Qantas board grilled during tense annual meeting as shareholders resoundingly vote against the airline’s remuneration report

The Qantas board and CEO Vanessa Hudson have been peppered with questions about the performance of the airline during a tense Annual General Meeting on Friday. 

Qantas chairman Richard Goyder started the meeting by apologising to customers and shareholders, saying it was “clear there has been a substantial loss of trust” in the national carrier. 

“There are things we got wrong, things we should have handled better, things we should have fixed faster and for all of those we apologise,” Mr Goyder said.

Friday’s meeting at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre also saw almost 83 per cent of shareholders vote against the airline’s remuneration report. 

The resounding vote in opposition to the company’s executive pay structure marks Qantas’ first remuneration strike.

Mr Goyder later opened the question segment of the meeting, where stakeholders unleashed their concerns about the embattled airline’s performance.

At one point during the session, shareholders could be heard shouting “shame on you” at Mr Goyder during a question about former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

Shareholder Chris Maxworthy had raised concerns about the “ethics of the board” in relation to the leadership of the company.

He also questioned the timing of Mr Joyce selling his shares prior to the ACCC announcing that it was taking legal action against the airline over allegations of ghost flights.

The ACCC filed court action against Qantas in August, alleging it engaged in deceptive conduct by knowingly advertising tickets for already-cancelled flights – a claim Qantas has denied.  

Mr Goyder strongly defended the company’s ethical standards.

“One thing that I’ll stick up for me and the board is the ethics of the people sitting up with me,” he said.

“I’ve got absolutely zero concern about the ethics of the people who sit alongside me on the Qantas board.”

Mr Maxworthy continued to press My Goyder on the question, forcing him to turn off the shareholder’s microphone.

Another person in the audience asked Mr Goyder if he was prepared to give an “honest and sincere apology ” to affected customers.

“I think we’ve given a number of apologies, sincere, and I think I did again today,” Mr Goyder began to say before the speaker interjected. 

“And you feel that that’s adequate?” the speaker asked.

Mr Goyder said it was important to look at the actions going forward, pointing to the company’s focus of performance, and reducing flight cancellations and baggage losses. 

“We are incredibly sorry and apologetic to our customers that we’ve let down and any other of our stakeholders we’ve let down as of recent past,” Mr Goyder said.

“As I said earlier the context is important, but that doesn’t matter, we own it as a board and management but the real focus for us now is to continue to improve.”

In another question, Greg Harper urged the Qantas board to put themselves in the shoes of their customers, citing a recent flight experience from Melbourne to Los Angeles.

He asked the executive team to raise their hands if they had travelled on an international economy class trip in the last 12 months. 

The number of board members who put their hand up could not be seen on the online stream. 

“I think it would behove you all to put yourselves in the shoes of our rank and file customer base… (who) don’t get privileges and fast check-throughs and all that kind of stuff,” Mr Harper said, followed by claps in the crowd.

“Put yourselves in the shoes of the average Joe and see what kind of experience they’re having.”

Mr Goyder responded to the question and said the Qantas CEO and team were “doing a lot of that right now”, noting Mr Harper’s point. 

Rachel Waterhouse from the Australian Shareholders Association quizzed the board on the total number of flight credits “still on the balance sheet” and whether customer complaints had reduced. 

Mr Goyder confirmed the balance was down to $520 million, with $1.5 billion COVID-19 travel credits already returned to customers so far. 

Adding to his response, Ms Hudson said as a leadership team Qantas is focused on ensuring all credits are either redeemed or refunded to customers, noting they no longer expire.  

“We have a whole team that is focused on this, 100 dedicated agents in our call centres with dedicated line that a customer can call,” she told the meeting. 

“And that is to improve the ease of which they can access those funds because we know and have recognised that is has been hard for customers over time to do that.

“The second thing is that we are going to be unrelenting with the way in which we contact customers.”

Mr Goyder had earlier flagged at the start of the meeting on Friday that it was clear there will be an “overwhelming vote” amongst shareholders against the remuneration report. 

“That’s almost a complete reversal of the 90-plus per cent support in recent years,” he said.

“But please know this. We hear the message this strong vote sends, particularly in response to broader frustration with past events, and it galvanises our efforts to restore your confidence.”