The Qantas Group has released further detail on its strategy through to 2030, as the Australian national carrier moves from recovery mode to renewal and growth.
At its first Investor Strategy Day since the COVID pandemic, members of the Group’s Management Committee outlined long-term plans across key categories of customer experience, sustainability and its people.
The Group also disclosed plans for maintaining FY24 margin targets across its flying businesses and announced new earning targets through to FY30 for Qantas Loyalty and Project Sunrise.
Some of the key takeaways from its proposed strategy are provided in this article. The Group’s full Investor Day presentation is available here.
Customer
Qantas is proposing a ‘right aircraft, right route’ approach to its future network operations and this will be underpinned by the induction of a new next-generation fleet arriving from this year onwards (A220, B787 and A320-family).
Customer support proposals will include the launch of an overhauled Qantas app towards the end of this year, as well as streamlined changes to its boarding process.
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There will be a continued focus on low fare modelling, particularly by subsidiary JetStar, with around 10 million fares under $100 to be offered this calendar year.
Sustainability
A sustainability focus will remain prominent with the launch of a $400 million Climate Fund – the largest of its type for any airline – to accelerate progress towards the Group’s sustainability targets.
The continued drive towards production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) remains a key initiative, with the group calling for the Australian Government to introduce a SAF blending mandate, similar to steps taken in other jurisdictions including the UK, Europe, US and Japan.
Qantas employees
The Group outlined plans for the creation of up to 8500 operational roles by 2033 in order to support the new fleet aircraft.
Via the new Pilot Academy and Engineering Academy, Qantas will deliver around 2 million training hours this year alone.
Financial
Through cost and revenue improvements, the plan is to sustain margins of 18 per cent for Qantas Domestic, 15 per cent for Jetstar Domestic from FY24 onwards.
Qantas International margins are expected to grow from approximately 5 per cent pre-COVID to more than 8 per cent in FY24, and up to 10-12 per cent with the introduction of the long-haul Project Sunrise and evolution of freight.
Introduction of A350 growth aircraft and Project Sunrise flying is expected to deliver significant incremental earnings increase, reaching an estimated $400+ million EBIT per annum in first full year of having all 12 aircraft in service.
Qantas Group comments
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce touched on a key point of note which underpins the airline groups strategy for renewal and growth. It is the notion that a completely different structural approach is needed, compared to operations in the pre-Covid era.
On this point, Mr Joyce said: “This is a structurally different business than it was before COVID, operating in markets that have also changed.”
“New technology is central to our plan and the next-generation aircraft that have started arriving will transform our network over the next few years.”
