Milestone birthday for Qantas in challenging year but airline still ‘broke even’

Qantas turns 100 today, in what has been the aviation industry’s most challenging year yet.

Despite the pandemic, Alan Joyce told Ross and Russel the airline “broke even” this year despite most of their aircrafts being grounded.

“(But) we are a long way to being profitable and we won’t be profitable until we get international and full domestic schedule flights up and running,” the Qantas boss told 3AW.

“Today, we have around 40 per cent of domestic fleets flying.”

Mr Joyce said it was hoped 60 per cent of the domestic schedule was running by Christmas, with borders between Victoria and NSW reopening later this month.

“We want to encourage people to fly domestically,” he said.

“Get all these small tour operators back up and running to help them get some business.

“A lot of people are in distress at the moment, it would be great to help them out.”

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