Joe Aston

“None of the world’s leading airlines failed to survive COVID. Yet by 2023, Qantas routinely portrayed its survival of the pandemic as a uniquely Joycean feat, while defining 100 per cent of its operational failures as symptoms of an industry-wide phenomenon. None of that is to trivialise the extraordinary injuries COVID inflicted on Qantas, or Qantas’ decisive efforts to achieve hibernation then manage through oscillating lockdowns. But rather than swallowing Joyce’s post hoc rationalisations offered in 2022 and 2023, I have relied in this book on what he actually said and did in 2020 and 2021.”
― Joe Aston, The Chairman's Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out

“Qatar’s Akbar Al Baker, who retired as CEO without warning in October 2023 after twenty-seven years at the helm of the Gulf carrier, is in no doubt as to what happened: ‘It was Alan Joyce blocking us by his relationship with the prime minister.’ Al Baker accepts the Australian government’s desire to ‘look after the national carrier’ but insists that ‘the national carrier was not delivering’. ‘In COVID, we were your national carrier,’ he argues. ‘We lost over US$150 million flying to Australia, operating this long route with only fifteen passengers on board for nearly two years. We never told anybody to wait for weeks or months to get your refund, or that we won’t give you a refund. We showed our commitment was not to swindle people, not to sell tickets on cancelled”
― Joe Aston, The Chairman's Lounge: The inside story of how Qantas sold us out