Her performance was without the mea culpas we have become so accustomed to from Qantas – and Hudson has clearly grown in confidence. (She told me she was having a great time at the top of the organisation and professed to loving a dive in the deep end.)
Sure,her presentation could have done without the clunky props,such as the two pilots plonked onto the podium to espouse the virtues of its new aircraft. That felt both contrived and uncomfortable – and a bit Alan Joyce-ish.
Qantas’ earnings were down 13 per cent in the half year to December,which was a creditable result given it was pitched against the outsized and unsustainable earnings the carrier produced the same time last year.
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To have bettered or even matched last year’s result would have been a bad look – particularly as the first half in 2023 was achieved on the back of egregiously high fares and poor service.
We now live in unusual corporate times,where over-earning can be considered a sin.
For example,the result was robust enough to elicit condemnation from the Transport Workers’ Union,which claimed Qantas was on its way to an obscene full-year result.