Aviation veteran and consultant Peter Harbison has many accolades – founder of CAPA, aviation lawyer and commentator, and of course, author. His new book, ‘Alan Joyce and Qantas: The Trials and Transformation of an Australian Icon’ contains all the ingredients of a corporate thriller, filled with constant shocks to the system and boardroom drama.
But despite all the corporate chaos, Harbison’s book tells a deeply human story – of a man at the peak of a monumental industry, navigating arguably the most turbulent years in aviation history.
In this episode, Siew Hoon (Founder, WiT) chats with Harbison, whom she calls a mentor, about not only the professional trials of Alan Joyce, but the often-ignored emotional element of people in high places. As the saying goes – it’s lonely at the top.
Listen to the episode here
“I remember being back at university a long time ago and our politics lecturer talking to us about a study he’d done of politicians and senior politicians, leaders of government, often, and when it came to making decisions, how they so frequently talked about how lonely they were in doing it,” says Harbison in the episode. He continues, “Because you realise that even though you’ve got highly talented people around you, when it comes to the crunch, you’ve got to make those calls, however good the advice is, you’ve got to make the difficult decisions.”
Of course, there’s another famous saying, one about power and responsibility, both of which were severely tested during Joyce’s tenure when the pandemic happened a few years ago. While Harbison’s book makes no excuses for some of the controversies that Qantas landed itself in, his documentation of Joyce’s position during a deeply challenging time is refreshingly objective.
“That’s one of the biggest things for an airline CEO; you have so little control over what goes on you”, says Harbison. “Just rewinding to COVID, they got their experts to assess how long it would take to run out of cash. And they worked out about six months. It came to fruition in about six weeks, instead of six months. And they worked out that they had till the end of next month before they ran out of cash and the airline shut down entirely.”
Siew Hoon also asks the serious question – why are there so few women in aviation, to which Harbison responds with some honest albeit harsh truths. The two also talk about life Down Under and yet another book that Harbison is currently working on.
It’s all here in this special whopper of an episode.
