Ex-Qantas CEO Alan Joyce takes a bow for keeping the airline in business during Covid despite a huge taxpayer handout - as he defends the infamous 'ghost flights' it sold to customers

By ASHLEY NICKEL, NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA Published: 16:01, 26 July 2026 | Updated: 16:20, 26 July 2026 Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has continued defending some the airline's controversial choices during the height of the Covid crisis. Joyce, who will be releasing his memoir on Monday, appeared as guest on 60 Minutes with veteran reporter Tracy Grimshaw on Sunday night. During the sit down, Grimshaw questioned Joyce about his views on Qantas invoking $120million in penalties for selling so-called 'ghost flights' during the pandemic. Qantas had been accused by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) of selling tickets aboard thousands of flights which it had already cancelled, sometimes days or weeks beforehand. While Joyce had aggressively fought the ACCC over the claims, his successor as Qantas CEO, Vanessa Hudson, agreed to pay the $100million fine from the ACCC along with another $20million in customer compensation. Joyce wouldn't talk ill of his replacement, but said that period of the pandemic had been 'chaos' with 'over 400,000 passengers we were trying to re-accommodate' through the businesses overwhelmed call centres. 'We thought that we were doing the right thing by the customer at the time... there was a lot of commentary that this was 'fee for no service'. 'That that wasn't the case. Every domestic customer that booked travelled on the same day - either an hour after the flight or before the flight, and 98 per cent of the international customers did.' Former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce (above) defended the 'ghost flights' sold by Qantas during the Covid pandemic, despite his successor having settled the legal battle Tracy Grimshaw (above) questioned whether Joyce thought Qantas' current CEO, Vanessa Hudson, 'rolled over' by paying the fine for the flights He argued the cancelled flights, which the airline sold tickets aboard, were actually a promise from Qantas to 'deliver you on a flight as close as approximate to that'. Grimshaw pointed out: 'You're still defending the ghost flights and yet Vanessa Hudson rolled over on that with the ACCC and copped a $100million fine and paid $20million in compensation. It cost Qantas a lot of money.' Grimshaw then asked Joyce if he thought Hudson 'made a mistake'. 'Vanessa is absolutely fantastic, she's doing a great job as CEO, so you won't get me ever criticising Vanessa,' Joyce said. Joyce admitted he made mistakes as CEO - a job which he held for more than a decade before Covid hit - but that 'we got more things right than we got wrong' in the pandemic, which avoided what he claimed the real chance of Qantas going bust.  During the pandemic the national carrier received $2.7billion of taxpayer-funded government support, which it was not required to pay back. More than $800million of that was Jobseeker payments and the rest was for maintaining minimum domestic flights and freight services. After the 'ghost flights' episode in late 2020, the airline illegally fired 1,820 ground workers. Qantas claimed the workers were legitimately sacked to favour of cheaper, outsourced labour but the Federal Court disagreed. Joyce also defended the dismissal of almost 2,000 ground workers because the alternative was 'Qantas going bankrupt' Joyce (above) repeatedly defended the decision to sack the workers, which was later found by teh Federal Court to be illegal The court ruled in favour of the Transport Workers' Union and found the airline purposely fired the workers shortly before contract negotiations were set to begin in order to prevent industrial action. Qantas was ultimately ordered to pay a $90million and $120million in compensation. However, Joyce defended the decision on 60 Minutes as the only way to ensure Qantas' survival. 'I'm sitting here, not apologising for Qantas going bankrupt. It could have - 40 airlines worldwide did,' he said. When asked why he never made an appearance in court or mention in Qantas' documents, Joyce said: 'I take ultimate responsibility for every decision, as I've said, but we were in the middle of a crisis. 'There wasn't the opportunity for us to make documented decisions on everything and we don't do that when you're moving that fast. 'We made mistakes, we made errors, but at the end of the day I think we made more right decisions than wrong decisions. 'That's why Qantas is still around.'