Qantas cuts cost for tech refresh

Qantas has made the best of a flat IT budget in the last fiscal year, cutting costs across the board to fund projects specifically geared at driving "transformational change."

The airline group announced profits of $377 million for the fiscal year to June 30, 2010.

Chief executive Alan Joyce was pleased with the result considering the $46 million impact of Iceland's volcano that shut down European airspace in April, geopolitical dramas in Thailand and increased competition in the domestic market.

The company reported IT and communications expenditure of $405 million, compared to $406 million reported in the previous fiscal year.

Qantas' overall costs came in 6.6 percent lower (from $14.2 billion to 13.3 billion), driven in part by its QFuture business transformation program.

QFuture is a series of projects aimed at ensuring future profitability at the airline, which Joyce expected to save $1.5 billion over three years.

Whilst some of the spending cutbacks impacted IT, the airline reported that some savings were also poured back into IT projects.

In the last fiscal year, savings from the program "enabled a range of technology savings", the airline said in its annual report, "including Next Generation Check-in and key system upgrades in QFF [Qantas Frequent Flyer], Engineering, Freight and Jetstar."

The company reported that it achieved "Net IT cash savings" of $82 million over the fiscal year from the program.