Qantas shareholders are demanding Richard Goyder’s resignation as the embattled chairman prepares to front a Senate hearing on Wednesday while former boss Alan Joyce does a disappearing act.

Goyder, Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson and general counsel Andrew Finch will appear before the parliamentary committee probing the role Qantas played in Australia’s decision to knock back more Qatar Airways flights.

But missing will be retired CEO Joyce, who told the committee he could  not attend in person or via video link due to personal obligations while overseas.

Inquiry chair Senator Bridget McKenzie said they would summon Joyce upon his return to Australia, declaring: “I want him to front up.”

The committee has the power to summon a witness within Australia, but not to issue enforceable edicts for people overseas.

The Nationals senator said the committee had decided to summon Joyce after the inquiry’s October 9 reporting deadline.

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Meanwhile the Australian Shareholders’ Association chief executive Rachel Waterhouse said shareholders wanted Goyder gone.

Waterhouse said Goyder’s position was untenable after two court challenges against the airline and the fallout from Joyce’s multimillion-dollar bonus.

“What I’ve been hearing from retail shareholders [is] that change is required and that Richard Goyder should step down,” she told ABC’s The Business.

“That dialogue has been changing over the last few weeks as more issues came to light, but it’s clear there is a leadership change required.

“So many facts have come to light which question the ability to oversee the CEO and the management team, and the questions around the timing of a payment of Alan Joyce’s share sale, and that is a concern to retail shareholders.”

Waterhouse said the rest of the board was also on notice to “contemplate themselves and the skills required for the future”.

“The board have made a decision around the CEO … now they need to reflect on what they knew, at what time, what was appropriate, and the risks that they oversight.”

On Tuesday the pilots’ union called for the chairman’s head, saying morale had never been lower following the illegal sacking of 1700 workers and allegations of illegally marketing cancelled flights.

Pressure has piled on Qantas following a potential $250 million fine from the consumer watchdog over cancellations, a High Court ruling the carrier had illegally sacked almost 1700 workers during the pandemic and a Senate grilling on the airline’s huge profits during a cost-of-living crisis.

Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine called Qantas a “wannabe luxury consumer brand that really acts as a funnel for corporate greed” but said additional flights from Qatar Airways would not necessarily address broader problems.

“We’re not going to fix the serious problems in aviation by flooding it with competition necessarily,” he told the inquiry on Tuesday,

“We’re not going to fix it by leaving the status quo [intact].”

Qatar Airways has also been accused of violating worker rights.

The International Labor Organisation in 2015 claimed the carrier had discriminated against female workers by terminating staff who fell pregnant or married in their first five years of employment.

Though these practices have been phased out in writing, Kaine said reports of discrimination against LGBTQI and female workers continued.

Asked if granting additional flights to Qatar Airways would be a mistake, Kaine said such questions were “complex”.

The Australian and International Pilots Association president Tony Lucas blasted Goyder for overseeing “one of the most damaging periods in Qantas’ history”.

“The morale of Qantas pilots has never been lower, we have totally lost confidence in Goyder and his board,” he said.

Goyder’s $750,000 salary package at a time staff were expected to accept a two-year wage freeze was described as “galling and tone-deaf”.

“For our great national carrier to flourish, it needs leadership from a board that understands the value of its employees, respects its customers and can win back the trust of a nation.”

Qantas denied Goyder had received a $100,000 pay rise, saying the remuneration difference in its annual report was due to him taking more of his flight allowances than the previous year.

“That is not a new entitlement,” the airline said in a statement.

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not call on Goyder to step down, he said Qantas had its work cut out “to repair the damage that has been done to its reputation”.