Ayesha de Kretser

Ayesha de Kretser is a reporter at The Australian Financial Review who covers the aviation and tourism sectors, bringing a business and regulatory lens to how carriers and travel operators run and grow. Her work stands out for treating airlines, travel demand and loyalty schemes as financial systems shaped by shareholder pressure, policy and technology, informed by a substantial track record covering banks, payments, crypto and broader corporate risk. Across news stories and podcast appearances, she moves between boardroom strategy, operational detail and customer experience, often showing how decisions made in airline headquarters and bank risk teams play out for travellers and investors.

Aviation and airline competition

De Kretser tracks the evolving competitive landscape in Australian aviation, with a particular focus on Qantas, Virgin and new low-cost challengers. Her reporting on a former Qantas insider aiming to build a “Ryanair of Australia” shows how she uses individual executives and start-ups to explore the prospects for ultra-low-cost models in a market dominated by established carriers. She follows Qantas closely, from operational efforts to “pull out all stops” to get passengers home at Christmas to the financial warning that its shares could slide after a post-pandemic boom, connecting operational performance with market sentiment and equity risk. Coverage of Qantas pulling AFR papers from its Chairman’s Lounges and then reinstating them, and separate work on top bureaucrats’ reliance on Chairman’s Lounge comforts, reflects her interest in how airline strategy, elite perks and reputational considerations intersect. She also appears on The Fin podcast to discuss Virgin’s return to the market, adding audio analysis to her written coverage of airline competition and capital markets.

Travel, tourism and customer experience

Within aviation, de Kretser consistently ties airline decisions to the experience of travellers and the broader tourism economy. Her Christmas travel reporting on Qantas focuses on capacity, reliability and the measures taken to manage peak holiday demand, illustrating an interest in how operational planning affects families and business travellers seeking to move across the country. The Chairman’s Lounge pieces show her attention to the differentiated experiences airlines offer to high-status passengers, and how these premium spaces fit into loyalty strategies and corporate politics. She also covers businesses that sit at the intersection of travel and education, such as a payments platform that “puts out the welcome mat” for overseas students returning to Australia, connecting the recovery of international student flows to cross-border payments and tourism-related activity. Across these stories, she treats tourism as an ecosystem of airlines, service providers and customers rather than as a standalone sector.

Financial services, payments and crypto

Before focusing on aviation and tourism, de Kretser built a substantial body of work on financial services, which continues to inform her coverage of corporate risk and investment. She has reported on banks’ views that businesses want to bring manufacturing closer to home, using finance executives’ commentary to illuminate shifts in supply chains and credit demand. Her coverage of buy now, pay later provider Zip has documented large losses and tighter management of bad debts, linking consumer spending patterns in groceries and fuel to the resilience of new credit models as the economy turns down. She follows the regulatory and professional debate on digital assets, covering calls from financial planners to regulate crypto exchanges and detailing concerns about consumer protection and market integrity. In a separate piece on banks being told to report on crypto and start-up risks, she explains how the prudential regulator demanded detailed, sometimes daily, reporting on exposures after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, highlighting the mechanics of supervision and the role of confidential sources within the system. Earlier work on a payments platform serving overseas students shows her interest in cross-border payments and niche financial services tied to migration and education. She has also co-reported on inflation and wages “spiralling,” capturing directors’ and CEOs’ views on cost pressures and wage dynamics, reinforcing her grounding in macroeconomic conditions.

Regulation, privacy and corporate risk

De Kretser frequently situates company news within a broader framework of regulation, privacy and legal exposure for large organisations. Her reporting on the Medibank data breach covers the privacy regulator’s investigation into whether negligence contributed to one of the country’s most damaging cyber incidents, framing the hack as both a customer crisis and a test of corporate governance and data protection. In a separate piece on privacy reform, she details estimates of a $2200-per-customer compliance bill for big business, showing how proposed changes translate into concrete financial burdens and technology upgrades for major firms. These stories illustrate her habit of following reform processes beyond headline announcements to the operational and financial impact on companies.

Her work on Qantas’ Chairman’s Lounge and senior bureaucrats’ use of its perks fits the same pattern, examining how elite travel benefits intersect with public accountability and the expectations placed on both airlines and government officials. She also writes on the publishing sector and technology platforms, including coverage of legal action against Mark Zuckerberg and Meta by publishers over alleged “shameless” copyright infringement, which again combines corporate disputes, intellectual property law and the economics of digital media. Across beats, she uses FOI material, regulatory documents, confidential sources and corporate disclosures to show how policy, privacy and legal risk shape decisions in aviation, finance and technology. Podcast appearances, such as a discussion on “Banking on Women,” extend this perspective, offering behind-the-scenes context on how these themes play out across the masthead’s business coverage.