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The thirty-nine year old Jetstar chief executive Alan Joyce, 39, is being touted as a future Qantas chief executive after heading its successful low-cost counter-attack on its competitor Virgin Blue.

Joyce has quickly fashioned Jetstar from a start-up airline into one that is already profitable, with full-year earnings before interest and tax at $44.1m. More importantly, it has been instrumental in protecting Qantas’ profitability. Jetstar has become a role model for the budget offshoots of major carriers. “It [Jetstar] is creating new markets for Qantas, as well as poaching existing ones held by Virgin Blue.”

Recently, representatives of LanChile and Lufthansa’s budget offshoot, German Wings, have visited Australia to “look at our business model”. Jetstar has been particularly open with LanChile, with which Qantas has a code-sharing arrangement. “I think it’s a two-way flow of information,” Joyce says.

He will have a much larger brief this year when he heads the launch of Jetstar International to long-haul destinations. The airline, with its domestic cousin, is an important part of Qantas's five-year program to slash $3 billion from its cost base. Jetstar International will also try to counter the growing share of Emirates and Singapore Airlines on international airline traffic into Australia. Joyce will also try to steady Qantas's cash-burning investment in the Singapore airline Jetstar Asia when he joins its board this year.

Qantas's chief financial officer, Peter Gregg, is considered the most likely replacement to Geoff Dixon in mid-2007 but the Irish-born Joyce could be next in line. Jetstar began it's life on May 25th, 2004.

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