Qantas cuts 5000 jobs, posts $252 million first half loss
Baku, February 27 (AZERTAC). No stranger to toughing it out, Qantas boss Alan Joyce has declared he has the full support of the board after announcing the airline's worst result in nearly two decades.
However, Mr Joyce received a fresh blow mid-afternoon, when Prime Minister Tony Abbott played down the prospect of Qantas being handed a debt guarantee, despite the airline hours earlier announcing the $252 million half-year underlying loss and plans to cut 5000 jobs and close routes.
Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Mr Abbott but signalled his government has cooled on giving a debt guarantee to the airline, despite foreshadowing such a move in recent weeks.
The Prime Minister said that while the government was determined Qantas could compete on a level playing field, ''what we do for one business, in fairness, we have to make available to all businesses''.
The Qantas result, revealed by chief executive Alan Joyce Thursday morning, was the airline's biggest first-half loss since the Keating government began cutting it free from government ownership in 1995. It comes amid a bitter fight with Virgin Australia in the domestic market and intense competition on international routes.
Mr Joyce said he was "absolutely committed" to Qantas, despite calls for his resignation.
Before the latest retrenchments, Mr Joyce had announced almost 4200 job cuts during his tenure.
Transport Minister Warren Truss has singled Qantas' high costs and wages as a key factor weighing the airline down and says the government will monitor markets' reaction to the airline's reported $252 million underlying loss before moving to respond.
Qantas declared a statutory loss of $235 million for the six months to December, compared with a $109 million profit in the same period a year earlier. Revenue fell 4 per cent to $7.9 billion.
But it was overshadowed again by Qantas' international operations, which slumped to a $262 million loss compared with a $91 million loss previously.
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