Although airline CEOs are often not popular with employees or customers, it is rare that they are targeted in this way…

Alan Joyce’s home was attacked overnight

The home of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and her husband was attacked by protesters (apparently) on Monday night as the outside was covered in eggs, toilet paper and even fruit. It wasn’t discovered until daylight on Tuesday morning.

For context, in May 2022, Joyce moved into the 19 million AUD (~12.8 million USD) home on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. The four-story house was originally built in 1908, but was completely rebuilt in 2015. The house measures 631 square meters (~6,800 square feet) and has six bedrooms.

The optics of Joyce moving into this house ended up being quite controversial, given the extent to which many Qantas employees have been without pay for the past two years during the pandemic. So seeing the CEO move to such a big house probably didn’t send a big message to many in terms of shared sacrifice.

Admittedly, the money used for the house was likely earned long before the pandemic, as Joyce has been one of Australia’s highest-paid executives for years. He’s been CEO of the airline since 2008, so suffice to say he’s had quite a long tenure.

Were employees or customers behind this?

It is not yet known who could be behind this incident, as the culprits were not arrested at the time. Presumably it was someone frustrated with Qantas, but that leaves a lot of people:

• It could have been customers; Qantas hasn’t been exactly quick with flight refunds, nor has Qantas run a reliable operation in recent weeks (like so many airlines)
• It could have been employees; Joyce is known to be quite a ruthless negotiator with work groups, and during the pandemic many employees have been furloughed, with some still not returning to work.

This is the first time something like this has happened to Joyce. However, in 2017, Joyce was stung at a business conference in Perth by a homophobic person who was unhappy with the way Qantas was speaking out for marriage equality.

It goes without saying that attacking someone’s property in this way is unacceptable. That being said (and this is probably a sad reflection of what we’re used to seeing in the US), at least it wasn’t violent.

At the end of the line

The home of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was raided on Monday night, with disgruntled people throwing toilet paper, eggs and fruit into it. It is not yet known who was behind all this, although it could have been either frustrated employees or customers. Qantas isn’t exactly a particularly popular company right now, as it is with so many airlines.