Qantas CEO Alan Joyce's stunning reveal amid $1.9bn loss

Qantas revealed a shocking $1.9 billion loss in underlying revenue for the 2022 financial year, with CEO Alan Joyce admitting the result was worse than expected.

Joyce said the poor result had brought the total losses suffered by the airline since the start of the pandemic to more than $7 billion and lost revenue to more than $25 billion.

“COVID cost us more money in the past three years than we made in the five years before that,” Joyce said.

“The fact that we’ve been able to steer through this is remarkable.”

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Joyce said despite the shocking result, the airline was focused on moving forward, and said things were improving faster than expected.

“People are not just flying again, they’ve brought a level of enthusiasm for travel that was beyond our best projections,” he said.

“Forward bookings are extremely strong across our airlines and consumer research shows that travel is one category people want to keep spending on, even as inflation and interest rates see them pull back elsewhere.”

Joyce apologises again

Joyce also acknowledged the difficulties some passengers had faced with ongoing delays, cancelled flights and lost luggage.

“As many of you have probably experienced, strong travel demand has also brought some difficulties,” Joyce said.

“We knew the recovery was coming and we were ready for the restart.

“What we weren't ready for - after 18 months of COVID being suppressed - was such high levels of community transmission and the sick leave that followed.”

Joyce said to try to get on top of the difficulties, Qantas had hired more than 1,500 people since April, with plans to add more.

It also managed to bring down the rate of mishandled bags from 11 in every 1,000 in July to 6 in every 1,000.

This comes after Joyce announced earlier this month Qantas would be providing $50 flight vouchers and perks to customers affected by travel difficulties.

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