will retire at the half-year results in February after decade-long tenures.

Until today, Mr Goyder had brushed off demands that he step aside to take responsibility for the slew of scandals that have diminished the standing of Australia’s largest airline.

He also faced criticism for being stretched too thin by simultaneously chairing oil and gas giant Woodside Energy Group and the Australian Football League – the nation’s most popular spectator sport.    

Under his watch, the airline illegally sacked 1,700 ground workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, while passenger frustration grew with mounting cancellations and delays.

Perhaps most damagingly, Australia’s antitrust watchdog is suing Qantas for selling seats on thousands of services in 2022 that the airline had already decided to cancel.

Mr Goyder’s planned departure after five years in the job – too long for some shareholders – follows the

early retirement in September of then chief executive Alan Joyce.

Shares of Qantas closed 2.7 per cent higher at A$5.03 (S$4.40) on Wednesday. The stock is wallowing about 25 per cent below a July peak.

Mr Goyder is attempting “to leave in a dignified manner with another year’s pay in his pocket, after presiding over the largest case of illegal sackings in Australian history”, Transport Workers’ Union national secretary Michael Kaine said. “This isn’t genuine board renewal – this is just shuffling the deck chairs.”

In an unprecedented move in September, the Australian and International Pilots Association, which represents more than 2,000 Qantas pilots, called on Mr Goyder to resign. 

“The reform and change that Qantas so desperately needs cannot come under this chairman,” union president Tony Lucas said then.

Mr Goyder “has overseen what may well be one of the most damaging periods in Qantas’ history”, he said.

Mr Goyder’s flagged departure comes just two weeks after he told a parliamentary inquiry that he had the support of the company’s largest shareholders to carry on in the job. 

“As a board, we acknowledge the significant reputational and customer service issues facing the group and recognise that accountability is required to restore trust,” Mr Goyder said. “We again apologise for those times where we got it wrong.”

The airline said an independent review will assess major governance issues from the past 12 months and will deliver the results in the second quarter of 2024.

Once the new directors are in place, Qantas board members will have an average tenure of around three years by the time of the 2024 annual meeting, the airline said. BLOOMBERG