Before Covid, both Qantas and its CEO Alan Joyce were flying high, the darlings of customers, staff and investors. Amid Covid, only money mattered- in particular, the company’s share price and extraordinary executive bonuses. Illegally redundant workers, unethical flight credits, abysmal customer service, antique aircraft: these became Qantas’ new brand.

This is cautionary inside story from Australia of how its national flag carrier Qantas  went from cherished corporate icon to ‘national pariah”, how an attempt to turn a crisis into an opportunity backfired spectacularly. How did an increasingly autocratic, Joyce constantly get his own way, with the Qantas board and with both Liberal and Labor governments, which handed out over billions in subsidies and protected lucrative flight routes from foreign competition? For the first time The Chairman’s Lounge tells the full story of how one company banked the nation’s loyalty and then cashed in on it.

In his celebrate Rear Window column for the Australian Financial Review, Joe Aston’s investigative journalism, unflinching takedown of greed, delusion and a shameless abuse of power, brilliantly incisive detailed reporting of the ethical failings of Qantas spurred the early retirement of its CEO and the resignation of its chairman. With fresh interviews and revelations, written in Aston’s trademark swashbuckling style. This is the most definitive account of how Qantas was brought to the ground and who did it. It is a parable of our times.

The Chairman’s Lounge: The Inside Story of How Qantas Sold Us Out by Joe Aston, Scribner Australia, 368 pages £14.99