Has Qantas lost your business due to its failure to provide customer service?

[Must...Fly!]

Come to think of it, should VA be doing more to capitalise on the current situation and proactively poach some of QF's customers? Or should they just sit back and let QF do it for them?

VA are struggling as well at the moment on the operational front. I don't think they need to bring themselves in to the publicity, people are well aware they exist and are the obvious non QF group alternative for domestic travel. The shift will occur organically - maybe a typical Virgin style cheeky marketing campaign would be possible.

 

[Guvner]

You know Qantas has hit rock bottom as a brand when you start checking out Bonza.

 

[I love to travel]

No but they have lost any goodwill. In 2 years back to silver and then best fare going forward. And I don't forger either!!

 

[TheInsider]

As soon as AJ goes, the better it will be. Along with his senior exec team, they are toxic people.

 

[DC3]

Joe and Josephine Public have short memories. Any apparent kerfuffle will more than likely mean nothing to many, soon enough.

 

[RooFlyer]

If VA was to offer me a WP status match then maybe...

Come to think of it, should VA be doing more to capitalise on the current situation and proactively poach some of QF's customers? Or should they just sit back and let QF do it for them?

Yes, if VA did a status match with this QF Plat, that would seal the deal for me. I’d re earn it no problem and then would be able to drop QF plat while retaining LTG.

 

[exceladdict]

Yes, if VA did a status match with this QF Plat, that would seal the deal for me. I’d re earn it no problem and then would be able to drop QF plat while retaining LTG.

It would be full circle for me, having bumped back to QF SG recently, matched during their promotion from VA gold.
VA routes are starting to repopulate my usual destinations at very competitive prices and frequencies. If they switched the wifi back on, i'd be very tempted.

 

[clifford]

It would be full circle for me, having bumped back to QF SG recently, matched during their promotion from VA gold.
VA routes are starting to repopulate my usual destinations at very competitive prices and frequencies. If they switched the wifi back on, i'd be very tempted.

As someone who is about to become VA Plat for the first time, I guess I've voted with my wallet.

 

[Melburnian1]

As soon as AJ goes, the better it will be. Along with his senior exec team, they are toxic people.

Various publicly known individuals (outside aviation) deep down are petrified of being stuck in a situation where they can't 'escape' "peasants" (the latter meaning anyone who in past years would have been classified as 'middle or working class').

So they rarely if ever want to travel on trains/buses/ferries where they perceive they'll be recognised. Maybe they won't - but the 'danger' is there. The longer the journey is, the greater the worry.

Most airline CEOs and senior staff with a public (photographed) profile, similarly, would not want to travel in whY on "their" airline next to the general public unless it was one quick sector for show and they had compliant media or their own PR staff, or airline executives, next to them as 'protection'.

 

[offshore171]

While that may work well for simple IRROPs, the problem still remains of those with more complex itineraries, or ones where service recovery ain't clear which no self-service tool no matter how great it is will

Sure, no one is suggesting self service will work for all cases.

The point being you can free up the phone queues by allowing the huge chunk people who are making routine changes to do so online.

That means shorter queues and better help for those with complex itineraries.

 

[justinbrett]

I don't accept that this will be an ongoing situation.

So no.

If it is - then maybe. But I doubt that will be the case.

Doesn't seem much choice when only one domestic airline also flies long haul international - especially when only oneworld offer top tier recognition.

 

[RichardMEL]

I don't accept that this will be an ongoing situation.

So no.

If it is - then maybe. But I doubt that will be the case.

Doesn't seem much choice when only one domestic airline also flies long haul international - especially when only oneworld offer top tier recognition.

The question is.. when do you decide that it "is"?

eg the call centre issues started long before the pandemic, so that's two plus years. It was bad then, now it's beyond pathetic.

I'm not intending to have a go at you personally to be clear but more the point at "how long is 'ongoing'"?

and I don't just mean about the cell centre issues. The decline in catering (remember spirits in dom J?).. the so so poor in many ways web experience where the improvements(and there have been some, to be fair) have not come close to addressing many of the poor issues. The backend - eg the problems causing tickets to NEED to go to manual processing and thus usually requiring call(s) to resolve... the poor integration with many OW carriers in terms of online award bookings etc. . etc... etc

these have all been going on for longer than the past few weeks, months, pandemic...

so... how long does it take? general question.

 

[clifford]

There is one area where QF excels over VA, which I've personally experienced.

It's the ability when flying J to get you inebriated. Self pour wine in lounge and bigger glasses and better quality wine in flight.

Not a deal breaker though...

 

[justinbrett]

The question is.. when do you decide that it "is"?

eg the call centre issues started long before the pandemic, so that's two plus years. It was bad then, now it's beyond pathetic.

I'm not intending to have a go at you personally to be clear but more the point at "how long is 'ongoing'"?

and I don't just mean about the cell centre issues. The decline in catering (remember spirits in dom J?).. the so so poor in many ways web experience where the improvements(and there have been some, to be fair) have not come close to addressing many of the poor issues. The backend - eg the problems causing tickets to NEED to go to manual processing and thus usually requiring call(s) to resolve... the poor integration with many OW carriers in terms of online award bookings etc. . etc... etc

these have all been going on for longer than the past few weeks, months, pandemic...

so... how long does it take? general question.

Well, I think we can say post-covid travel started for real around Christmas. So it's been around 3-4 months. After almost two years of not flying internationally, and domestic down to a shadow of its former self.

So yes, I would continue to give them space to return to normal. The covid excuses don't fly anymore (pun intended), but as long as the trajectory is up. How long? I think by the end of the year would be the latest. I also expect to ditch masks by then too.

I've booked, changed, cancelled and flown both domestic and international flights this year, both cash and award seats for each. None of which I had a problem with. I don't doubt others have problems, clearly the call centre should have been fixed months ago, but it hasn't affected me personally. When I did call the call centre I got a call back within an hour, and they were very helpful.

The lack of spirits in J annoy me but they surely can't continue that for much longer.

There's a tendency on this forum to have rants and there's certainly a lot of group think. Most people can and do fly Qantas without calling the call centre.

 

[Melburnian1]

There's a tendency on this forum to have rants and there's certainly a lot of group think. Most people can and do fly Qantas without calling the call centre.

Given the renowned Mattg initiated this topic, it's unfair to call resultant contributions 'rants'.

Most are real world experiences. Some may use embellished language but given they can't employ intonation to emphasise bouquets and brickbats, it's an acceptable substitute.

 

[DC3]

…. There's a tendency on this forum to have rants and there's certainly a lot of group think. Most people can and do fly Qantas without calling the call centre.

And if a few move away from QF, it may reduce some excessive hyper-ventilating here.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

The business I give Qantas remains unchanged for me at least.

I have been fortunate enough not to experience any issues on my travels, including a return trip to LHR over Christmas. My calls to customer service have been answered promptly other than last year when the NZ travel bubble burst - where I just selected the call back option and dealt with it when they called back.

I am currently Gold for what it's worth.

 

[justinbrett]

Given the renowned Mattg initiated this topic, it's unfair to call resultant contributions 'rants'.

Most are real world experiences. Some may use embellished language but given they can't employ intonation to emphasise bouquets and brickbats, it's an acceptable substitute.

A rant is a rant, no matter which way you spin it. Being the editor of the forum doesn’t make you exempt from this - in fact I’ve called him out several times for it.

I’ve posted rants too.

Point is people post exceptional experiences. You rarely see people post “I took a flight, it was fine and uneventful. I had no reason to call the call centre”.

 

[henrus]

I'm surprised how few people in this thread have mentioned price and schedule.

This year I've flown QF once on a domestic award flight using miles from CX (also it's not as if I'm not travelling 1 Jan 2022 to today I've flown 22,536 miles). This has all come down to price and poor QF flight times compared to the competition.

That being said if the times were right or the price was right then I'd happily book QF. The customer service doesn't bother me that much but what does concern me is the $1.4 billion in credits they hold.

 

[harvyk]

I've booked 3 trips with QF, so I'd guess no they are not going to be losing my business, at least in the short term. Me recommending them to others however... (not that I exactly acted as a shill)



If I was a betting man, I would put money on in the next few months seeing a whole lot of layoffs and / or "spending more time with the family" at the higher end of town. Some of those call centre contracts are probably also in serious jeopardy. This level of bad press which is not going away is the sort of thing that kills companies, so I would guess no idea is too crazy to get customers back on side.

They are likely going to bring back onsite staff at airports. They are also likely going to bring in some really great sales to convince people to give them another go. As someone else mentioned, QF being terrible is now water cooler talk, so they need to win people back as customers and nothing does that better than rock bottom prices.

Back when it was simply the FF crowd who have complained, QF didn't care. QF know that the media would never publish a sob-story from someone who routinely gets F-Lounge, and assuming the media did publish such a story, very few of the general public would care. However it's now "battlers" who are getting the raw end of the stick, in quantities enough that the media takes notice. That's going to ensure at least someone in QF gets walked.