00:00 New planes, more seats and a better experience.
00:06 Yes, beautiful aircraft.
00:08 Qantas's new CEO hopes it will improve the airline's turbulent relationship with customers.
00:14 On time performance, reliability and lowering cancellations is number one for them.
00:20 Qantas is also investing in more call centre staff and faster Wi-Fi speeds.
00:26 Vanessa Hudson says airfares have fallen since December 2022.
00:31 They've come down by over 10% across both Qantas and Jetstar,
00:36 across both domestic and also international.
00:39 The airline blamed lower airfares for a 13% fall in profit to $873 million in the six months to December,
00:48 after making a billion dollars in the same period in 2022.
00:53 But those earnings will come under pressure as Qantas plans to spend billions of dollars renewing its fleet.
01:00 They might want to spend some of those profits on getting their flights on time.
01:03 The aviation giant is still facing many headwinds.
01:07 There's a looming ACCC case against the airline,
01:11 alleging it sold customers flights that were already cancelled,
01:15 as well as a class action and calls for the government to consider
01:20 whether it needs to break up Qantas to improve competition.
01:24 Probably a bit late to break them up, but it's worth looking at.
01:30 But another former competition watchdog boss,
01:32 who now works for an aviation industry group, thinks there's enough competition.
01:37 What I want to do is to urge everyone just to take a chill pill
01:41 and wait for the proper bodies, the Productivity Commission, the ACCC and Federal Treasury,
01:47 to give their unbiased reports.
01:50 Then we'll know if there is price gouging.
01:53 Continued pressure on an airline trying to reinvent itself.
01:57 itself.
01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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