Qantas Air flags higher fares as Ukraine war sends oil soaring

Bloomberg

Qantas Airways Ltd flagged a period of higher air fares to claw back rising fuel costs as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends oil prices soaring.
“The group is very well placed to be able to recover the cost of fuel if it stays at the levels that it is at the moment,” Qantas Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Hudson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Oil has rallied almost 30% since the invasion, and traders and banks are betting prices will keep rising as the US considers a ban on Russian petroleum imports. A protracted period of costlier fuel, one of the biggest single costs for any airline, threatens to pile more pressure on an aviation industry still struggling to emerge from the pandemic.
Hudson said demand for air travel at Qantas is strong enough to tolerate ticket-price hikes, a strategy the Australian carrier has typically used to manage higher fuel costs.
“What you need for that is strong underlying demand and relatively stable and rational capacity, and right now we are seeing that,” she said. “We’re seeing very strong leisure demand coming across both our domestic and our international markets.”
Every $4 jump in the oil price adds 1% to air fares, Qantas Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said at a conference in Sydney organised by the Australian Financial Review.
“If we stay at these levels, air fares are going to have to go up,” Joyce said. He said Qantas’ fuel bill was 50% hedged for the third quarter of 2022 and 30% hedged for the final quarter of the year.

Qantas CFO puts hand up to succeed CEO Joyce

Bloomberg

Qantas Airways Ltd Chief Financial Officer Vanessa Hudson put her hand up to succeed CEO Alan Joyce, a move that if successful would make her one of only a few female airline bosses.
Joyce, who took the helm at the Australian carrier in 2008, is one of the industry’s longest-serving chief executive officers. When the pandemic upended global travel in 2020, he agreed to stay on at Qantas until at least June 2023 to see it through the crisis.
“If the board were to give me the opportunity to step into Alan’s shoes, I would be incredibly honored and proud to do that,” Hudson said. “There are a number of candidates competing for that role.”
“So we’ll see how that goes over the next 12 months,” she said. Women account for less than 5% of airline CEOs around the world, according to the IATA. The small group includes Jayne Hrdlicka, a former Qantas executive who now runs Virgin Australia, and Lynne Embleton at Irish airline Aer Lingus.
Still, previous declared ambitions to replace Joyce haven’t worked out. In 2018, then-head of Qantas’ international business Alison Webster told the Sydney Morning Herald that “if I had a dream job, then that’s my spot on the wall. And he knows that.”