• Qantas has revealed that it has lost more than $16 billion in revenue since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
• Grinding flights to a halt, the pandemic is expected to see Qantas announce another pre-tax loss this financial year of $2 billion, following $2.7 billion in the last one.
• To compensate, CEO Alan Joyce announced the airline would cut $1 billion in annual costs via a two-year freeze on wages and a redundancy program for international flight crews.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Australia’s largest airline has haemorrhaged billions of dollars while it contends with not being able to fly free.

On Thursday, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce confirmed just how much the carrier had lost over the last 14 months while restrictions hamstrung its domestic operation and completely shutdown its international arm.

“The pandemic will have cost us at least $16 billion since the start of 2020, in lost revenue, by the end of this financial year,” Joyce said.

He revealed the company expects to make a pre-tax loss of $2 billion this financial year, after a $2.7 billion loss in the period prior. All the while it is maintaining a workforce that effectively can’t work.

“We still have 6,000 of our international employees stood down. Of course, we want more back, but this is a huge improvement on where we’ve been,” he added.

Wielding the blood loss as justification, Joyce also revealed the airline would commence a cost-cutting program aimed at reducing company outlay by $1 billion every year.

The first casualties of this look to be staff, many of whom had been supported by JobKeeper until April. Qantas announced it would freeze wage increases for the next two years and would open up a voluntary redundancy program to its international cabin crew to reduce its headcount further.

It has already culled many of its staff, confirming it was 90% through its previously announced redundancy program designed to get rid of 8,500 jobs. In other words, it has already given more than 7,600 employees the flick.

The unions have long challenged Qantas on the job cuts at the same time they receive bumper support from the taxpayer. On Thursday, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) again rallied against the airline.

“Qantas management is acting like a dictator, using public resources to shore up its position, cut jobs and impose unilateral decisions on its workforce,” national secretary Michael Kaine said in a statement.

Kaine said job cuts flew in the face of the fact that airline would receive $2 billion in federal funding this year and significant concessions from New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland.

“We cannot see the benefit of this funding for the public when it continually results in job losses, outsourced workers and lower wages. We clearly need direct control over this critical infrastructure so that taxpayers don’t keep getting blind-sided by a crazy corporation that seems to believe we are living in the Republic of Qantas,” Kaine said.

Despite the cost cutting program, Qantas expects conditions to improve from here on out.

“We have a long way still to go in this recovery, but it does feel like we’re slowly starting to turn the corner,” Joyce said, anticipating the domestic travel market would double in the first six months of this year relative to the last six months of 2020.

On the international front, it appears the aviation sector is in talks with the Morrison government over vaccine passports, an issue that has previously landed Qantas in hot water. On Thursday, Joyce subtly pushed the government to get its act together so borders could reopen.

“[The risk] flips to Australia being left behind when countries like the US and UK are getting back to normal,” he said. “Australia has to put the same intensity into the vaccine rollout as we’ve put on lockdowns and restrictions, because only then will we have the confidence to open up.”

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