CEO Alan Joyce and prime minister Tony Abbott have spoken of the tax’s $106m impact, yet its net effect was zero
Political debate has focused on whether Qantas has changed its tune about the impact of an “unrecovered” $106m carbon tax bill on its current financial difficulties – a tax bill the government insists is a direct “hit” on Qantas and its workers.
But on closer questioning it turns out Qantas does not have a $106m “unrecovered” carbon tax bill at all.
According to a spokesman, Qantas recovered all of that $106m through the ticket surcharge it imposed at the time of the carbon tax introduction. The net effect of the carbon tax itself on the airline’s bottom line was therefore zero. Qantas maintains the sum is “unrecovered” because its ticket prices have fallen by more than the surcharge due to the fierce capacity war it is waging with arch rival Virgin.
But the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, has suggested that if the carbon tax is repealed, airlines such as Qantas are also likely to be forced to remove the surcharges they are levying to pay for it – which would mean the airline’s bottom line would be no better off after repeal.
Qantas’s chief executive, Alan Joyce, said this week “the carbon tax has been a big cost for us. It’s $106m last year. It’s going to be over that again this year. And it is absolutely one of the factors that is impacting the airline.”
The Qantas website says “when the carbon price was introduced, Qantas added a small surcharge to domestic fares to reflect the impact on our cost base and attempt to recover some of that cost. Since 1 July 2012, this cost recovery has been unsustainable due to the challenging conditions in the Australian aviation industry. The table below indicates the estimated impact of the carbon price on Qantas per passenger, per sector, rather than any additional revenue we are collecting,” it says above a table showing a surcharge of between $1.93 and $7.25 depending on the length of the flight.
