Qantas CEO Alan Joyce (Image: AAP/Bianca De Marchi)

After its Easter travel debacle, Qantas is now planning to add fare increases and cancelled flights to the itineraries of holiday-takers.

Buried in its third quarter update this morning was an announcement that Qantas would be cutting services and raising fares in July and August. Why? It blames its need to recoup fuel prices. “Strong demand for international travel — particularly direct long-haul flights — is expected to support recovery of higher fuel prices in the first half of FY23. Recovery of domestic fuel costs will be maximised by capacity reductions and some fare increases during July and August.”

But Qantas — a near-monopolist in the Australian domestic travel market — also assures markets that it has no issues with fuel costs. “The group’s hedging position has provided significant protection from the recent spike in oil prices, giving time to adjust its capacity, schedule and fares in response. Ninety per cent of the group’s fuel needs are hedged for the second half of FY22 at levels below current prices.”

July and August are peak winter-travel months, with hundreds of thousands of southerners from Victoria, Tasmania and NSW flying north to Queensland, the NT and WA. Quite a few people from the eastern states fly to southern areas of WA as well at that time. In terms of school holidays, the most affected states will be NSW, South Australia, WA, Tasmania and the ACT, which have most of the second-term holidays falling in July.

This is the airline that received more than a billion dollars of taxpayer support and subsidies during the pandemic, while sacking thousands of workers and demanding incessantly that borders be reopened regardless of the cost to human lives. When borders were reopened, Qantas, along with airport operators, was woefully unprepared for exactly what it had been demanding for more than a year.

Which politician will call out Alan Joyce and his greedy executives as they plan to inflict more misery on Australian travellers? Though at least there’ll be shorter airport queues in winter given Joyce’s plans to slash services. Call it a novel solution.