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Joyce did not return to Qantas headquarters that day. That evening, he headed to Sydney airport to catch Emirates’ last flight to Dubai and onwards to Dublin. He was captured by a Daily Telegraph photographer rolling his suitcases through the departures hall, an image that was emblazoned across the next day’s edition. ‘Australians all let us REJOYCE’ went the headline – the same pun I’d deployed on the front page of Qantas’ staff newspaper when Joyce started the job all those years ago. The popular joke that day in TV news bulletins and newspaper columns was: finally, Qantas had managed an early departure. But the gag was flawed. Joyce’s grand miscalculation was to leave four years too late.
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