QANTAS: If Alan Joyce had more confidence in his performance, he could have made even more money

I am following up on my previous post regarding Alan Joyce’s final payment. The AFR has pointed out in its Rear Window column that Alan Joyce could have made much more money if he had not sold off 80% of his Qantas shares before he left the airline back in 2023. If he truly had confidence in both his own right-siding of the future of Qantas and believed his expressed confidence in his successor, Vanessa Hudson, he would have made a lot more money.

Background

Alan Joyce may have left Qantas in 2023 under a cloud of court cases, angry customers and a reputation in tatters, but that hasn’t stopped him from enjoying a very comfortable send-off. Thanks to a long-term incentive scheme that somehow survived the great bonus cull of 2024. Thanks to his successor’s effective management of Qantas, Joyce has just pocketed another $3.8 million in shares.

The bonus that lived

The payout comes from 354,000 shares that formed part of Joyce’s 2023–2025 long-term incentive plan. While much of his bonuses were scrapped as Qantas’ scandals mounted — ghost flights, illegal sackings, hoarded credits — this one was left untouched. And wouldn’t you know it? Qantas cleared the hurdles for payout with ease: top-quartile performance on the ASX and top-quartile returns against global aviation peers.

Trouble is, Joyce can’t really claim credit. He left the airline in September 2023. The heavy lifting has been done since then by his successor, Vanessa Hudson, who inherited lawsuits, a AU$15 billion fleet bill, and a brand name that had, frankly, plunged into the sewer.

Hudson does the work, Joyce gets rewarded

Under Hudson’s watch, Qantas settled its court battles, copping record penalties along the way. She also started a long-overdue fleet refresh and steadied the airline’s operations. The share price has nearly doubled to AU$11.85, peaking at AU$12.12 in August — far above anything achieved during Joyce’s reign.

Had Joyce’s 354,000 shares been cashed out at the time of his resignation, they would have been worth $1.96 million. Instead, he’s walked away with nearly $4 million. A windfall made possible by Hudson’s turnaround, not his own management.

Selling low, missing high

Ironically, Joyce himself didn’t back Qantas’ “bright future” which were his words about his successor Vanessa Hudson. He sold more than 80% of his personal shareholding, $17 million worth, in June 2023. That was just before the ACCC’s ghost flights case became public and tanked the stock by 27%. If he had held tight and let Ms Hudson weave her apparent magic, those shares would have doubled to over $30 million.

So much for having faith in the airline he claimed was “fundamentally strong.”

2PAXfly Takeout

Alan Joyce earned more than AU$113 million during his 15 years at the top, a mixed legacy of financial survival during COVID but reputational free-fall in the years that followed.

His latest AU$3.8 million payday underlines the irony of executive bonuses: sometimes you get paid handsomely not for your own performance, but for the efforts of the person who comes in to clean up the mess.