My mum, Queenie, had a return flight to Brisbane once to meet my dad for a one-night stand. I never got to meet him myself, but that seems to be the way for dogs, if not quite a few kids.
On the other hand, the Boss has been on many Qantas planes over the years and was, until recently, a long-standing and loyal Qantas Club member.
But his loyalty has been severely tested — it has declined at the same rate as the Flying Kangaroo’s reputation — and that of its late-departed chief executive, Alan Joyce.
He reckons Mr Joyce first showed his ruthless side in 2011 when he grounded the entire Qantas fleet over the Melbourne Cup weekend and left 80,000 customers stranded around the world.
It was an early sign that the diminutive and combative Irishman would always put his shareholders first — and they loved him for it. Of course, he was well-rewarded for it, becoming the highest-paid CEO in the country.
That pattern was repeated during the COVID-19 lockdowns when he slashed many thousands of jobs while holding his hand out for $2.7 billion in pandemic-era bailouts from the Federal Government.
Millions of Qantas customers, including The Boss, had flights cancelled because of the pandemic and received credits from Qantas — but when they lined up later to re-book with their credits, the trouble started.
There were all sorts of tricky rules around what flights the credits could be used on, and getting to talk to Qantas to make a booking was an ordeal in itself.
It was here The Boss discovered what he described as “daylight robbery”. He would check out the fares to, say, Broome and figure his credits would cover it — but when he went to book using those credits, the price was roughly double.
He got angry because this was real cash he had already paid the airline. Now Qantas was effectively saying that, if he paid new money, the flight would cost $1200, but if he wanted to use the old money he had already paid Qantas, it would be $2400.
“That’s called theft, General,” he told me, disgusted.
Now it turns out Qantas was also fraudulently selling tickets on around 8000 flights that it had already cancelled and will face legal action from the competition regulator.
Then it told the regulator it had cancelled around 4150 flights when, in fact, 15,000 had been cancelled. And there’s a class action against Qantas by disgruntled customers, outraged by the Qantas plan to cancel half a billion dollars in unused customers’ credits by Christmas and keep the money.
And, of course, Mr Joyce convinced the Albanese Government to reject a bid by Qatar Airlines to increase its flights into Australia by 28 a week, which would have quickly increased competition and lowered airfares.
Offering the PM’s son membership of the Qantas Chairman’s Club doesn’t sit comfortably with The Boss either.
He thinks Mr Joyce will cheerfully wave away the bad smell: if he collects all of his entitlements, he will have accumulated around $125 million, which should see him through. Woof!
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