The Qantas Group has revealed that the airline’s head of International services will leave the group as overseas flights will continue to remain grounded until at least mid-2021.

In an official press release, Qantas Airways announced a reduction of its group management committee as part of its response to the expanding COVID-19 crisis. Tino La Spina, the CEO of Qantas International, will leave the Group in light of what is likely to be the extended grounding of this part of the airline.

“Tino has done a superb job throughout his 14 years at Qantas. He’s a talented executive who brings his trademark enthusiasm to every challenge. I know I speak for the rest of the executive team and for the Board in thanking him sincerely for the huge contribution he has made, particularly as Deputy CFO and then CFO for most of that time“, said Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas Group.

The Group announced that it made the decision to consolidate the domestic and international business units under a single divisional CEO. Whilst John Gissing, the Group executive of associated airlines and service, will continue to have a responsibility for the regional carrier QantasLink, the responsibilities currently held by La Spina, who leaves at the of August, will transfer to Andrew David, the CEO of Qantas Domestic. As it is stated by the CEO of Qantas Group, it will make significant changes in David’s role in the Group as a result, adding new responsibilities for Qantas International in addition to his existing duties for Qantas Domestic and Qantas Freight.

According to the airline’s official statement released earlier in July 2020, Australian flag carrier planned to cut 6,000 jobs, that equated to about a fifth of the airline’s workforce prior to the crisis, as well as grounding 100 planes for a year or even more. Around 4,000 of its 6,000 planned job cuts are expected to be finalised by the end of September 2020.

The airline planned to be back to 40% of its pre-crisis domestic flying by July 2020, but, as the CEO of Qantas Group said, international routes would take much longer to return.

“The COVID-19 crisis is forcing us to rethink our business at every level. It’s increasingly clear that our international flights will be grounded until at least mid-2021 and it will take years for activity to return to what it was before“, said Joyce.

As another strategic crisis response, the Qantas group management committee took three months of zero pay in the last quarter of FY20 and is on reduced pay (65% for the CEO and 85% for other executives) until November 2020, reported the airline.