Qantas flight attendants win pay rises as national carrier’s profit falls after turbulent year

Qantas will give its flight attendants pay rises of up to 30 per cent soon after the national carrier revealed a slump in full-year profit as it tries to repair its battered image.

The airline on Thursday blamed moderating fares, increased spending on customer initiatives and reduced freight revenue for a 28 per cent fall in statutory profit to $1.25 billion in the 2024 financial year.

Releasing her first full-year results as Qantas group chief executive, Vanessa Hudson said the year focused on “getting the balance right in delivering for customers, employees and shareholders”.

“Restoring trust and pride in Qantas as the national carrier is our priority while there’s more work to do, we’ll get there by delivering for our customers and people consistently into the future,” she said.

“I speak a lot, a lot to customers on planes and in airports, and what I hear and what they say to me is that things feel different.”

Qantas the same day revealed it had reached an in-principle agreement with the Flight Attendants Association of Australia.

The deal will provide international cabin crews working on the Project Sunrise flights from Sydney to London and New York — set to start in 2026 — improved pay and conditions.

The FAAA said the new agreement would also provide ongoing job security for Australian flight attendants.

FAAA secretary Teri O’Toole said the new agreement was a positive start to a new relationship with Qantas.

“This is a far cry from the Qantas of just a couple of years ago, which declared open war against their cabin crew employees and held a gun to the heads of workers with applications to terminate their enterprise agreement,” she said.

“This agreement strikes the right balance between getting the cabin crew a much-needed pay rise, securing future work for Australian crew, and providing the business certainty in the competitive international marketplace.”

Ms O’Toole said Qantas cabin crew would vote on the enterprise agreement variation by the end of October.

Qantas has also agreed to same job, same pay provisions for flight attendants employed through labour hire companies.

The national carrier revealed both changes would cost Qantas about $60m in the current financial year, with Ms Hudson saying it would keep pressure on airfares in the short term.

“(There are) 55 carriers that we compete with internationally, our cabin crew cost base now will be triple that of our competitors, particularly in the Middle East and in Asia,” she said.

“That actually does create a disadvantage for us in competing in that market and so as I said we are going to have to find ways to offset that and mitigate that.”

Ms Hudson took over as chief executive from Alan Joyce after he beat an early retreat from Qantas last September — two months before his planned departure — as the airline suffered a series of public relations disasters.

The most damning was court action launched by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over so-called “ghost” flights, with the watchdog claiming it sold tickets on more than 8000 services between May and June in 2022 that had already been cancelled.

Qantas was also found to have illegally sacked 1700 ground workers at the height of the COVID pandemic and copped a public backlash over sky-high airfares, poor customer service, lost luggage and delayed or cancelled flight in the months after COVID travel borders were lifted.

The airline earlier this month announced it would slash Mr Joyce’s final pay packet by $9m.

Qantas did not declare a dividend on Thursday and instead announced a $400m share buyback.