Our community

Since Qantas was founded in the Queensland outback in 1920, we’ve been proud to help the communities we serve. From assisting in times of natural disaster to providing an international platform to showcase the best our country has to offer, the Qantas Group continues to make a significant social and economic contribution.

This tradition continued as Australia dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. Qantas operated hundreds of international repatriation flights on behalf of the Federal Government to bring Australians home from various hotspots including Chennai, Delhi, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Paris and Vancouver, and maintain vital links with Pacific island nations and Timor-Leste.

With the support of the Federal Government, we also operated thousands of freight flights to assist Australian exporters. These flights have helped to support 160,000 jobs in export industries, delivering more than 18 million kilos of freight to key international markets.

With COVID-related border closures rendering most flights commercially unviable, Qantas and Jetstar also operated domestic flights on behalf of the government. These maintained critical transport links for people and goods – including essential medical supplies.

As Australia recovers from the COVID crisis, the Qantas Group has a significant role to play in reconnecting communities and helping bring the tourism industry back to life. Doing this will, in turn, drive our own recovery and our ability to keep serving regional communities, championing diversity and reconciliation, and promoting the best of Australia to the world.

Despite the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the aviation industry, as the national carrier, the Qantas Group continues to have an integral role in the Australian economy. We remain a major employer and the biggest private promoter of local tourism. 

Qantas kept the country connected and critical freight moving through the COVID-19 pandemic, helping Australian producers distribute their produce around the world. We also ensured charter flying was able to continue in Western Australia and Queensland, enabling the resources sector to keep operating. 

In its most recent report, Deloitte Access Economics found that (pre-COVID) the Qantas Group had a $25.9 billion impact on the Australian economy. This included indirect economic impact adding up to $12.8 billion, or 0.7 per cent of Australian GDP, as well as $13.1 billion of tourism spending throughout the country.

• As the national carrier, we are proud to support Australian businesses by showcasing their products across the country and around the world. We spent over $2.8 billion with Australian based suppliers in FY21, representing 66 per cent of total procurement expenditure. We recognise the importance of supporting regional communities and do business with more than 750 suppliers in regional areas.
• The Qantas Group has Australia's largest regional footprint by network, fleet and capacity connecting local communities and economies. Since the start of the pandemic and the closure of international borders, the Group as announced more than 50 new domestic routes – many to regional destinations.
• We're proud to count many Australian small businesses among our suppliers. We recognise that prompt, reliable payments can help small suppliers remain viable and even expand and create jobs, so we've signed up to the Business Council of Australia (BCA) Australian Supplier Payment CodeOpens external site in a new window.  
  

Helping the tourism sector is crucial to the recovery of the broader Australian economy. We're supporting this through marketing partnerships with federal, state and territory governments both internationally and domestically, in addition to our own extensive marketing and media strategy.

Qantas’ vision for reconciliation is a shared national identity that celebrates the knowledge and cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We believe this will be achieved through greater social, economic and cultural inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Qantas is dedicated to creating work and training opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses into our supply chain, and telling the stories of the First Australians. We're proud to be a member of the Elevate RAP community. 

Sustainable, meaningful employment is critical to our vision for reconciliation. Through our career and development opportunities, we aim to remove barriers to employment and promotion, and to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to contribute within their communities and in the workplace.

At Qantas, we recognise the mutual benefit of doing business with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suppliers. In 2018, we joined the Supply Nation and Business Council of Australia initiative 'Raising the Bar' and announced our commitment to procure three percent of our annual contestable spend from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander suppliers by the end of FY24. Despite the challenging operating environment, we are still on track to meet our FY24 target.

In 2019, Qantas joined other organisations to provide public support for The Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Qantas has long supported constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to allow continuity of Voice, and the opportunity to make real, long-term change.

Qantas, alongside many other Australian companies, engages on a range of social issues, from gender diversity and LGBTQI+ inclusion to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's reconciliation. Our identity is the Spirit of Australia, and one of the most fundamental values in this country is the notion of a 'fair 'go', which is why we speak up on important social issues.