Canberra, 6 November 2026

Good morning and welcome to the Qantas Group’s 2026 Annual General Meeting.

It’s a privilege to be here in Canberra, addressing you as Board Chair.

It’s fitting to bring the meeting of the national carrier back to Australia’s capital.

In October 1946 – 80 years ago – Trans Australia Airlines operated its first flight to Canberra, adding a stop in the capital to its Sydney–Melbourne service.

This was one of the airline’s first routes, providing a critical connection for politicians and the public service, and those visiting this great city.

In 1986 TAA rebranded as Australian Airlines, which then became a part of Qantas in the early 90s.

Canberra’s name has also flown on some of the most important aircraft in our history, including our first Boeing 747 and first 747-400, which were both named City of Canberra.

So, it’s great to be here again and I look forward to taking shareholder questions shortly.

But, I first want to provide an overview of the year we’ve had and the areas where we’re focused for the year ahead, and beyond.

I’ll then pass over to Vanessa to speak about the business in more detail before we take questions from shareholders.

A year of two parts

The 2026 financial year was a year that was split into two distinct periods.

In the first eight months of the year, Qantas and Jetstar both performed strongly, with demand growing across our domestic and international networks, and profitability benefitting from the arrival of more new aircraft.

Then, from late February and just days after management posted our half-year financial results, the conflict in the Middle East pushed fuel prices to record highs and global aviation experienced significant disruption.

Vanessa and the management team moved quickly, adjusting fares and capacity amongst other things, which helped reduce the net impact on earnings for the year to $420 million, despite a fuel bill that was $610 million higher than expected.

The Group would have had a record year if it were not for these events, and despite the very significant fuel impact the Group still delivered a strong Underlying Profit Before Tax for the year of $2.06 billion, down $330 million on the prior year.

Throughout the year, our dual brand strategy, with Qantas and Jetstar, was a real driver of value, providing choice for customers and resilience and flexibility for the Group as we adjusted our operations. Qantas Loyalty was a standout too, growing Underlying EBIT by 12 per cent and providing earnings diversity while the airline businesses carried a higher fuel bill.

Delivering a $2 billion Group profit in a year like this says a great deal about the value of our integrated portfolio.

Delivering for customers and operations

Importantly, despite the challenging end to the year, we also continued to improve the experience for our customers and our employees.

Qantas was named Australia’s most on-time airline for the eighth year in a row and customer satisfaction reached a decade high, as we continued to invest in product and service improvements. Jetstar also saw its Net Promoter Score improve, as customers continued to benefit from its investment in technology, more new aircraft and the first of its refurbished 787s.

As I’ve spoken about before, the Board and management are committed to ensuring Qantas and Jetstar have the trust of our customers, shareholders and people. I know many shareholders will be pleased to hear about this performance alongside the continued strong financial results.

And all of this is helping restore Qantas’ brand amongst customers and the broader community. Qantas’ brand reputation score, measured independently by RepTrak, moved back into the “Strong” category for the first time in four years.

A key driver of this improvement and the experience our customers are having with us is our new aircraft. The Group is investing heavily in new aircraft across Qantas, QantasLink, Qantas Freight and Jetstar.

Shareholder returns and capital

As we continue investing for the future, the Board is also pleased we have been able to reward shareholders again through dividends this year. We returned $700 million in fully franked dividends to shareholders during the financial year.

At our half-year results in February we also announced our intention to undertake a $150 million on-market share buy-back.

The conflict and fuel volatility that followed absorbed the surplus capital that would have funded that and, given that change in conditions, the Board decided not to proceed with the buy-back.

During the year we agreed to sell our one-third stake in Jetstar Japan, so we can redirect that capital into Qantas and Jetstar’s core businesses here in Australia. Pending regulatory approvals, the sale is expected to be completed by June 2027.

I would like to take this opportunity to again stress the importance of our financial framework. Despite challenging economic times and the largest fleet renewal program in the company’s history, we are firmly committed to a conservative approach to debt by keeping our leverage low whilst also ensuring the reliability of dividends on an annual basis. Many airlines take a more aggressive approach, but we believe that maintaining a strong balance sheet is critical to an airline such as the Qantas Group.

Our people and safety

We couldn’t have delivered these results without our people and, on behalf of the Board, I want to thank all of them for the resilience and commitment they have shown this year.

Our frontline employees turn up to work every day in environments where risks exist and keeping them safe remains our number one priority.

As we let you know at last year’s AGM, tragically, a worker died at our Sydney freight terminal in September last year. Our thoughts continue to be with their family, friends and colleagues.

Qantas Freight conducted a comprehensive investigation and has made changes to its systems, controls and safety culture as a result. SafeWork NSW is conducting its own investigation, and we are cooperating with them.

Board renewal

We also continued with our Board renewal during the year, welcoming Alison Watkins as an independent non-executive director in March.

Alison’s executive and Board experience spans prominent consumer brands and some of Australia’s largest businesses. She is standing for election today.

Belinda Hutchinson and Tony Tyler are standing for re-election. Both joined the Qantas Group Board in 2018 and their experience has provided valuable continuity through a period of considerable renewal at both the Board and management level.

You’ll hear from them shortly.

We’ll continue to add new talent to the Board and I look forward to keeping you updated.

Remuneration

I’d now like to briefly speak to remuneration, which Nora will cover in more detail shortly.

Ahead of the AGM, the majority of the proxy advisors published voting advice in support of all resolutions being tabled today.

One proxy advisor, ISS, recommended against this year’s Remuneration Report, and I would like to briefly address this now.

As mentioned before, until the Middle East conflict the company was tracking towards a record result and management was likely to have received a maximum short-term incentive award, or STI.

Despite management’s prodigious efforts to reduce the impact, the increase in fuel cost beyond their control led to management missing the threshold level for a STI payout by just 1.7% – $36 million on a result of over $2 billion.

Boards have a strong governance responsibility, but we are not supposed to be policemen – we are also charged with attracting, retaining, and motivating top executive talent and this involves making judgement calls on what is best for shareholders.

In that light, while we have a strong track record of exercising negative discretion where this was warranted, occasionally it falls to a board to exercise positive discretion as well. Qantas management delivered an extraordinarily strong result in FY26 across almost all areas of performance and to zero out the entirety of their financial STI component because of external events over which they had no control but worked extremely hard to mitigate, in our view, would have been demotivating to the team and very much against shareholders’ interests. For this reason, the Board allowed a small adjustment that, while far below what they would have received had fuel prices remained roughly in line with the pre-conflict level, nonetheless recognised the prodigious efforts made by management to still deliver a very strong result across almost all metrics.

I strongly believe that boards have a responsibility to use their judgement on all important matters both positively and negatively, and to not simply follow pre-set guidelines or ignore the real-world context in which guidelines are set.

Looking ahead

In summary, the last year has been a period of progress despite material cost pressures and disruption that could have steered many organisations off course.

Vanessa and the management team have done a terrific job in both managing the challenges and taking the opportunities the year has presented.

With our largest-ever fleet renewal delivering increasing value, a strong balance sheet and one of the world’s best airline loyalty programs, the Board is confident the Group is well placed for the years ahead.

In closing, I want to thank our shareholders, customers and partners for your support over the past year, and the teams across the Group for their hard work.