Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has launched a sweeping defence of his controversial tenure at the airline, taking responsibility for the mistakes that damaged the Flying Kangaroo’s reputation while insisting the tough decisions he made ultimately saved the carrier from collapse. 

During the wide-ranging interview with Sunrise host Nat Barr, Joyce also reflected on his childhood growing up in poverty in Dublin, his journey into aviation and the challenges of being openly gay in corporate Australia, all of which feature in his new memoir.

‘The book covers my entire life, my family’s life from a fair poor upbringing in Dublin. I talk about my mother having to feed her siblings with a soup kitchen because they couldn’t afford the full meal.

‘And that poor background we grew up in and I never could afford to fly. My family couldn’t afford to fly.

‘I got a job in the aviation industry and it changed my life with Aer Lingus, the Irish airline. When I was 23, I had my first flight and that sort of became a passion of mine over the years to try and encourage people to fly.’

He also dedicated an entire chapter to his sexuality, detailing what it was like to be openly gay in the corporate world.

‘There’s a whole chapter about being gay in corporate life that I have never been able to talk about before. That chapter took me 170 hours to write. It was from the heart.’  

The interview then pivoted from Joyce’s personal life to the controversies surrounding his tenure as Qantas chief, with Barr telling him directly that he had hurt Australians. 

‘In 2011 you grounded the Qantas fleet. Most Australians would remember that because of industrial action, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. During Covid, we had the ghost flights with Aussies buying tickets for flights that had already been cancelled,’ Barr said.

‘They were big incidents. They hurt many Aussies. How much responsibility do you personally take for the damage done to the Qantas brand?’

Joyce said he believed he was doing the right thing at the time.

‘I take all the responsibility for everything that happened in the company during that period of time,’ a candid Joyce said.

‘It was not our intent to mislead … we thought we were doing the right thing from a customer service point of view.

‘At the end of the day, all the passengers … got refunds (for the ghost flights). But it was messy.

‘Covid knocked the entire aviation industry for six, and we didn’t handle it as well as I thought we could have or should have, and I take responsibility for that.’

Joyce also hit back at Qantas chairman John Mullen’s comments that the airline was now operating in a ‘low ego environment’ under CEO Vanessa Hudson.

Joyce retired as Qantas Group CEO in September 2023 after 15 years at the helm, handing the reins to then-chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson.

‘I think Vanessa is a phenomenal CEO … I actually really think highly of her, (but) I do think my approach was different,’ he said.

‘Look, I’m here fronting … I always felt it was important to be out there and explaining things and fronting the hard decisions and talking about them. I felt it was necessary to do that. That wasn’t about ego.’

Joyce also insisted Qantas management believed it was operating within the bounds of the law when it cut 1,820 ground workers in late 2020.

The job cuts came despite the airline receiving $2.7 billion in taxpayer-funded government support, which it was not required to repay.

The package included more than $800 million through JobKeeper, as well as government payments to maintain minimum domestic flights and freight services.

The mass lay-offs were later ruled illegal by the Federal Court, with the resulting $90 million penalty becoming the largest for an industrial relations breach in Australian corporate history.

‘We never went into that case thinking it was going to be illegal; we had legal advice saying that it was legal to do it,’ Joyce said.

‘That ended up being wrong, we lost the case, and I apologise to everybody that was affected during that period of time … it was horrendous.

‘We had friends of mine that worked in head office who we were making redundant. I had people in my office crying and we were so emotional because of it. The human cost of that was never missed, but I was also very focused.

‘I didn’t want the airline to fail.

‘At least I’m not here apologising for the failure of Qantas going bankrupt like 40 airlines around the world did; like Virgin did, like Bonza did, and like Rex did.

‘Qantas got through (the pandemic) because we made the tough calls.’

Joyce walked away from the airline in 2023 with a remuneration package worth more than $12 million.

He was initially entitled to more than $23 million, but over $9 million was docked from his final payout following the airline’s various legal woes.

Despite the bumpy end to his tenure, Joyce said he viewed his legacy as being ‘part of the team’, pointing to the founding of budget carrier Jetstar and the upcoming Sydney-to-London Project Sunrise direct flights as two of his biggest achievements.

‘I was the founding CEO that set up Jetstar. That’s changed Australian aviation …200 million people have travelled for under $100 thanks to Jetstar,’ he said.

‘The ability to travel from Sydney and Melbourne to London non-stop (is also) part of the legacy that Qantas is in. 

‘We weren’t perfect, but we got a lot of things right.

‘Coming out of Covid, Qantas is one of the best positioned airlines in the world compared to a lot of other airlines. 

‘It’s highly profitable, it has a big fleet order … it has Project Sunrise coming and it has Jetstar, that’s changed aviation in this country, thanks to some of the decisions me and the team made during those 20 years.’