Speaking at a Reuters online event Joyce said that country airline Rex launching flights between Sydney and Melbourne in March would spark fierce competition on the busy route and, “My personal view is that this market has never sustained three airline groups and it probably won’t into the future,” he told an online event hosted by Reuters.
He arrogantly added, “You can be guaranteed that Qantas will be one of them, it’s who else is going to be in the marketplace post this and into the future is going to be interesting.”
The report says that Rex’s move to start jet aircraft services between capital cities is the biggest shake-up of the aviation market in decades, with it currently flying to 59 regional and remote destinations around Australia and planning to have a fleet of up to 10 Boeing 737s in the skies by the end of this year.
Joyce also told the event that the Sydney coronavirus outbreak in December and resulting state border closures set back his airline’s recovery from the pandemic by three months, with Qantas earlier predicting its domestic flying capacity would return to 80% of pre-COVID levels in the first three months of 2021 but Joyce said it would now be stuck at 60% before reaching 80% cent by mid-year.
He said the outlook was still “volatile” with Victoria and Queensland still closed to travellers from Sydney, however, there had been very strong demand leading up to December when state borders were mostly open.
Joyce also said he expected Qantas and its budget arm to grow its domestic market share from 60% to 70% after Virgin trimmed down its fleet and shut TigerAir following its bankruptcy and takeover by US private equity firm Bain Capital last year and while Virgin had ceded ground in the corporate travel market, he said there would be a fierce battle for SME and leisure travellers.
It will be very interesting to see how Virgin and Rex respond and whether they will teach Alan Joyce a lesson for his ongoing arrogance!
Tags: QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce, QANTAS
