00:00It is the national carrier and it is a brand that all Australians will have an
00:11opinion on. It's a brand that's 105 years old. It was founded in regional
00:16Australia and you know many of us who work there feel very passionate about
00:21the role that we play in the legacy and keeping that brand strong and serving
00:28for Australians into the future.
00:32We've always wanted to ensure that there is inclusion across the board, be it in
00:37our workplaces, for our customers, for our stakeholders and I would say to any of
00:44you who have aspiring girls or women who want to be a pilot or engineer, send them
00:48my way. We're very interested to have them get passionate and excited about the
00:54industry.
00:58Another thing you're looking at is sustainability of course and biofuels. Can you
01:03run us through where QantasLink is in the process of that at the moment?
01:06Sustainable aviation fuel for us is one of the key levers to decarbonise for aviation
01:13and we think that there is a great opportunity and alignment for a domestic SAF industry here
01:21in Australia and particularly how that could link into regional Australia.
01:28We will not have regional services out at Western Sydney to begin with. It will be Jetstar and QantasLink
01:36but there will be QantasLink services more into capital cities.
01:42You talk about a commitment to regional Australia. How can you justify your prices when your actions say otherwise?
01:50I can see that emotion there. So apologies, I can understand that it feels really frustrating.
01:59When we look at all of our costs, those main ones being airport charges, engineering and maintenance, fuel.
02:08Those are costs that are increasing far beyond CPI and those are challenges that not just Qantas has, Rex has had, Bonds has had, Jetstar has had, you know, they are across the industry.
02:26Two things. You're talking about being forced to transition to bigger planes. That suggests that some of our smaller airports are going to be unviable.
02:36And also there seems to be a considerable shortage of aircraft engineering people on the ground in the bush or anywhere for that matter.
02:44I should acknowledge that right now we are in the middle of a transition.
02:48So what that's meant, as we've retired the older 200 and 300 aircraft, we've had to do that because we have to retrain those pilots onto the Q400
02:59and that is up to three months to do.
03:02There are a number of markets that will maintain frequency and have more seats.
03:07We, coming out of COVID, absolutely had some challenges in skills around pilots and engineers.
03:15We are mostly through that, but I would say that, you know, to my point before on attracting, you know, more females, that's not just females.
03:25I'd say that is also all people into the industry.
03:33There is a bright future ahead and we've got lots of work to do.
