QANTAS FIRST-HALF PROFIT DROPS – Qantas underlying profit before tax was 1.25 billion Australian dollars for the six months ended Dec. 31
New Qantas Airways CEO Vanessa Hudson delivered lower profits in her maiden results, but gifted shareholders with a 400 million Australian dollars stock buyback and promised more spending on customers as the Australian flag carrier looks to fix its battered reputation.
Hudson, the airline’s first female CEO, took over from the long-serving Alan Joyce at the end of last year after what was one of the company’s most reputationally damaging years.
The company is defending a lawsuit by the competition regulator over selling tickets to already-cancelled flights and a court also found that the airline sacked 1,700 ground staff illegally in 2020.
Qantas underlying profit before tax was 1.25 billion Australian dollars for the six months ended Dec. 31, down 12.8% from a record 1.43 billion Australian dollars in the year earlier when ‘revenge travel’ in the post-covid era drove margins higher.