Qantas has made sweeping changes to its senior executive ranks with the heads of its Domestic and International operations heading for the departure gate as part of a major restructure.

Lyell Strambi, who runs Qantas Domestic, and the head of Qantas International Simon Hickey will leave the company once the new structure is in place by March 2015, Qantas said in a statement released on Friday afternoon.

In their place, Andrew David has been promoted to the chief executive of Qantas Domestic from his current position of Qantas chief operating officer, while current Qantas chief financial officer Gareth Evans moves across to run Qantas International.

Current QantasLink chief executive John Gissing gets an expanded role as group executive of associated airlines and services. He will keep responsibility for the regional carrier, as well as New Zealand-based Jetconnect and fly-in/fly-out operator Network Aviation.

Evans’ replacement as chief financial officer will be Tino La Spina, who is currently the deputy chief financial officer.

And Robert Marcolina will have an expanded role as group executive for strategy, transformation and IT.
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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has granted interim authorisation to Qantas (ASX:QAN) and American Airlines so they can introduce additional joint services between Australia and the US under an expansion of their alliance.

“The ACCC considers that granting interim authorisation is likely to lead to additional capacity on the Sydney to Los Angeles route, and increased capacity and competition on the Sydney to San Francisco route,” ACCC Commissioner Dr Jill Walker said.

“This is likely to result in benefits to passengers that wish to use these services. Further, granting interim authorisation is unlikely to have any permanent impact on the market that could not be reversed in the event final authorisation is not granted.”

Interim authorisation is not indicative of whether or not final authorisation will be granted.

A Jetstar plane from Bali has landed safely in Perth after experiencing problems with its brake fault indicator.

Qantas has managed to secure additional slots and squeeze a bit more out of its international fleet to increase its Sydney-Hong Kong service to double-daily from the start of the “northern summer” scheduling season in April.
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The move to 14 flights a week starts on April 4 and continues until May 1, before dropping back to 13 flights a week for about two and a half months. The twice daily frequency resumes from July 18 to October 29.

Qantas said in a statement on Thursday the increase to double-daily was designed to maximise the available landing slots at Hong Kong International Airport during the “northern summer” scheduling period.

Moving to two flights a day on the Sydney-Hong Kong route has been an ambition of the airline for some time. However, a lack of available slots meant the airline was only able to grow from seven to 11 flights a week in October 2015.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said it was the slot situation rather than the bilateral air services agreement between Hong Kong and Australia that was hindering Qantas’s efforts to grow its operations in the territory.
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