Aussies - Are you ashamed of QANTAS???

[MooNoi]

Judging by theis article in today's Sydney Morning Herald, it looks like a lot of Australians are... and I don't blame them. The last three flights I've had with QF have been awful in terms of service, and they are so far behind the Asian airlines they can't catch up now. Sad for such a famous airline, IMO.

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A plan by Qantas to launch a no-frills domestic carrier has sparked a torrent of complaints from passengers about the existing level of "full service" on the airline.

 

A poll on the Herald's website yesterday drew 130 tales of misadventure and neglect flying Qantas. About a dozen responses were positive.

 

Rob Bruce, a Sydney marketing strategy manager, wrote to Qantas to officially complain about being called a "piece of shit" by a Qantas call centre operator. Although the call centre manager apologised that this was "just an expression she uses", Mr Bruce said the letter was not acted upon.

 

A Coffs Harbour woman had her honeymoon plans disrupted when Qantas changed the couple's flights four times. Another "gold" frequent flyer complained that Qantas had tried to cut short her three-day stay in Melbourne by phoning, after she had arrived, to say the departure flight was overbooked and she would now have to leave within 24 hours.

 

Bill Nixon often flies business-class, and believes service is poor because the airline "has antagonised the Qantas staff to the point they are angry, and it is spilling out onto the customer".

 

In December he flew from Los Angeles to Sydney and was "dumbfounded" when the lights were dimmed 30 minutes into the 14-hour flight, with no offer of food or beverages. After complaints, the crew announced they would serve a meal if hungry passengers pressed the call button. He was "ashamed it was our national carrier" when the American businessman seated next to him asked if this was typical service.

 

When the two men pressed the button, "about 10 minutes later a surly looking older male attendant came and asked us what we wanted. The impression we got was that we were a nuisance, and he was not happy with us".

 

James Duncan, an Australian based in Britain, said many expats won't use Qantas to come home because cabin staff "generally seem tired and tetchy".

 

A Qantas spokesman, Michael Sharpe, said he did not think the picture of Qantas service was as bleak as that reported by Herald readers. Qantas ranked fifth in an international survey of 120 airlines recently and was spending money to upgrade its aircraft and club lounge facilities.

 

Conceding that frequent flyers needed to book early and may have difficulty finding seats in peak periods, Mr Sharpe said: "More frequent flyers than ever before are redeeming points to fly Qantas. About 6 per cent of our capacity is made up of frequent flyers, which means 3 million trips every year."

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[gobbledonk]

I have refused to fly Qantas for some years, for the following reasons :

 

1. Qantas management are arrogant. They have used their position in the industry to muscle out a number of competitors on domestic routes, and done everything that they can to discourage the introduction of foreign airlines into Oz. They treat many of their workers like shit, and this leads directly to industrial action, often at peak times. In short, they suck bigtime.

 

2. They are expensive - usually be a significant margin - compared to airlines like Cathay, Singapore Airlines and Garuda. As for domestic, thank God for Richard Branson - I'll fly Virgin at every opportunity.

 

The sooner they are broken up, and each arm is forced to actually compete, the better it will be for everyone.

[jp1]

Artiew,

 

A pretty harsh comment for the airline with the world?s best safety record. In more than 80 years of serving domestic and international routes Qantas never had a fatal accident.

 

Unfortunately I had never the pleasure (or shall I say displeasure?) of flying Qantas. Would like to give it a try but Australia is so far away from Japan. Flight time is approx. 10 hours, almost the same time that a flight takes from Japan to Europe.

 

You mentioned that Qantas is more expensive than SE Asian carriers. This surprises me because afaik Qantas is doing well in the highly competitive Australian market. There are carriers who folded up their operations to Australia because of the unusual low airfares in the market.

 

 

[thalenoi]

BA has a daily code share flight LHR-BKK operated by Qantas.

I was unfortunate enough to be booked "accidentally" (by ignorance) on a Q flight. Except defunct Eastern that was the lousiest flight in my life (absecence of service)

 

Although many despise BA (room leg, I have small leggs, so does not affect me) their 747/400's are brand new, have good seats for head rest, good inflight screens, decent service. I flew Q, Thai, Lufthansa, defunct Sabena, soon to be defunct Swiss, SAS, Alaska, TAP, defunct Panam, Air Atlanta and a few others and still prefer BA although I won't be flying them anymore, you only get 1/4th frequent flyer miles as of 01/07/2003 on discounted tickets.

 

I will try EVA, CI, Royal Brunei or even Turkish next trip.

[Guest]

It's all due the fact they can't spell. :hubba:

[gobbledonk]

You mentioned that Qantas is more expensive than SE Asian carriers. This surprises me because afaik Qantas is doing well in the highly competitive Australian market. There are carriers who folded up their operations to Australia because of the unusual low airfares in the market.

 

jp,

 

Thats a little like saying that Microsoft Windows is doing well in the highly-competitive operating system market. Qantas have had the extra advantage of having governments and regulatory authorities collude with them to run competitors out of town. They have only engaged in the price wars when it has been necessary to crush a competitor - prior to the arrival of the lowcost airlines, a return flight from my town to Brisbane cost > $500 : it is currently under $200. I have little doubt that they would push it back to the old level if Virgin were out of the picture.

[jp1]

Qantas have had the extra advantage of having governments and regulatory authorities collude with them to run competitors out of town. They have only engaged in the price wars when it has been necessary to crush a competitor - prior to the arrival of the lowcost airlines, a return flight from my town to Brisbane cost > $500 : it is currently under $200. I have little doubt that they would push it back to the old level if Virgin were out of the picture.

 

 

They just do as any other well-established airline does. When the competition gets weak or disappears altogether, the fares rise again. This is quite common in the airline industry all over the world.

 

Questions just out of curiosity: is the Australian government still the main shareholder of Qantas?

 

 

 

 

[MooNoi]

A pretty harsh comment for the airline with the world?s best safety record. In more than 80 years of serving domestic and international routes Qantas never had a fatal accident.

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To be honest, a lot of this is due to sheer good luck in my opinion...

 

Remember that the Australian skies are practically EMPTY compared to Europe or the USA, and there's not much traffic to get in trouble with up there! Ok, they DO fly internationally of course, but their domestic operation is much larger.

 

Also, QF HAS had its fair share of 'little dramas' - eg. three years or so ago when they overshot the runway at Don Muang. There was a bit of a spate of 'minor' incidents from QF at that time that could have easily been much worse or even catastrophic.

 

Fly P.

[Torneyboy]

Hi FLy,

Two mishaps in the last couple of weeks.

 

One in Cairns i think had to turn back after one engine died due to a bird.

 

And same thing out of BNE.

 

Not mechanical but still problem for the passengers.

[Torneyboy]

Hi

 

SYDBKK with QF or TG.

Price not a lot of difference.....30-50AUD and some seasons have the same fare basis.