Andrew Colley | August 21, 2008
QANTAS has imposed a new cost structuring arrangements for its IT spending after reporting an increase in its annual technology budget.
The company has reallocated a large chunk of its annual ICT spending to its marketing operation, shaving around $200 million from its annual computing budget, the airline's full year result released today revealed.
A spokesman for Qantas said that computer reservation systems cost had been reallocated from computing and communications to the airline's sales and marketing division.
The spokesman was unable to provide an explanation for the decision.
"That's an accounting decision we've made. We don't provide a commentary on every line item in the report," he said.
The change came as the company reported a 20 per cent year-on-year jump in its computers and communication spending to reach $382 million for the 12 months to June 30.
The airline reported a $970 million net profit for the year on revenue of around $16.2 billion.
Outgoing Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said that the company would spend $300 million upgrading its engineering and maintenance facilities over the coming year and an additional $120 million on its engineering support systems.
Mr Dixon acknowledged that a recent decompression incident on board a Qantas flight over Manila and an increase in plane delays due to technical faults, had affected the company's bottom line.
He was referring to an incident in which an oxygen bottle aboard a flight over Manila exploded causing the plane to make an emergency landing.
"All of us at Qantas are disappointed with the number of recent incidents and we do not step away from the fact that the incident on QF30 in Manila was very serious.
"And we also don't step away form the fact that the recent industrial action did and still is affecting our operational performance and our punctuality," Mr Dixon said.