Embattled Australian flag carrier Qantas yesterday said it would split its loss-making international arm from its domestic operations as part of a drive to turn around its fortunes.
Each of the two entities, currently combined as Qantas Airways, will run as separate businesses from July, with their own chief executives and reporting of financial results.
The move follows an 83 percent slump in first-half net profit in the six months to December and a day after it announced the loss of 500 maintenance and engineering jobs.
The airline said the restructure would “enable a greater focus on the priorities of turning around the Qantas international business and enhancing the strong Qantas domestic business.”
It was welcomed by the markets, with Qantas shares gaining 2.8 percent to A$1.47.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce remains in overall charge and said the transformation would strengthen the airline and help it deliver its strategic goals.
“Formally separating the -management of Qantas international and Qantas domestic will ensure that we can independently run each business according to its specific priorities and market conditions,” he said.
“These measures give us the right structure to address the challenges and opportunities we face — and the right people,” he said.
He added he was determined to stem the decline in the international business, which recorded losses of A$200 million (US$200 million) in the 2010 to 2011 fiscal year, hit hard by weak demand and soaring fuel costs.
“We are committed to turning it around ... based on flying to global gateways, deeper alliances, smart investment in product and disciplined capital management,” he said.
A series of executive changes were also announced, with Bruce Buchanan — the long-time head of Qantas’ successful budget offshoot Jetstar, who had been seen as a potential successor to Joyce — leaving after a six-month transition period.
He plans to work “with other Australian companies seeking to expand into growth markets within Asia.”
Simon Hickey, who is in charge of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, was appointed chief executive of the international business, while Qantas operations boss Lyell Strambi will run the domestic arm.
The latest development in Joyce’s plan to turn around Qantas’ fortunes comes a day after he announced 500 jobs would be axed in its heavy maintenance and engineering operations.
In the reorganization, Qantas will cease heavy maintenance at Tullamarine airport in Melbourne by August, with work being consolidated in Avalon, another facility nearby, and in Brisbane.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts