CEO retiring, what changes at Qantas would you like to see

[AustraliaPoochie]

Dont think we matter in the(ir) larger view of things.

 

[MARTINE]

Dont think we matter in the(ir) larger view of things.

The Hubble telescope school of customer service…

 

[Seat0B]

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7277782914090241281

It’s quite a (long) story (last nights QF93), it is just another tale of customers swore off QF through terrible customer service

Reposting from @Harrison_133

As he said at the end, inconveniences and incidents will happen - but it’s all about how they are handled and right now QF’s not covering itself in glory. Additionally, there is a point about being a bit proactive and playing things forward to see what might happen and making your decisions with that in mind. That helps avert or minimise so many disasters! Honestly QF is like a flock of zombie lemmings running towards a cliff….maybe it’s because they have inexperienced or poorly trained staff, having somehow managed to get rid of most of the experienced (read more expensive) staff under the AJ era and guise of COVID. I don’t know how they ever will really recover and it will certainly take time.

I know the conditions of carriage don’t promise you anything, but reality is that many people travel for events with a specific date - weddings, funerals, special birthdays, conference speeches, important meetings, cruise connections or even just (shock horror) the holiday you booked with your precious annual leave. It’s of no value at all to most people (unless you’re an AFFer on a status run) to get there after your event or 3G days into your 10 days of leave. We definitely need monetary compensation, but actually most people don’t want the money, they just want to go to their event. People understand about unforeseen circumstance, but back to my earlier point, QF does not seem to even try to foresee circumstances that the mythical “man on the Clapham omnibus” could see coming from miles out. They are going to have to do a lot of work on rebuilding trust. That comes from doing what you say, keeping people informed, owning and rectifying mistakes quickly and just generally acting like you care about the customer’s experience. And I don’t mean by constant verbal apologies and small gestures like 30SC. It needs action and consistency over a long period of time.

 

[eastwest101]

As he said at the end, inconveniences and incidents will happen - but it’s all about how they are handled and right now QF’s not covering itself in glory. Additionally, there is a point about being a bit proactive and playing things forward to see what might happen and making your decisions with that in mind. That helps avert or minimise so many disasters! Honestly QF is like a flock of zombie lemmings running towards a cliff….maybe it’s because they have inexperienced or poorly trained staff, having somehow managed to get rid of most of the experienced (read more expensive) staff under the AJ era and guise of COVID. I don’t know how they ever will really recover and it will certainly take time.

I know the conditions of carriage don’t promise you anything, but reality is that many people travel for events with a specific date - weddings, funerals, special birthdays, conference speeches, important meetings, cruise connections or even just (shock horror) the holiday you booked with your precious annual leave. It’s of no value at all to most people (unless you’re an AFFer on a status run) to get there after your event or 3G days into your 10 days of leave. We definitely need monetary compensation, but actually most people don’t want the money, they just want to go to their event. People understand about unforeseen circumstance, but back to my earlier point, QF does not seem to even try to foresee circumstances that the mythical “man on the Clapham omnibus” could see coming from miles out. They are going to have to do a lot of work on rebuilding trust. That comes from doing what you say, keeping people informed, owning and rectifying mistakes quickly and just generally acting like you care about the customer’s experience. And I don’t mean by constant verbal apologies and small gestures like 30SC. It needs action and consistency over a long period of time.

QF93 must have been subcontracted out to Monty Python Flying Circus airlines that night, for the people that didn't see the whole Tick-Tok video lets recap:

1. QF93 is scheduled to depart MEL for LAX approx 8pm
2. Late inbound B787 so departure delayed by 2 hours
3. Main runway works at MEL airport so departures are limited to the shorter runway
4. "Mad rush" to get aircraft boarded, creator of the video got upgraded to J so presumably Y and Y+ already oversold
5. Realisation that aircraft was overweight for the shorter runway departure so plan to take fuel off aircraft
6. Refueling contractors are "unavailable" at that time of night.
7. Decision taken to remove all pax luggage & call for volunteers to disembark to reduce weight
8. Taxi back out to the runway and still had to burn fuel on the ground to get to the correct takeoff weight
9. Approx 5-6 hours later while still on the ground at MEL reached the point where all crew would "time out"
10. Disembark all passengers, all sent home at approx 4am (7-8 hrs past original departure time).
11. Lack of contact from QF customer service online or on the phone about re-accommodating passengers on subsequent QF flights.

Big facepalm for Qantas's flight operations center.

Was the late arrival of the inbound B789 a surprise to them? Was it a state secret about the runway works at MEL? Why is this aircraft already oversold and other people not having been re-accommodated on different QF (or heaven forbid, other airlines services)? Removal of pax and luggage is a good decision but why not do this earlier in the evening? Burning fuel on the runway to reduce weight for takeoff is time-consuming and reeks of last resort-ism, at this point presumably, the pilots are telling QF that they are going to run out of hours legally? All while this is happening presumably QF ops are unable to source another crew or even aircraft to replace this crew about to time out. The flight returns to the gate and is canceled. Further questions for Qantas, are they unaware of the existence of BNE or AKL airports and the concept of a fuel stop? Or don't they have refuelers at those airports either?

And the last point of no customer contact and the great difficulty of passengers in gaining contact with QF on the phone or online during operational disruptions is just classic post-Covid Qantas all over.....

After that performance, the creator of the video seemed to indicate that they won't be choosing to fly QF again in the future. What a surprise.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Honestly QF is like a flock of zombie lemmings running towards a cliff

That would be us, the punters. QF IT would programme zombie lemmings to run away from the cliff, and the CC staff would advise us we can only run alongside the cliff, and then get the cliff taxes wrong.

cheers skip

 

[jrfsp]

QF93 must have been subcontracted out to Monty Python Flying Circus airlines that night, for the people that didn't see the whole Tick-Tok video lets recap:

1. QF93 is scheduled to depart MEL for LAX approx 8pm
2. Late inbound B787 so departure delayed by 2 hours
3. Main runway works at MEL airport so departures are limited to the shorter runway
4. "Mad rush" to get aircraft boarded, creator of the video got upgraded to J so presumably Y and Y+ already oversold
5. Realisation that aircraft was overweight for the shorter runway departure so plan to take fuel off aircraft
6. Refueling contractors are "unavailable" at that time of night.
7. Decision taken to remove all pax luggage & call for volunteers to disembark to reduce weight
8. Taxi back out to the runway and still had to burn fuel on the ground to get to the correct takeoff weight
9. Approx 5-6 hours later while still on the ground at MEL reached the point where all crew would "time out"
10. Disembark all passengers, all sent home at approx 4am (7-8 hrs past original departure time).
11. Lack of contact from QF customer service online or on the phone about re-accommodating passengers on subsequent QF flights.

Big facepalm for Qantas's flight operations center.

Was the late arrival of the inbound B789 a surprise to them? Was it a state secret about the runway works at MEL? Why is this aircraft already oversold and other people not having been re-accommodated on different QF (or heaven forbid, other airlines services)? Removal of pax and luggage is a good decision but why not do this earlier in the evening? Burning fuel on the runway to reduce weight for takeoff is time-consuming and reeks of last resort-ism, at this point presumably, the pilots are telling QF that they are going to run out of hours legally? All while this is happening presumably QF ops are unable to source another crew or even aircraft to replace this crew about to time out. The flight returns to the gate and is canceled. Further questions for Qantas, are they unaware of the existence of BNE or AKL airports and the concept of a fuel stop? Or don't they have refuelers at those airports either?

And the last point of no customer contact and the great difficulty of passengers in gaining contact with QF on the phone or online during operational disruptions is just classic post-Covid Qantas all over.....

After that performance, the creator of the video seemed to indicate that they won't be choosing to fly QF again in the future. What a surprise.

The longhaul fleet is being run way too tight - no slack left for anything to go wrong. Prioritizing revenue over service recovery.

Again today QF9 24 hour delay. same for the QF 10 return. QF93 cancelled - i wonder if anyone booked tonight was on the cancelled 93 from two days ago - poor pax

 

[encryptededdy]

Further questions for Qantas, are they unaware of the existence of BNE or AKL airports and the concept of a fuel stop? Or don't they have refuelers at those airports either?

Well, I would assume that was their intention, but they would have to take off from the shortened MEL runway first, which apparently they never got around to doing.

 

[Seat0B]

Was the late arrival of the inbound B789 a surprise to them? Was it a state secret about the runway works at MEL? Why is this aircraft already oversold and other people not having been re-accommodated on different QF (or heaven forbid, other airlines services)? Removal of pax and luggage is a good decision but why not do this earlier in the evening? Burning fuel on the runway to reduce weight for takeoff is time-consuming and reeks of last resort-ism, at this point presumably, the pilots are telling QF that they are going to run out of hours legally? All while this is happening presumably QF ops are unable to source another crew or even aircraft to replace this crew about to time out. The flight returns to the gate and is canceled. Further questions for Qantas, are they unaware of the existence of BNE or AKL airports and the concept of a fuel stop? Or don't they have refuelers at those airports either?

Exactly!!

Anyone with a tiny bit of forethought/training/experience could have thought about these issues and put in place contingency plans. None of the events was a black swan - all known constraints that could have been predicted. Hell, Mr Seat 0A used to schedule ”unscheduled maintenance” ie unplanned unserviceabilities for a fleet of RAAF aircraft based on the flying program and the known wDal points of the aircraft type eg this one has avionics drama - failures likely at start up, have AVTECHs rostered on. QF are taking the piss or just not trying.

edit for autocorrect spelling error

 

[eastwest101]

Well, I would assume that was their intention, but they would have to take off from the shortened MEL runway first, which apparently they never got around to doing.

So basically - a fuel contractor was told to "fill it up" on the assumption that the longer runway was available and then knocked off and went down to the pub.

But if we think about this for a minute we realize that we knew the inbound aircraft was probably late, ergo the outbound might be late, the outbound aircraft is probably going to be fairly full of pax and freight and therefore the short runway might come into play with any delay and possible performance limitations, so maybe just don't fill it up chockers until you have an idea of your actual takeoff weights and payload? Or another wild idea of keeping a refueling contractor on duty until the final flight departs from MEL airport in the event that fuel levels might need to be adjusted, insane I know.

For the pilot to have to offload all luggage and then ask for volunteers to offload themselves must mean that the aircraft was massively overweight and overfuelled and the aircraft was being asked to perform a takeoff stunt that would normally be done with an empty aircraft by test pilots, and not the beginning of a 16hr long-haul routine commercial operation. Also makes us realise how inadequate the runway infrastructure is in MEL if the main runway in undergoing maintenance then what is the shorter runway good for? Not much it seems.

It would have been amusing hearing that on the radio as the pilot explains to ops why he can't get a fully loaded B789 off the ground on a shorter runway with possible tailwinds. I imagine that pilot would have been ropeable at the end of that night, talk about being set up to fail.

 

[jrfsp]

So basically - a fuel contractor was told to "fill it up" on the assumption that the longer runway was available and then knocked off and went down to the pub.

But if we think about this for a minute we realize that we knew the inbound aircraft was probably late, ergo the outbound might be late, the outbound aircraft is probably going to be fairly full of pax and freight and therefore the short runway might come into play with any delay and possible performance limitations, so maybe just don't fill it up chockers until you have an idea of your actual takeoff weights and payload? Or another wild idea of keeping a refueling contractor on duty until the final flight departs from MEL airport in the event that fuel levels might need to be adjusted, insane I know.

For the pilot to have to offload all luggage and then ask for volunteers to offload themselves must mean that the aircraft was massively overweight and overfuelled and the aircraft was being asked to perform a takeoff stunt that would normally be done with an empty aircraft by test pilots, and not the beginning of a 16hr long-haul routine commercial operation. Also makes us realise how inadequate the runway infrastructure is in MEL if the main runway in undergoing maintenance then what is the shorter runway good for? Not much it seems.

It would have been amusing hearing that on the radio as the pilot explains to ops why he can't get a fully loaded B789 off the ground on a shorter runway with possible tailwinds. I imagine that pilot would have been ropeable at the end of that night, talk about being set up to fail.

All the other long hauls that night either used the main runway before closure (10pm), or operated off the shorter runway - ie CX 773 to HKG.

The other issue is why did it take so long to turn around a 787. They had 1.5 hours - this was predicted after take off from LHR (24 hours prior). Knowing the impending runway closure throw all resources at it ...oh wait ground handling outsourced - they couldnt care less

 

[eastwest101]

All the other long hauls that night either used the main runway before closure (10pm), or operated off the shorter runway - ie CX 773 to HKG.

The other issue is why did it take so long to turn around a 787. They had 1.5 hours - this was predicted after take off from LHR (24 hours prior). Knowing the impending runway closure throw all resources at it ...oh wait ground handling outsourced - they couldnt care less

Re: Outsourced ground handling sounds like a possible contributing factor. The offloading of all luggage as opposed to selectively offloading luggage probably means that the ground services contractor had some resources still there late at night but possibly not enough resources? According to the guy in the video there were also some delays in paperwork and load sheets that might have contributed to the late departure.

Pinching the pennies and throwing away the pounds....

 

[codash1099]

You have to feel for the QF staff in general. Morale must be really down the mine.

 

[RooFlyer]

QF93 must have been subcontracted out to Monty Python Flying Circus airlines that night, for the people that didn't see the whole Tick-Tok video lets recap:

1. QF93 is scheduled to depart MEL for LAX approx 8pm
2. Late inbound B787 so departure delayed by 2 hours
3. Main runway works at MEL airport so departures are limited to the shorter runway
4. "Mad rush" to get aircraft boarded, creator of the video got upgraded to J so presumably Y and Y+ already oversold
5. Realisation that aircraft was overweight for the shorter runway departure so plan to take fuel off aircraft
6. Refueling contractors are "unavailable" at that time of night.
7. Decision taken to remove all pax luggage & call for volunteers to disembark to reduce weight
8. Taxi back out to the runway and still had to burn fuel on the ground to get to the correct takeoff weight
9. Approx 5-6 hours later while still on the ground at MEL reached the point where all crew would "time out"
10. Disembark all passengers, all sent home at approx 4am (7-8 hrs past original departure time).
11. Lack of contact from QF customer service online or on the phone about re-accommodating passengers on subsequent QF flights.

Big facepalm for Qantas's flight operations center.

Was the late arrival of the inbound B789 a surprise to them? Was it a state secret about the runway works at MEL? Why is this aircraft already oversold and other people not having been re-accommodated on different QF (or heaven forbid, other airlines services)? Removal of pax and luggage is a good decision but why not do this earlier in the evening? Burning fuel on the runway to reduce weight for takeoff is time-consuming and reeks of last resort-ism, at this point presumably, the pilots are telling QF that they are going to run out of hours legally? All while this is happening presumably QF ops are unable to source another crew or even aircraft to replace this crew about to time out. The flight returns to the gate and is canceled. Further questions for Qantas, are they unaware of the existence of BNE or AKL airports and the concept of a fuel stop? Or don't they have refuelers at those airports either?

And the last point of no customer contact and the great difficulty of passengers in gaining contact with QF on the phone or online during operational disruptions is just classic post-Covid Qantas all over.....

Oh, God. Just when I thought it might be safe to take a few Qantas flights again.

This all happened? - its not a spoof, is it?

 

[eastwest101]

Oh, God. Just when I thought it might be safe to take a few Qantas flights again.

This all happened? - its not a spoof, is it?

No this is from the Tic-Tok video upthread, its about 10-15mins long but I've got no reason to disbelieve it - its timestamped as him in Melbourne when he should be in LAX or NY by now. When you listen to his version of the events I don't think anyone would have an active enough imagination to make that up, hence the Monty Python references from me.....

 

[Quickstatus]

Morale must be really down the mine.

Might be good depending on point of view. CEO gone... I don't think the staff are depressed he is gone.

I think morale up. Maybe they also sense/hope that the place would now change for the better

 

[Jenya]

The only thing I really anticipate is to finally have web site booking page updated with reverse arrow button to switch around origin and destination in one click!

Any more complex than this is unreasonable to expect from them....

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Well I see Qantas has already made one minor change as a hat tip to the new CEO, all aircraft registrations in the fleet now start with the new CEO's initials VH for (Vanessa Hudson):

Qantas Fleet Details and History

Qantas (IATA: QF / ICAO: QFA) is an airline based in Sydney, Australia founded in 1920 currently operating a fleet of 125 aircraft with an average age of 14.39 years

www.planespotters.net

 

[PineappleSkip]

I thought they were named after the Vic Hotel.

 

[jrfsp]

'100 per cent housebound': How a trip home on Qantas left Akii stranded

Discovering mobility aids have been damaged or broken during a flight is not new to anyone with a disability — but even disability advocate Akii Ngo was shocked by the state of their electric wheelchair after a Qantas flight last month. But it was the disorganised response that caused most distress

www.abc.net.au

Stories like this are becoming daily!

What’s disgraceful however is that the pax only get resolution after contacting the media! It should not have to come to that - where has customer service gone

 

[Quickstatus]

#12
Retire NP and elevate Chef Linda