Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas, is a big believer in the airline’s traditional markets, the US and the UK.
He says the Chinese market has huge opportunities but so far it’s still a market with low yield and high volume.
“The greatest growth for Qantas over the next three to five years – we still believe – is in the traditional markets,” he says in an interview for PwC’s annual Australian CEO survey.
“The United States is a huge market for Qantas. We’ve added extra capacity: about 100 frequencies over the peak period, because we see good strength coming out of the US market.
“We still have a big operation into London and we see the UK market also as an area of potential growth going forward.”
Qantas is expected to hit profit of between $300 million and $350 million in the six months to the end of December 2014.
The strong turnaround is being driven by rapid progress in a $2 billion restructuring program including a loss of 5,000 jobs. Qantas says all targets have been either met or exceeded.
The airline is also benefiting from fall oiling prices.