Qantas left customers confused while CEO Alan Joyce filmed a promotional video in business lounge

Qantas boss Alan Joyce caused flight announcements in the airline’s business lounge to be stopped while he filmed a promotional video.

On Wednesday Mr Joyce plunged the business lounge at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport into an eerie silence, with flight announcements paused for 45 minutes as confused frequent flyers flocked to lounge staff for answers.

As passengers scanned the alternative notifications on their phones, Mr Joyce strolled the airport facilities with a camera crew trained on him.

A Qantas spokeswoman confirmed Mr Joyce has been spending more time inside airports with his staff.

She also confirmed the promotional video was made for internal Qantas use.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been spotted on a runway in a high-vis vest after the company asked its senior executives to work as baggage handlers. A spokesperson for Qantas told Daily Mail Australia the picture was taken during a general visit to frontline teams, which the airline said Mr Joyce does regularly

It follows a nightmare holiday season which saw his airline cop criticism for extensive delays, long call wait times and lost baggage.

Mr Joyce’s Wednesday morning interruption was first reported in the Sydney Morning Herald’s CBD column.  

In late July, Qantas Domestic and International CEO Andrew David was forced to apologise to customers and pledge the airline would do better in the future during an appearance on Ben Fordham’s 2GB program.

‘Let me start by saying an apology to all your listeners. We are the national carrier, people have high expectations of us, we have high expectations of ourselves and clearly over the last few months we have not been delivering what we did pre-Covid,’ Mr David said.

Despite the rocky post-Covid period, Mr Joyce’s reputation rehab appears to be having some effect as Qantas share prices crawl back upwards after tanking spectacularly during the June to July school holiday period. 

On Wednesday, a photo also emerged of Mr Joyce on the tarmac mixing with airport baggage handlers.

Qantas is looking to address the critical staff shortages it has blamed for recent delays and dramas 

The spokeswoman confirmed Mr Joyce has been spending time with the airline’s ground crews.

Qantas has admitted the service offered to Australians has been lacklustre.

‘We’ve been clear that our operational performance has not been meeting our customers’ expectations or the standards that we expect of ourselves – and that we’ve been pulling out all stops to improve our performance,’ the spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.

To address staff shortages, Colin Hughes, the airline’s chief operating officer, wrote to Qantas executives asking them to fill managerial vacancies across a range of airport roles.

The program would see executives sorting baggage, scanning tags and even driving luggage tugs on the tarmac for up to three months. 

‘During your time in the contingency program, you’ll be an embedded resource within the ground handling partners,’ Mr Hughes wrote.

‘This means you’ll receive a roster, be scheduled to operate and be supervised and managed in the live operations by our ground handling partners.’

‘As we have done in the past during busy periods, around 200 head office staff have helped at airports during peak travel periods since Easter,’ a spokeswoman said. 

Qantas has asked senior executives to leave their cushy jobs and work full-time as baggage handlers for up to three months