It's Time To Address The Elephant.........oops !!.....The Kangaroo in the Room.

[vetrade]

I kind of agree with you, although I do appreciate the "unlimited" changes facility given the oft changing Government travel restrictions..........

Where travellers are impacted by factors outside their control such as cancellations it is appropriate for any changes required to be FOC.
However, unlimited free discretionary changes are another matter entirely, especially because such changes often take up the time of already time poor call centre staff; staff time which QF is paying for.

I have the suspicion that many times, especially for comparatively inexpensive domestic fares, QF's "free change" deal is probably actually losing them money on flying passengers around the country i.e., whatever profit margin they may usually make on a fare could easily be cancelled or exceeded by the wages paid to staff to enact the changes. Having some sort of charge for discretionary changes directly recoups the cost for QF and also acts as a deterrent against pax taking up call centre staff time by making unnecessary changes.

A further situation where QF has scored a "own goal" in regard to free changes and cancellations is that people may often take unreasonable advantage of such concessions. Members of this forum have admitted they have made multiple bookings to accommodate various possible scenarios for what is intended to be one trip, just because there is no cost to them to do so. This is particularly pertinent where award seats are concerned. Tieing up many award seats that are not really intended to be used just in case they could be useful, not only makes them unavailable to other travellers, but also creates addition demands on call centre staff at additional $$ cost to QF.

 

[Captain Halliday]

Tieing up many award seats that are not really intended to be used just in case they could be useful, not only makes them unavailable to other travellers, but also creates addition demands on call centre staff at additional $$ cost to QF.

While I mostly agree with this point, there is another factor from an airline perspective.

Award seats taken up means only revenue fares available to to book.

I suspect many people with limited flexibility in travel dates, destination and so on who can’t get an award seat would either:
1. Use point plus pay.
2. Book the cheapest revenue fare.

In both instances I think the airline would consider that a win.

AFFers wouldn’t do this of course, but we are a minority.

 

[Seat0B]

I have the suspicion that many times, especially for comparatively inexpensive domestic fares, QF's "free change" deal is probably actually losing them money on flying passengers around the country i.e., whatever profit margin they may usually make on a fare could easily be cancelled or exceeded by the wages paid to staff to enact the changes.

you’re probably right about the costs @vetrade - but I think that could be better solved if pax could make their own changes on line. Or use their flight credits on line. Or reliably select seats, link bookings, or many other simple self service things. Or if tickets issued after they were booked reliably. Or if Qantas itself did not make 3 changes (literally in my experience) to your booked and ticket flights until the times become unsuitable - paid J tickets, so NOT champagne taste on a beer budget at all.

 

[vetrade]

you’re probably right about the costs @vetrade - but I think that could be better solved if pax could make their own changes on line. Or use their flight credits on line. Or reliably select seats, link bookings, or many other simple self service things. Or if tickets issued after they were booked reliably. Or if Qantas itself did not make 3 changes (literally in my experience) to your booked and ticket flights until the times become unsuitable - paid J tickets, so NOT champagne taste on a beer budget at all.

No argument from me on that, SeatOB. This is part of my post #33:

"And another unacceptable QF problem greatly impacting service quality is the poor quality of its platform which has had issues for many years. If that had reasonable functionality and worked satisfactorily, passengers would be able to do many tasks themselves online that they now have to spend hours on the phone to do. Such a platform would probably reduce the workload of call centre staff by 30 - 50% in a matter of days."

 

[Seat0B]

No argument from me on that, SeatOB. This is part of my post #33:

"And another unacceptable QF problem greatly impacting service quality is the poor quality of its platform which has had issues for many years. If that had reasonable functionality and worked satisfactorily, passengers would be able to do many tasks themselves online that they now have to spend hours on the phone to do. Such a platform would probably reduce the workload of call centre staff by 30 - 50% in a matter of days."

Sorry @vetrade - I’m slower than usual this morning!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have the suspicion that many times, especially for comparatively inexpensive domestic fares, QF's "free change" deal is probably actually losing them money on flying passengers around the country i.e., whatever profit margin they may usually make on a fare could easily be cancelled or exceeded by the wages paid to staff to enact the changes. Having some sort of charge for discretionary changes directly recoups the cost for QF and also acts as a deterrent against pax taking up call centre staff time by making unnecessary changes.

But I’m not sure this figures much into their calculations? For example QF’s FF program is not revenue based, but transaction based. You can fly weekly MEL-SYD for $79, out of which has to come baggage handling, refreshments, IFE, crew, fuel, and lounge access. You’ll get rewarded with that pattern - with gold or platinum membership - over a one off business class fare to USA or London for $8000.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

But I’m not sure this figures much into their calculations? For example QF’s FF program is not revenue based, but transaction based. You can fly weekly MEL-SYD for $79, out of which has to come baggage handling, refreshments, IFE, crew, fuel, and lounge access. You’ll get rewarded with that pattern - with gold or platinum membership - over a one off business class fare to USA or London for $8000.

There have always been loopholes in frequent flyer programs to earn status easily. Even if QF were to tighten down accrual on flights taken with them, what about partner airlines where it is impossible to gauge how much money the customer spent. To give you an example, a flight from HNL to NYC on AA in J can cost around $2500 AUD at times (about the same cost as a flight from Australia to the Americas in Y). However, depending on routing you can earn anywhere from 400 to roughly 500 status credits. Meanwhile if I were to take similar flights in Australia on a QF sale fare, I could easily spend more than $2500 AUD to receive the same number of status credits. For instance, right now flying SYD to MEL on QF's $99 fares nets me 10 status credits. Hence, I would need to spend close to $5,000 to achieve a similar amount of status credits. Don't get me wrong, I suspect the margins on those SYD > MEL flights are very slim indeed, but from the perspective of the frequent flyer who aims to achieve status across a number of programs in a year, understanding the cheapest route to achieve the status is vital. For instance, this year I plan on earning mid-tier status with Star Alliance, OneWorld and SkyTeam partners. That way when I do travel again internationally, I'm guaranteed to have status benefits regardless of which airline is offering the lowest fare.

-RooFlyer88

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m not across the finer details of the US carriers’ programs, but several of them have a revenue component in addition to BIS flying. They have some calculation to take account of $$ spend on tickets issued by alliance members.

It’s an issue with QF because their lounges reflect the lowest common denominator… which is economy class flying with status: potentially tiny margins.

Compare with AA’s flagship lounges, which are also for business class/OWS. they Last night they had 24 bottles of champagne out in the self service. I don’t care how you accrue status when lounges have that level of offering!

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I’m not across the finer details of the US carriers’ programs, but several of them have a revenue component in addition to BIS flying. They have some calculation to take account of $$ spend on tickets issued by alliance members.

It’s an issue with QF because their lounges reflect the lowest common denominator… which is economy class flying with status: potentially tiny margins.

Compare with AA’s flagship lounges, which are also for business class/OWS. they Last night they had 24 bottles of champagne out in the self service. I don’t care how you accrue status when lounges have that level of offering!

I would encourage you to visit a United Club, American Admirals lounge or Delta SkyClub in the United States. Most of them are dumps, with catering that at best satisfies a mouse and most not having a shower to speak of, which on a trans-con can make a huge difference. You're right that some upper-tier lounges reserved for international J customers like United's Polaris lounge or American's Flagship lounge are considerably better, but I wouldn't necessary point that lowest common denominator thinking by the airlines. There is a considerable quality difference between a QF Pub versus a United Club or between the Star Alliance lounge at LAX or Lufthansa Senator lounge at Detroit or Washington and any US3 domestic lounge. And all of those lounges are accessible to those with status travelling economy.

-RooFlyer88

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I received an email earlier today from QF apologizing yet again for customer service. I've read it a few times and now firmly believe that QF doesn't give a toss about customer service:

Australians have waited a long time to get back in the air, so the last thing you want is to wait hours on the phone to talk to our contact centres.

Our recent call wait times have not been acceptable. We apologise to you, and all our customers who have experienced challenges in getting through to us, and want to reassure you that we’ve made fixing this issue a top priority and we know we need to do better.

We now have more staff in our contact centres than before the pandemic, but call volumes are at an all-time high – from an average of 7,500 calls a day to 14,000. With border restrictions easing across the world, each change brings more calls.

The time our agents are talking to each customer has increased by an average of 50 per cent as people rearrange travel plans that are up to two years old.

Each month we are recruiting and training more people, and we’ll keep hiring more people and investing in better technology so it’s easier to talk to us, which will mean we will see improvements each week. In the meantime, we hope you can be patient with our dedicated Qantas staff members; our wonderful frontline staff are doing all they can.

We know that some of our customers would prefer to speak to a real person to have their questions answered, and we understand that, however in the majority of cases customers do have the option to use qantas.com to book flights, including using Flight Credits, and make changes to their existing bookings. More than half of calls we are currently receiving can be resolved online, so we are developing a series of ‘how to’ videos to help explain the most common questions received by our contact centres that can be resolved on qantas.com.

Firstly, they are right in saying the wait times are unacceptable and that the last thing you want to do when booking a trip is be on the phone for hours at a time. I would also point out that long queues and call centre wait times is certainly not the first impression you want to show your valued customers who over the past 2 years by law or otherwise have been told not to travel. Hence, the argument that they say the number of calls they have to take has approximately doubled isn't a surprise. This is precisely what one would expect after travel restrictions have eased and something that QF should have planned for long ago. Mid-October would've been a great time to start ramping up on the customer service investment when the NSW Prime Minister announced quarantine-free international arrivals into the state. Indeed, QF was very keen in bringing back all those wide body aircraft into service such as the A380, which might I add is also a capital intensive exercise, they should have at least dusted off the phones that had sat idle for so long.

Secondly, QF is assuming that this is strictly a numbers issue. That is, simply filling more customer service desks with staff will solve the increase in demand they are facing. However, what such analysis fails to take into account is a customer service agent in Cape Town is not the same as one in Hobart or Auckland many of whom have spent years familiarizing themselves with QF policies and practices, and know how to handle reservation issues efficiently. Could it be that call times be longer because travel plans are more complex than pre-pandemic levels? Potentially. But it also could be because the agents they are using only have surface level knowledge of QF reservations.

The last paragraph of the "apology," email is what really ticked me off, shifting the blame on the customers instead of the lacklustre customer service being offered. Customers don't need education on how to book a flight with you. Your customer service agents need education on how to handle requests efficiently and respectfully. How dare they blame the customer for their service failings! Yes, there are a lot of things I can do online with QF and almost exclusively use that channel for booking, but it does sweet nothing for me when I'm stranded in Hobart after my flight gets cancelled or need to make a non-trivial change to my itinerary. As much as I like to blast United on this forum from time to time (especially when it comes to the quality of lounges) one thing they did right was customer service. I could call the Premier desk and get to an agent in 10 minutes or less, even during weather events. If I encountered IRROPs at Chicago, I could head to the customer service desk air-side, get in the priority line and get everything sorted in 5 minutes. I wasn't directed to a couch to sit on whilst holding a phone receiver for hours to get something sorted.

-RooFlyer88

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Warm Regards, from S Tully.
Yep, got mine too.
Ooo, how "nice".

 

[lovestotravel]

I think a more powerful petition and something that Qantas is more likely to notice is a petition to get Qantas flyers to commit to switching their flights to Virgin and their credit cards to Velocity. It'll be a tough ask though.

Petition ...... Yeah that'll work.......

The only thing QF will notice is a decline in $$$

Until that happens they couldn't care less

 

[lovestotravel]

I received an email earlier today from QF apologizing yet again for customer service. I've read it a few times and now firmly believe that QF doesn't give a toss about customer service:



Firstly, they are right in saying the wait times are unacceptable and that the last thing you want to do when booking a trip is be on the phone for hours at a time. I would also point out that long queues and call centre wait times is certainly not the first impression you want to show your valued customers who over the past 2 years by law or otherwise have been told not to travel. Hence, the argument that they say the number of calls they have to take has approximately doubled isn't a surprise. This is precisely what one would expect after travel restrictions have eased and something that QF should have planned for long ago. Mid-October would've been a great time to start ramping up on the customer service investment when the NSW Prime Minister announced quarantine-free international arrivals into the state. Indeed, QF was very keen in bringing back all those wide body aircraft into service such as the A380, which might I add is also a capital intensive exercise, they should have at least dusted off the phones that had sat idle for so long.

Secondly, QF is assuming that this is strictly a numbers issue. That is, simply filling more customer service desks with staff will solve the increase in demand they are facing. However, what such analysis fails to take into account is a customer service agent in Cape Town is not the same as one in Hobart or Auckland many of whom have spent years familiarizing themselves with QF policies and practices, and know how to handle reservation issues efficiently. Could it be that call times be longer because travel plans are more complex than pre-pandemic levels? Potentially. But it also could be because the agents they are using only have surface level knowledge of QF reservations.

The last paragraph of the "apology," email is what really ticked me off, shifting the blame on the customers instead of the lacklustre customer service being offered. Customers don't need education on how to book a flight with you. Your customer service agents need education on how to handle requests efficiently and respectfully. How dare they blame the customer for their service failings! Yes, there are a lot of things I can do online with QF and almost exclusively use that channel for booking, but it does sweet nothing for me when I'm stranded in Hobart after my flight gets cancelled or need to make a non-trivial change to my itinerary. As much as I like to blast United on this forum from time to time (especially when it comes to the quality of lounges) one thing they did right was customer service. I could call the Premier desk and get to an agent in 10 minutes or less, even during weather events. If I encountered IRROPs at Chicago, I could head to the customer service desk air-side, get in the priority line and get everything sorted in 5 minutes. I wasn't directed to a couch to sit on whilst holding a phone receiver for hours to get something sorted.

-RooFlyer88

They haven't cared for years, COVID gave them a great excuse to care even less and now with massive pent up demand they still don't care as options for some people are limited to fly other carriers

Same with so many companies, offshore call centres fill the need for the majority of calls or servicing at 1/4 of the cost of having them in Australia. Even if they spend twice the time or clients have to call back again it's still cheaper than having them here.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

They haven't cared for years, COVID gave them a great excuse to care even less and now with massive pent up demand they still don't care as options for some people are limited to fly other carriers

Same with so many companies, offshore call centres fill the need for the majority of calls or servicing at 1/4 of the cost of having them in Australia. Even if they spend twice the time or clients have to call back again it's still cheaper than having them here.

Care about customers is a relative term. In customer service and PDB for J passengers, you're probably right. On other matters like lounges, I would respectfully encourage you to look at lounges outside of Australia, such as the lounges of the US3. Yes you can easily argue that a LH Senator lounge is higher tier than all QF domestic lounges in the network, but that's not a fair comparison.

I have yet to encounter a single airline that truly cares about their customers. There is always some aspect of the service which I could argue is better somewhere else.

-RooFlyer88

 

[stm1sydney]

I think you are better off focusing your energy on moving your business to a different airlines(s).

 

[Spongbob]

So what is the "elephant"?
Should I make a trunk call to find out?

 

[encryptededdy]

‘I’m not blaming them’: Qantas CEO walks back criticism of passengers for Sydney Airport delays

Alan Joyce angered passengers by saying they contributed to long queues by not removing laptops and aerosols at security. Chronic airport shortages meant several security lanes were closed.

www.smh.com.au

The airport continues to blame a multitude of factors, including “inexperienced” passengers who are slowing down the security screening process.

Mr Joyce agreed, stating at a press conference that “our customers are not match fit”.


“I went through the airports on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops, they have to take out their aerosols ... so that is taking longer to get through the queue.”

Hmm...

 

[kangarooflyer88]

‘I’m not blaming them’: Qantas CEO walks back criticism of passengers for Sydney Airport delays

Alan Joyce angered passengers by saying they contributed to long queues by not removing laptops and aerosols at security. Chronic airport shortages meant several security lanes were closed.

www.smh.com.au

Hmm...

In fairness, though, Australian airport security isn't that great compared to the rest of the world. I love visiting the US or even Canada where you don't have to take anything out of your bags or pockets, you just walk through the nude-o-scan and that's it. Why airports like Sydney, which might I remind should be the flagship airport of Australia given the populace it serves and the number of flights taking off each day, is still stuck in November 2003 in security technology is beyond me. Relatedly, one thing I don't see as rigorously enforced at some airports when travelling on QF is that priority security lane. What's the point of getting Gold status if any Tom, Dick and Harry can ends up using it because no one is checking their boarding pass/membership card?

Regardless, let's see how well this blame the customer strategy will work for them. Maybe they're banking that people won't care given they've been locked in their pens for years and QF is the only game in town. Then again, I wait with keen interest to see what the ACCC makes of the QF travel credit scandal.

-RooFlyer88

 

[jakeseven7]

In fairness, though, Australian airport security isn't that great compared to the rest of the world. I love visiting the US or even Canada where you don't have to take anything out of your bags or pockets, you just walk through the nude-o-scan and that's it.

Agreed, apart from the TSA staff are usually foul, barking at people like guard dogs. I told one to stop shouting at another passenger once, there was no need. I know they have a coughpy job and are probably paid peanuts but wow the attitude on a lot of them!

 

[eastwest101]

From the reports of yesterday apparently 3 of the 8 lanes at security at T2 were closed, normally pre-covid there would have been 8 out of 8 lanes of security open but even then it sometimes couldn't cope with the volume of passengers.

From what I saw of the T3 Qantas domestic part of SYD yesterday in comments here there also was not the full complement of security lanes open there either.

Looks to be a systematic structural/achitectural problem then Covid-19 close contact rules and previous Covid-19 layoffs of security staff and inability to hire quickly enough for a return of large volumes of pax to the skies.

Not just in SYD either, judging by others comments and media articles from Manchester and other airports round the world.

Seems pretty amateurish though considering the airlines would be able to predict an hour by hour breakdown of planned aircraft departures and total passenger numbers in their booking system so it should really just be a process of giving these numbers to the security contractors for the next few days and adjusting the size of the workforce to meet demand.