Qantas restructures in a bid to wrest back the initiative in a turbulent world

Qantas today announced a substantial reorganisation of its management structure designed to create greater accountability and transparency among its different business units. This comes at a time when the international aviation scene is in a greater state of turbulence than ever before, with alliance and partnership relationships reaching a critical stage.

Splitting domestic and international operations into two separate business units and giving each its own separate P&L is not a unique strategy in any industry and arguably at a time like this gives the Group a better handle on formulating strategy for the future.

Coming in the wake of local competitor Virgin Australia dividing its domestic and international businesses into what are effectively separate companies (something that Qantas is unable to do, thanks to political restrictions set in the Qantas Sale Act), this does also set Qantas up for something similar in the future.