The Chairman’s Lounge, by Joe Aston, is the definitive, compelling story of how Qantas was brought to ground and who did it. Photo: Supplied.
The complete title of The Chairman’s Lounge encompasses the full admission at the core of this expose by Australian journalist Joe Aston. It has sparked a lot of controversy lately.
The relationship between Qantas and some Australian politicians has been in the spotlight. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie are among the politicians who have been scrutinised over upgrades on Qantas flights under membership to an elite club – the exclusive Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.
This tome is a fierce polemic on the year-long campaign of investigative commentary on Qantas that ultimately led to the early retirements of chief executive Alan Joyce and chairman Richard Goyder. It grabs your attention, creating dissension over a number of its disclosures.
Aston’s reporting of the ethical failings of Qantas spurred the premature departures. With additional interviews and disclosures, written in Aston’s characteristic intrepid style, The Chairman’s Lounge is the definitive account of how Qantas was brought to ground and who did it. It is a parable of our times.
Before COVID, Qantas and Alan Joyce were ”flying high, the darlings of customers, staff and investors”. After COVID hit, ”only money mattered – in particular, the company’s share price and extraordinary executive bonuses. Illegally redundant workers, unethical flight credits, abysmal customer service, antique aircraft: these became Qantas’ new brand”.
How could things go badly wrong and why were customers at the end of the queue? Aston elaborates on how an increasingly autocratic Joyce constantly got his own way, with the Qantas board and with both Liberal and Labor governments, which handed over billions in subsidies and protected lucrative flight routes from foreign competition. For the first time, The Chairman’s Lounge tells the full story of how one company banked the nation’s loyalty and then cashed in on it.
Aston provides more clarity: “This book is a chronicle of Joyce’s dramatic fall from Australian business legend to outcast. It is a tale of total dominance by one individual and the failure of a whole system; a parable of imbalance whereby loyal customers and staff were sacrificed at the altar of shareholder returns.
“It is the story of how a century-old company went from being one of Australia’s most successful and beloved to a national pariah, over the course of just three-and-a-half years. And it is above all a cautionary tale about power: the wielding of power from the shadows, the blinding power of money, and the soothing power of self-delusion.”
Referred to as one of Australia’s most influential commentators on business, finance and politics, Aston recently left the Australian Financial Review after 12 years in which he transformed its Rear Window column into a celebrated, feared and must-read editorial. It is said he “struck fear into the hearts of the nation’s political and corporate leaders”.
Aston is deeply associated with exposing wrongdoing at Qantas. Perhaps what’s not widely known is that he worked in corporate communications, including at Qantas, early in his career, and even met his future wife there.
This explosive work of narrative non-fiction has also attracted a comment from the publishing director of Simon & Schuster, Ben Ball.
“Joe’s incredible ability to not only break a story but to write about it evocatively made his column essential reading for anyone after the truth about how power, money and influence flow in this country,” Ball said.
“The Chairman’s Lounge will do the same over the long form, telling the bigger story of how one company – and a few key individuals – bought the nation’s loyalty and then cashed in on it.
“Joe’s prose is as rare as his access and insight: razor-sharp, funny and fearless, slicing to expose … He has an eye for the telling detail and the mind for the big picture, which he’s finally able to show us. The Chairman’s Lounge is the definitive, compelling story of greed, power and hubris brought low …”
Aston sets the scene in the preface about – among other things – how the reconfigured Qantas board had stripped $9 million worth of bonuses from Alan Joyce following an array of legal and customer service failures that had consumed the airline in the previous 18 months. At the same time, the board also published an independent report into the governance of the airline, and its findings were scathing.
Aston points out the accusations he had made repeatedly in dozens of columns in the Australian Financial Review between August 2022 and October 2023 were flatly rejected by John Mullen’s [Qantas chairman] predecessor, Richard Goyder. In response, Qantas boycotted AFR and Goyder declared Joyce to be the “best CEO in Australia by the length of a straight”.
The Chairman’s Lounge, by Joe Aston, Simon & Schuster, $36.99
