Good morning everyone and welcome to the Qantas Financial Year 2025 Investor and Analyst Briefing. My name is Filip Kidon and I'm.
The Group Head of Investor Relations in the Qantas Group.
I'd also like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I'd like to now hand over to our Group Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson.
Thank you, Phil. Good morning to everyone online and thank you for joining us today at the Group Full Year 2025 Investor and Analyst Briefing. I'm joined by Rob Marcolina, our Chief Financial Officer, who will assist me in presenting our full year results here today. We are also joined by the group leadership team. We have Stephanie Tully, who is the CEO of the Jetstar Group, Markus Svensson, the CEO of Qantas Domestic, Cam Wallace, the CEO of Qantas International and Freight, Rachel Yangoyan, the CEO of QantasLink, Danielle Keighery, our Chief Corporate Affairs and Communications Officer, Catriona Larritt, our Chief Customer and Digital Officer, Catherine Walsh, our Chief People Officer, Andrew Monaghan, our Chief Risk Officer, Fiona Messent, our Chief Sustainability Officer, and our new General Counsel and Company Secretary, Kate Towey. Today's briefing will be in audio only format.
Rob and I will take you through a number of key slides from our materials lodged earlier today and then we will open up for questions. We will start today on slide four of our main presentation deck. Our results highlight this year has been one of delivery. We have focused on delivering against our strategic priorities, renewing our fleet, investing in our customers and people, and delivering for shareholders, all this whilst maintaining our financial strength. Underlying profit before tax for the year was $2.39 billion, up $316 million on last year. Underlying earnings per share were $1.10, up 20% on last year. Operating cash flows were strong at $4.3 billion. The board has also approved final dividends for the year made up of a base dividend of $250 million and a special dividend of $150 million. Both are fully franked. Our performance for this year highlights three things.
Firstly, the enduring demand for travel across Australia and internationally. Secondly, the reinforcing strength of our integrated portfolio, which includes a premium airline, a low fares airline, and a world leading loyalty program. Thirdly, the emerging benefits to our customers, people, and shareholders as we execute one of the largest fleet renewal programs in our history. Our fleet renewal program is accelerating. Across this year we invested $3.9 billion on fleet and other projects. This included 29 aircraft joining the fleet. Of these, 17 were next generation technology, including our first A321XLR for Qantas, five A220s for QantasLink, and seven Airbus A321LRs for Jetstar. With Jetstar's A321LR fleet now reaching 20 aircraft, we're seeing substantial benefits in financial performance, customer experience, and emissions reduction. These aircraft are also creating new opportunities for our people and enabling the launch of new profitable routes.
Today we also announced a further expansion of our fleet investment in the A321XLR. Excitingly, 16 of these aircraft will be fitted with lie-flat seats for business class and seatback entertainment screens. This configuration is designed to enhance comfort on longer domestic and short-haul Qantas International routes. We've continued to build momentum throughout the year across all customer-focused metrics. This includes operational performance and reputation scores. Our Qantas net promoter score, or NPS, lifted 10 points against last year and Jetstar lifted six points over the same period. Operationally, we saw strong improvements and in the domestic market both Qantas and Jetstar reached 80% or higher on on-time performance for the last quarter, whilst customer satisfaction improved.
The next 12 months continue to be exciting with new fleet, new lounges in L.A., Auckland, and Sydney, international business class, seamless digital experiences including a relaunch of the Qantas website, continued rollout of Wi-Fi across our international fleet, and further investment in our existing fleet with significant cabin refresh programs for Qantas A330s and Jetstar 787s. At this point, I want to acknowledge the cyber incident that occurred in June where cybercriminals accessed the data of almost 6 million customers and frequent flyers. Importantly, we took steps to communicate with customers quickly, put additional protections in place, and maintain customer support. We know that this was distressing for customers and we will continue to provide support as required. Turning to our people, they are the true stars of today's result and as a management team we're committed to improving connections with our people.
Whilst there is more to do, it's been great to see an uplift in our engagement scores reflecting efforts to date. We continue to invest in people through frontline training, improved staff travel, uniform launches, and frontline technology devices. During the first half, we announced a thank you payment to non-executive employees totaling $29 million. Building on this, today we are pleased to announce the launch of a new and ongoing employee share ownership plan. The plan will allocate $1,000 worth of shares annually to approximately 25,000 eligible employees and will be subject to financial hurdles. We're excited to offer our people shares and look forward to them participating in the value creation going forward. Turning now to slide five. As I mentioned at the start, the strength of today's result continues to reflect the integrated value across our group.
I'll now provide an overview of business performance and the CEOs of each segment will also give their perspectives during the Q and A. Group Domestic saw strong underlying performance with EBIT of $1.52 billion, up 12% versus the prior year, and an EBIT margin of 14%. Group Domestic capacity grew by 1%. This was impacted by Tropical Cyclone Alfred in the second half. Strong demand supported RASK, which was up 4%, with seat factor improving across Qantas and Jetstar. The dual brand strategy enabled the group to drive strong performance across all market segments including business purpose, premium, and low fare leisure. Jetstar Domestic delivered a standout performance with earnings up 55% along with a 16% margin, above its margin target. We spoke at the first half results that fleet renewal is behind Jetstar's success. We have seen this flow into the second half.
Qantas Domestic also saw strong demand and continued recovery of business purpose travel, contributing to a strong RASK outcome for the year. Qantas achieved domestic operating margins of 14% despite capacity constraints and its ongoing investment in entry into service of its new fleet. Whilst the Qantas fleet renewal is just starting, we are seeing strong signs of the financial, operational, and customer benefits in the A220 fleet. Now turning to Group International, Group International inclusive of freight saw positive underlying performance with EBIT up 20% to $903 million and an EBIT margin of 8%. Capacity for Group International airlines increased 12%. This growth reflects the ongoing restoration of capacity across both airlines. It also includes Jetstar's profitable expansion into new routes made possible by its fleet renewal. Jetstar International reached operating margins of 13%, also above its margin targets.
For Qantas International, we continue to see strong demand, particularly in premium cabins on our long haul routes. Pleasingly, we have seen Qantas International RASK inflect in Q4 in line with our expectations despite the uncertainties driven by U.S. tariff announcements. Qantas Freight has also returned to earnings growth this year. This was driven by fleet transformation with new dedicated A321 and A330 freighters driving earnings benefits now. Underlying EBIT for Qantas Loyalty was $556 million. It was not up five, no oh correct was $556 million, up 9% on the prior year. Points earned were up 10% and points redeemed grew 8%. Classic Plus continued its rollout this year, now available across both domestic and international networks. One in four members redeeming with Classic Plus had not redeemed a flight reward since 2019.
Program engagement continues to improve with active members up 8% year on year and members earning across two or more categories was up 2 points. The team led by Andrew are constantly looking at new ways to earn and redeem and innovate. For our members this is the loyalty flywheel in action and expect more to come. I will hand to Rob.
Thanks Vanessa and good morning everyone. We are now on slide 10. As Vanessa said, our fleet renewal is well underway. Whilst we're only partway through, the customer, operational, financial, and emissions benefits are clear. Jetstar's A321LR fleet has now reached scale with 20 aircraft delivering significant earnings benefits and an NPS uplift. It has also supported profitable growth and unlocked new opportunities for the network. This includes routes like Perth to Phuket. It has also allowed our existing 787s to stretch their legs, deploying onto longer and more profitable flying. Qantas A220 transition has also commenced and we are already seeing tangible benefits. The fleet achieved the highest NPS across.
The domestic fleet in the last quarter.
We remain confident on its ability.
To deliver up to 9 million uplift.
In EBITDA per aircraft once it reaches scale. QantasLink has also made progress on its turbo fleet refresh. The simplification of its aircraft mix and the retirement of older planes has reduced costs and improved operational efficiency, and this has improved reliability and connections into regional Australia. We'll now turn to slide 12 as we look forward. Project Sunrise is now very much on the horizon, pardon the pun. Our first A350-1000 ultra-long-haul is about to enter final assembly and will be here in just over 12 months' time. Flights are expected to launch by the last quarter of financial year 2027 with tickets on sale about a year in advance. We previously said that Project Sunrise is expected to deliver $400 million in incremental earnings once the fleet reaches scale. Whilst the benefits come from point-to-point ultra-long-haul flying, there is also upside from network optimization and incremental freight capacity.
This year's performance of the 789 network, predominantly ultra-long-haul flying, reinforces our confidence, and as Project Sunrise fast becomes a reality, our belief in the business case has only increased. We'll now turn to slide 17, our group financial metrics. FY 2025 underlying profit before tax was $2.394 billion, up 15% versus FY 2024. Statutory profit after tax was $1.61 billion, up 28% compared to FY 2024. The statutory result includes an $85 million increase in legal provisions related to the ground handling federal court case, and the group's operating margin was 11.1%, up 0.7 points on last year. On the balance sheet for the year, operating cash flow was strong at $4.3 billion, up 24% on the prior period. Net debt ended the year at $5 billion, just below the middle of our target net debt range at $4.6 billion- $5.7 billion.
Net capital expenditure was $3.9 billion in line with our guidance, and there were $431 million of share buybacks completed during the year as well as $400 million of dividends paid, taking total paid dividends to $831 million. Unit cost excluding fuel increased by 4.2%, and this was driven by several factors which I'll explain as part of the group profit b ridge. Moving to slide 18, the group profit b ridge. On this slide, I'll walk through the key drivers behind the year-on-year increase of $316 million in our underlying profit from FY 2024 - FY 2025. For the year, our group capacity increased 8% and, coupled with benefits from a moderation in oil prices, saw $1.05 billion in contribution during the period. Group RASK declined 1% or $290 million with the impact of this weighted to the first half.
This RASK impact also included the mix effect of Jetstar increasing its share in the group capacity mix. Our transformation program targeting $400 million for the year more than offset the CPI in the business and this included a mix of cost and revenue initiatives. Depreciation and amortization increased $239 million in line with guidance given for the full year. The ramp up in fleet renewal saw the business incur fleet related EIS costs and inefficiencies. This increased by $94 million for the period up to $130 million as previously announced. The group also began incurring costs related to the same job same pay legislation with $65 million recognized this year. Finally, thank you payments to employees in the first half totaled $29 million. Turning now to slide 30. Our long standing financial framework is core to maintaining our financial strength.
It's designed to structurally maintain low leverage, strong liquidity, and an investment grade credit rating. It also guides capital allocation including opportunities for capital recycling to maximize group value through the cycle. An example of this is the closure of Jetstar Asia which we announced in June. This unlocked up to $500 million in fleet capital with the redeployment of Jetstar Asia's 13 aircraft across the group to maximize returns. As previously guided, capital expenditure for next year is expected to grow to $4.1 billion- $4.3 billion as fleet deliveries increase. We are confident in the earnings and cash flow growth from this new fleet as our Jetstar result demonstrates. As Vanessa mentioned, the board has approved the final dividends. This includes a fully franked base dividend of $250 million and a special dividend of $150 million supported by a projected surplus capital.
Whether it is decisions about what routes to fly, which brands to fly, or portfolio level decisions, we will remain focused on ensuring optimal capital allocation across the group and where we do identify opportunities to recycle capital, we will actively look to do so.
With that, I'll hand back to Vanessa.
Thanks Rob. We are now on slide 33, the outlook. The Group continues to see strong travel demand across the portfolio in the first half of the financial year 2026. Group RASK is expected to increase relative to last year, made up of the following aspects. The first half Group Domestic RASK is expected to be between 3% - 5% versus last year, and Group International RASK is expected to increase 2% - 3% versus last year. Entry into service and fleet-related transitionary costs will continue to increase by $30 million versus financial year 2025 as the A321XLR and Project Sunrise fleet start to come online. The gross impact of same job, same pay for financial year 2026 is expected to be $115 million, a $50 million increase on last year as costs annualize. This is expected to be mitigated over time.
Finally, Qantas Loyalty is expected to grow underlying EBIT by 10% - 12% in this financial year. Our outlook slides provide further detail on specific line items including fuel costs, depreciation, transformation, and the latest estimates on the closure costs of Jetstar Asia. We also have our latest capacity guidance on slide 34 of the investor materials. In closing, we are entering a truly transformative chapter for the Qantas Group. Our fleet renewal program increases at pace from here. The Group has another 49 new aircraft joining over the next two years, including Project Sunrise. Our dual brand strategy, continued focus on delivery, and financial strength positions us well for future earnings growth. This strong foundation gives confidence in continuing to deliver our balanced scorecard and ongoing value to shareholders.
I want to finish again by thanking every one of our people across the Qantas Group for their efforts over the past year. While we are pleased with the progress, we remain focused on further improving our performance and continuing to deliver for our customers, our people, and shareholders. We will now open up to questions and answers. Moderator, over to you.
Thanks very much. Your first question is from Andre Fromyhr from UBS. Go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you and good morning. I guess one of the standout parts of the outlook commentary is the strength in the, say, the demand environment based on your capacity outlook and positive risk for the first half. I'm wondering if you could talk through what are you seeing so far to give you that confidence, and in particular, looking at things like Jetstar Domestic accelerating capacity growth in the second half, Qantas International accelerating in the second half. Thanks.
Yeah, great, Andre. That's a very big question and I think to do it justice, we are going to get each one of the CEOs to speak about the RASK outlook, but also the capacity. We might start with domestic. Markus, do you want to start on that with Qantas?
Thanks, Vanessa.
When we're looking forward and looking into this half, we're seeing a strong demand environment continue. We're seeing business purpose travel continue to recover, particularly led by SME. It grew in the last quarter. We are seeing that momentum when we look at the numbers for July and August, which gives us real confidence that both the RASK outlook and the capacity growth we have, we're confident in that. Maybe Steph, want to add something else on Jetstar?
Yeah, Markus, thanks, Andre. I think there's a few things that are giving us real optimism around demand and growth. First of all, we continue to see that Australians love to travel, and we can see that in our research that that's being prioritized. We're already at the end of August, so we're seeing really strong intakes to start the year. Continued strong demand. Events are BAU, but you see some really strong events. We've got five interstate teams in the grand in the AFL finals as of last night. You're seeing the first round of AFL. You've got four different states playing games. You see lots of things that give us real confidence because we're already two months into the half. For us, that growth, you've got to remember, is in line with demand. Also, in the last year we had Bonza and Rex exit the market.
We are still backfilling demand that Tiger had as well. Some of that growth for Jetstar.
You've got to remember is the newer.
Fleet have better safe seats on them. It is very low cost growth because of the gauge of the aircraft. You know, load factors are high. We've got ancillary revenue growth, and that's enabling us to grow in line with demand but be really optimistic about the revenue, and the same indicators exist for us for international Jetstar travel as well.
Thanks, Steffen. In addition to comments that Markus made, as you said, for Qantas Domestic we are seeing the continuation of the recovery and the strength in the business purpose travel which supports a lot of the capacity that Qantas is growing into on trunk markets. A big part of the Qantas Domestic RASK and capacity growth comes from regional and resource markets. Rach?
Thanks Vanessa and good morning, Andre. Resource is a big part of that corporate demand that we're seeing and we've seen that continue to grow for a number of years now. We have brought on the A319s to help support that growth last year and we will see that continue into FY 2026. There's still some really good projects that have been developed out in Western Australia. A good example is the Hope Downs 2 project out in Newman for Rio Tinto. Our capacity is really focused on how we continue to support those customers and we're confident in the outlook for that as well.
Yeah. Great. I might get Cam now to talk about Qantas International.
Yeah.
If we look at market capacity into next year from our competitors, as a range of competitors across a broad set of markets, it's about 107%. It's measured growth, would say. You kind of go a level deeper to say where is the growth coming from, what are the markets, and the biggest portion of that is the U.K. Europe market. In fact, we're playing a different game to Europe. We've got obviously our nonstop direct point-to-point services, which remain very compelling and book well. We've also got our services and A380 services over Singapore, but also through Emirates we have 56 destinations that we sell, in effect, on their behalf. We don't actually have that direct competitive scenario over the Middle East, which positions us well. What we're seeing in terms of the demand environment is a couple of things.
One is strong point-to-point demand, certainly on our 787 services, disproportionately strong demand in premium cabins. That's not just business class, that's premium economy and first class, where we have it. A shorter booking window emerging across the industry and also seeing some pleasing demand out of Point of Sale USA, which plays to where we've put our incremental A380 capacity into Dallas. Dallas is a major fortress for our joint venture partner, American Airlines, gives us a great ability to connect many, many passengers through their broad American network. Like Steph, we've seen some pleasing results in terms of our bookings coming into this financial year and we feel we've got good momentum.
I might close on what I think is a really important point on Qantas capacity. Financial year 2026 will see Qantas Domestic and Qantas International return to 100% of pre-COVID capacity. I think that that's just a really important point for context in terms of, one, international restoring capacity, but also as Markus and Rachel were talking about, which is really getting Qantas Domestic to that level of capacity, given the recovery of the business purpose travel. Next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Justin Barrett from CLSA. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, guys. Thanks for your time again today. Just wanted to ask around the dividends that you provided today and the outlook for dividends going forward. Look, a number in terms of DPS for the second half, that was well ahead of our expectations, but just wanted to sort of think about, or if you could contextualize how we should think about the potential for paying special dividends into FY 2026 and potentially even to FY 2027, just given that increased CapEx spend on new fleet deliveries that we should expect over the coming years. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Rob. I'll take that.
Yeah, thanks, Justin.
Good question.
In terms of the dividend, we were.
Pleased again to reiterate the base dividend at $250 million. As I've said a few times, the special dividend. The reason that we delineated between the base and the special was to provide the flexibility. At this point in time, we have used the financial framework, we have looked into the projected capital surplus and felt comfortable paying out the special dividend at $150 million. We will continue to do that every six months. I think our commitment is that we believe the ability to pay the base dividend of $250 million will be through the cycle, particularly over the next few years as we go through the repleting with the CapEx, but the special dividend will revisit that again as we get to February.
Next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Jakob Cakarnis from Jarden Australia. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, Vanessa. Hi, Rob and the rest of the team. I have one for Andrew Glance, if he's there, please. Just on loyalty, you're a little bit shy of the 10% growth in loyalty. I feel like that's unfair because you still delivered nine. In the second half the EBIT growth was particularly strong. It was up 25% year on year. If I run rate that I get below your guidance, FY 2026, which is growth in loyalty of + 10% to + 12% on 2025. I was just wondering if Andrew could help me, please, if there's any considerations that we need to make for interchange fees, but I guess more importantly, what drives the continued and maybe accelerating velocity in loyalty, please.
Yeah, great question. I just think in terms of the earnings profile, loyalty is traditionally probably more skewed to the second half, given we have a lot of activity more through campaigns and campaigns with partners. That's probably the primary driver between second half versus first half. With regards to your question on interchange, what I will do is I'll probably try and cover this question at a very sort of high level and it'll probably address most of the questions that will come back to loyalty. Just with regards to the RBA, we absolutely acknowledge as an organization what the RBA is seeking to achieve. It is in two parts. Number one, for customers, providing a free form of payment in terms of to all consumers. Number two, it is to reduce that disparity from a merchant perspective, in terms of large merchant, small merchant from our perspective.
Like many industry, we see that there are some challenges embedded within that, namely for consumers. The RBA's position is predicated on the fact that prices will not go up off the back of surcharging. We all know that there actually is a cost of surcharging and with regards to interchange, it ultimately assumes that. With regards to merchants, I should say it assumes that those savings will also be passed through to merchants from the acquirers, which also presents some questions. A lot of what we're talking to and a lot of what we're hearing from across industry anchors back to a lot of what we've seen throughout the U.K. It was in 2015 that the U.K. passed very similar regulation and rules with regards to interchange. Very similar to that point in terms of a cap of 30 and importantly, in 2018, they also banned surcharging.
A lot of the benefits that the U.K. had basically assumed as a part of that reform were very similar to what the RBA are positioning here in Australia. Unfortunately, those benefits did not materialize. What we've seen in the U.K. over the course of the last seven to ten years is ultimately a significant swing against. Meaning that we've seen the APRs are important. The interest rates on credit cards go up and they've gone up near 50% from 20% APRs to near 30%. We've also seen an increase in annual fees and we've also seen an increase in scheme fees. From our perspective, there's pretty strong evidence to suggest that the changes that are being proposed may not necessarily transpire. In short, what does this all mean for the Qantas Group on the surcharging side?
We are absolutely leading here in saying that there actually is a cost of accepting payment, and regardless of the changes that the RBA make, there is still a net cost of acceptance. Ultimately, that needs to be borne by someone. From our perspective, and very similar to many other merchants across the country, that will likely be passed on to our consumers and our passengers through higher ticket prices with regards to interchange. We certainly acknowledge that this is going to be a challenge for the banks, and much like it was back in 2017, we will work directly with our banking partners to ensure that we can find a way through this to give you confidence. The Qantas frequent flyer program has never been stronger. We've absolutely got strength in terms of the number of members, importantly the number of members engaging in the program.
Equally, we're seeing absolute strength in the number of points earned and also redeemed across the program. For us, we'll focus on what we can control. We have very, very deep relationships with our banking partners dating back near 30 years. We have many levers available to us across a very diverse program, as do the banks with regards to their levers. We absolutely remain confident in terms of the targets that we've put out there to 2030, and we will navigate our way through it.
Jacob, I might just come back to follow up with Andrew just on the first part of your question, just with regards to the forecast. FY 2025, we always positioned as an investment year given the introduction of Classic Plus and the non-cash impact. We're really pleased with the 9%, but I think the 10% -1 2% just reinforces, to Andrew's point, the confidence in the business and the earn and burn that we've got in the outlook statement, the 10% and the 12%, does that.
Next question please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Owen Birrell from RBC. Go ahead. Thank you.
Good morning, guys. Just a follow-up question to that again on loyalty. Just looking at the operating margins, we've seen a step back during this period. Obviously there's a slight change to the business model there. I'm just wondering how we should think about those operating margins going forward. Does this become a much more variable cost business so that the operating margins should broadly hold at that sort of same percentage rate, or should we see some scale benefits starting to come back into the business as we go forward, and whether there were any one-off fees or one-off charges that you've absorbed in the FY 2025 year?
No, I was just going to say that the operating margins are being impacted by the acquisition of TripADeal, but I'll get Andrew to just talk about that.
Correct. There are two parts to the margin in FY2025 in terms of some of that downward pressure, and again that downward pressure is expected. The first part is the investment that we've made in Classic Plus; that was a material investment across the program that essentially employed a number of accounting judgments. We did have some downward pressure on that margin. I think, importantly, to Vanessa's point, the TripADeal business essentially has also, at a lower margin, brought the overall margin down. From our perspective, delivering a 19% margin is a very good result in the environment which we're in. More importantly, we will push the business as hard as we can to bring that margin back to 20% and above.
I think that that is actually a really important point. Just in terms of the investment that we've made in TripADeal, we couldn't have been happier with that. In terms of the overall total value, the top line growth has beaten our expectation. In terms of the way that business has grown its bottom line, it is an absolutely highly valued part of the loyalty ecosystem now and something that we see growth continuing to come from. Next question please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Matt Ryan from Barrenjoey. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi guys. I was going to ask a question on the airline, but given we've had two loyalty questions in a row, I figure we might as well make it a hat trick. I was just wondering about the points redeemed forecast for FY 2026. If you work out the math on what that implies, I guess relative to FY 2025, it's a very, very large increase. Just interested in how you're planning to shift that dynamic where points redeemed exceed the growth rate on points earned, and yeah, any color on that would be great.
I just might start with a reflection in terms of what do you need to believe for us to get to our 2030 target. The reason why we're providing those earn and burn outlook statements is that that pathway is pretty much defined by an annual growth rate in earn and burn, and it's been approximately a 6% earn growth for the earned component or growth in that. The burn component is a little bit more than that. The one thing that we have learned from Classic Plus is that that redemption event drives a significant satisfaction for a member, and that actually is the stimulating factor in the flywheel for that member to re-earn. That's a very, very important part of the economics and the flywheel effect in loyalty. Andrew, can you share kind of like the initiatives that sit behind that burn?
Yeah, I think it's a great question and I think this really is taking Classic Plus to the next level. Classic Plus was one of the largest investments that we've made in our 38-year history and it did very much address possibly one of the largest pain points in that being availability. What you're certainly seeing moving into 2026 is Classic Plus finding its full stride as you move into a four-year run rate for both domestic and also international. We've seen near 1.1 million seats redeemed across the Classic Plus product. It really is reinforcing a broader halo effect in terms of flight redemptions more broadly. In terms of the increase year on year, and specifically I should say skewed toward redemptions, this is really around rebalancing that portfolio and seeing the strength of redemptions come through the program.
We certainly should never underestimate the strength of the program even beyond the air. We've got a very diverse loyalty program that provides many opportunities for our members to redeem their points on the ground. To Vanessa's point, TripADeal is a very good example of that. It is about depth, it is about variety, it is about value, and importantly, just making sure that we're providing our members with the opportunities to not only earn but also redeem points for the events in which they choose.
Thanks, Andrew. Next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Sam Seow from Citi. Go ahead. Thank you.
Morning all. Thanks for taking the question. You've given us really good color on the demand environment. Just a couple of specific questions on the guidance. On capacity, I just wanted to clarify, is that your expected realized number or is that just your scheduled capacity before cancellations? On the RASK outlook, I'm keen to understand what's market driven versus your bottom up initiatives. In particular, with your NDC strategy going live last month, are we seeing any results in that from the guide or is that RASK uplift more market driven? Thanks.
I think that you can assume that the capacity outlook that we've got is the expected capacity because our focus is making sure that we have got fleet health, making sure that we've got a very stable operation, and we've got minimal cancellations. I think that is not just something that we've seen in terms of particularly Qantas International and Domestic. It is something that we know is a fundamental part of our commitment to our customers and our people. It is going to be a significant transformation initiative that we'll have as well. To avoid those disruption costs, I might actually pass to maybe Cam on NDC. The thing I'd say before we move off is the points that Stephanie and Markus both made, that the intact trends that we have seen in July and also August are in line with our outlook statement.
This is a really important fact in terms of just the substance that sits behind the outlook statement. Cam on NDC.
Thanks, Sam. Yes, look, it's really pleasing to get new distribution capability launched in the market. We did that on the first of July. It's early days, but the uptake has exceeded our expectations. We're well ahead of where we expected to be. We're still collaborating closely with the indirect marketplace, but as you know, NDC is twofold. It's a cost benefit for us, so we will carry lower GDS charges over time, but also it provides us in the medium term pricing flexibility not only through our direct channels, but importantly through the travel management companies and they manage on behalf of the customers, our large segment customers. In the next months ahead, we'll be able to deploy more pricing flexibility, have more pricing points, and we think that's going to have a positive impact on RASK.
We know that the cost benefits will come through because we've renegotiated our GDS contract. A really good start to the NDC rollout. Still plenty of work to do, but ahead of where we expected to be.
Thank you. Next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Cameron McDonald from E&P. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hey Cam.
Good morning. Interesting stats on slide 12 around Sunrise and the new fleet with the 23% higher RASK. I just wanted to get some further color if I could. Are you seeing similar potential or similar outcomes with the other new aircraft types, in particular interested around the A321XLR, which you've also taken an additional new order on? Where are those aircraft going to be deployed to, please?
I might address the XLR question then I'll pass to Cam on Sunrise. The 20 XLRs that we're getting, as you say, 16 will have the lie-flat business class seat. These aircraft will be deployed, demand for growth, but also on markets where we can drive either better frequency or better economics because the aircraft has a capability but also delivery of much better outcomes financially. What we see is that the XLR will fly potentially markets that we currently don't serve, such as Perth, India, such as Adelaide, Singapore, but also into Southeast Asia. Obviously, the network is still to be defined. I think this demonstrates the capability that the XLR will give in terms of what will be a shared fleet. It will fly short-haul international, but it will also deploy transcontinental. We think that that is incredibly important for a number of reasons.
One is that it's going to enable us to accelerate the retirement of the 737. It's going to enable us to grow into Southeast Asia more economically, but also deploy on routes where we can get a better return. The third one is that this is going to enable us to connect transcontinental to our long-haul network. These aircraft will come online at the same time as Sunrise. We will be able to connect Perth through Sydney onto Sunrise, potentially through into the U.S. but also vice versa. It's going to enable us to connect our long-haul network out of Perth which will grow because we're making an investment, as you know, in the Western Perth airport and our hub.
Customers out of Adelaide or Melbourne or Brisbane flying to Perth will be able to get a consistent international product on that narrow-body aircraft to Perth and then connect onto Johannesburg or to London or to Perth or to [Tehran]. That's really important. The last part is that we know our corporates across Perth, particularly on late night services, really value having that level of product and comfort to be able to sleep transcontinental. This is going to continue to enable us to support our corporate customers with what they value the most. Project Sunrise I think is an incredibly important part of that proposition as well.
Ultimately where we're seeing our best returns and our better RASK outcomes on the international network continues to be nonstop ultra-long-haul flying point to 787 as the equipment. It's London, but it's also other markets. We've got about seven city pairs now which are above 14-hour stage level. What we'll be doing is managing the balance of the capacity with the A380s into markets which have enough density and connectivity to make it work. Over time you'll see our fleet transition to more smaller aircraft, more premium-dense aircraft, more point-to-point flying to more destinations and or hubs of partners. We're seeing that not just on Perth, London, but in markets like Dallas, JFK, right across the network. It's something that we're working towards in terms of the mix of our long-haul flying.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Anthony Moulder from Jefferies. Go ahead. Thank you.
Good morning all. If I can ask about market share, I appreciate you don't focus on it, but are you seeing an above market growth in the various segments of the domestic and international markets, being corporate, SME, and leisure, that are being driven by the benefits of the greater portfolio? Please.
As you say, for domestic with the dual brand with Qantas and also with Jetstar, we focus our network on making sure that we serve the needs of those customer segments. We know with Qantas that's about making sure that we've got a good spread of flights and frequencies on our trunk markets, but also into some of the more leisure destinations. Our network is very much defined by the demand that we see, and that would be the same also for Jetstar. When you look and add that up, that has equated to a group share of approximately 67%. That does vary, and it does vary seasonally. Like I said, we define that market based on what we see demand in for those different segments internationally. With Project Sunrise, that is growth for us.
We know that we have a very significant competitor set internationally, and we think it is important that Qantas serves those markets where we feel that we can deliver a competitive vantage, which are these ultra-long-haul markets. Project Sunrise will enable us to continue to maintain what we think is an important share of that premium point-to-point market. Also, Jetstar is continuing to grow its share of the outbound Australian market, and we will see that grow. Market share, as I said, it's not what we design for. We design for understanding where our customers want to travel with the new aircraft and the capability that we've got to be able to grow, and particularly for Jetstar, stimulate new demand.
I think that that's what we've seen this year is that we know that the cost of living is something that's very front of mind for many Australians, and Jetstar serves an incredibly important role to be able to create the opportunity for affordable travel where it may not have been possible.
I mean, the area where we have seen significant growth and the integrated value between Jetstar and Qantas International play out is probably the Tasman and Pacific Islands, where we've deployed significant additional capacity, and it's been productive capacity between both brands. Steph and her team serving markets like Hamilton and Dunedin, us growing our core capacity into the main trunk markets as well as feeding onto our long haul market. Between Jetstar and Qantas International now, we've kind of taken the model which has been tremendously successful for 20 odd years and moved it into the international markets.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Ian Myles from Macquarie. Go ahead. Thank you.
Yeah, good day guys. Can you just maybe give a little bit more color on that fleet CIS and the inefficiency? Are we going to be seeing that line continue to increase over the next couple of years, given you've got obviously the A321s, then the Project Sunrise planes coming into the system, or when does it start to unwind?
Yeah, Ian, thanks, that's a great question. What we expect is that FY 2026 and FY 2027 will be the peak years for EIS. As you just started to describe from the Qantas Domestic, we've got the A220s reaching scale probably towards the end of this financial year. We've got the start of the A321XLRs, we've got the very start of Sunrise. I think domestically you'll see 2026, 2027 start to come down across the group. 2026 will be similar to 2027 and then 2028. Obviously, we will see a ramp up as we go through the ending of the domestic one whilst we complete Sunrise for International.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Niraj Shah from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead. Thank you.
Good morning everyone. Jetstar seems to be a pretty useful lead indicator on the benefits of fleet renewal, so I was hoping you could just unpack the financial and operational benefits from the new aircraft as distinct from obviously pretty robust demand and a benign fuel backdrop.
Yes. Stephanie, do you want to take that?
Yeah, thanks, Niraj.
I think that's been one of the pleasing things. You've got the financial benefits of the fleet, but they've had a multiplier effect on operational performance, customer performance, and also our people's engagement. Obviously, from a financial perspective, you've got two key things that happen. One is you're operating a more efficient fleet that uses less fuel and has a greater amount of seats, so you get a CASC benefit from that. It's also been the unlocker of growth, as Vanessa mentioned. You've got some domestic and some international growth because of the incredible technology we're flying and the ability to unlock new markets and backfill some markets domestically as well. Financially, that's delivering in line with what we thought, if not better. You've got customers who like flying the technology.
Even on a low fares carrier where we put on as many seats as we can, customers really enjoy the aircraft. They notice the size of the bins, the space, the technology. We have a higher NPS on these aircraft than other aircraft. Because they're new, the operational efficiency of the aircraft as well, in terms of touch time needed from engineers, ability to fly, efficiency, reliability, we've got best in world reliability on the Jetstar fleet. You see that multiplier effect at the new fleet, and I think it's important not to underestimate the people impact because they drive a lot of promotion. When you have growth, our crew love flying them, and we see things like because they use less fuel, I've sat in the flight deck and watched pilots use less discretionary fuel because they're excited about the technology.
That multiplier effect across the business, you see transformation being aided by the new aircraft because our people are excited to perform as well as the aircraft, which I think we've seen and Qantas will see more and more into the next few years, which is an exciting place to be for our business.
Thanks, Steph. Next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Nathan Gee from Bank of America. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hey team, thanks for the call. Just in terms of the RASK guides for first half 2026, should we expect sort of similar RASK trends between Qantas brand or Jetstar brand or is one brand sort of outperforming the other? Thanks.
Look, we don't provide a breakdown of RASK, but what we have said, which I think you can assume, is that the intake trends that we are seeing in July and August support that, and that the RASK trend will be a function of load. It will be a function of mix, particularly for Qantas, where we're going to see a higher mix of corporate travel, which normally books, on average, more flexible fares. There will also be some yield effect in that as well.
I think just to add, maybe just seat factor, and you've seen Qantas and Jetstar both focusing on seat factor. You can see the lift across both, and we'll continue to do that into this first half, and that has the RASK impact as well.
Oh, next question.
Thank you. Your next question is from Billy Boulton from Morgans. Go ahead. Thank you.
Good morning, guys. On your outlook slide with the industry costs, I was just wondering if you could give us some color to help us with how to think about that in the second half. Also, are these costs, do you think there'll be a trend going into the future or how should we think about that?
Yeah, thanks, Billy. It's a good question, I think, in terms of what's included in that. When we talk about industry costs, we really talk about landing fees, security, airport charges. In terms of the second half, probably a similar type of number. If you think about where these costs are coming from. Obviously, you travel around Australian airports, you see there's a lot of money being invested in security, which is a good thing for our customers. With regards to airports, we're working closely with airports to ensure that the infrastructure investment is aligned to the demands and the customer passenger forecasts. We've seen the benefit of that from Perth, where we've actually been able to take advantage of that with growth into Europe and also domestically. In some airports that's not the case. Calling out Auckland is an example where it is out of whack.
We are working very hard to ensure that those costs are appropriate. That's where our view is at the moment.
The other thing I'd add.
Sorry, is that these are costs that are borne by all airlines as well.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Your next question is from Scott Ryall from Rimor Equity Research. Go ahead. Thank you.
Hi, thank you very much. Mine's going to be just a slightly different question. Vanessa, I'm just wondering if you can give us a little bit more detail on the Qantas reaction for the cyber incident police in early July. I guess I'm just after some color on what you think best practice response looks like in terms of what you're doing, what you might be investing in, and who you are working with from an Australian government perspective in particular, please.
Yeah, sure. I'll make a few comments and then I might get Andrew Monaghan, our Chief Risk Officer, who's been a part of this response from the outset. The cyber breach and the fact that these criminals got access to our system in early July was obviously something that is really concerning for us, our customers, and something that we took incredibly seriously. To answer the first part of your question in terms of response, our response from the outset was to be first and foremost focused on our customers. I think that when you actually operate through that lens, you do find a pathway that you can feel confident that the response that we had was pretty good in that regard. The principles that we followed were first and foremost being transparent as soon as possible.
Getting out within 24 hours is incredibly fast, and the feedback that we have had from many customers has been they really appreciated that. The second part of our response was to follow up as quickly as we could with as accurate detail as possible that pertained to every individual customer. Accuracy through that process was really important, and we did that within seven days. When we look around the world in terms of how other companies have responded, they have not been as quick and they have not been as accurate. The other reflection that I have had is that not only is it really important for customers to know if their data was compromised, but it's equally as important what data was not compromised. A really important point for us was to confirm to customers that credit card details, passport details, password information was not compromised.
I think that went some ways to alleviating the concern that customers would have otherwise had. The final part of what was an important part of our response was seeking an injunction. The reason why we felt that was important was because the data that the criminals took is a product of crime, and we felt as serious for us was to continue to protect our data despite the actions of the criminals through the legal process for an injunction. If that data were to be put onto the dark web or on any other format, no one can replicate it, communicate it, publish it, and we think that was an ongoing obligation that we had to do whatever we could to protect it. I might pass to Andrew now.
From the very beginning, we worked very closely with all of the government agencies, and this is something that all organizations have to maintain continued vigilance on.
Hello.
I think I can add little to the first part of the question and that is clearly Vanessa's articulated. We had a very customer-centric view, care for customers, and ensuring that we were getting accurate information as quickly as we could back out. In terms of the second part of the question, we've actually got a long-standing, very close relationship with Home Affairs and through both their cyber center. We also have a close relationship with the Australian Federal Police and their cyber center, and we actually have a crisis management process with various playbooks. We don't like to use the playbooks in real life, but in this case we did actually have a playbook for cyber and used that, and we've taken learnings from that.
A big part of that is being in lockstep with those two government agencies so that they can both support us in ensuring that we can minimize the chance of that data going anywhere, and also understanding what is best practice for organizations because they also have relationships with other large corporates internationally and domestically.
Thanks, Andrew. I think this is the last question.
Thank you. Yes, the last question is from Owen Birrell from RBC. Go ahead. Thank you.
Yeah, hi guys. Just a very small follow up question because no one else asked it. I'm just wondering what the seasonal skew expectations are for this year. Is the traditional 60/40 on profit before tax and 40/60 on free cash flows? Are there any other things that are happening in the period that we should be mindful of?
I think you answered your own question.
Yes, we'd see similar weighted in.
The way that you've just described for the P&L and the cash, the one thing I just would remind is that we do have a tax cash true-up payment that we'll be paying towards the end of this calendar year. It is in the accounts at about $250 million, but our installments have been based on the loss-making period as well, and we do have a ramp up in those installments. We do have a catch-up payment that we'll make in December. Other than that, yes, the way you described it is what we're expecting.
Okay, I think we're there. Thank you, everyone. We're looking forward to catching up with you all next week and appreciate the great questions.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.