Qantas: 'one of the worst airlines in the free world'

[Kangol]

I shared in his pain of the QP bar opening at the ungodly late hour of noon, at least.

You think that's bad? In California you can't get alcohol between 2am-6am! No exception for the F/L

California ABC - FAQ Enforcement and Violations (continued)

 

[Kangol]

Well, I can confirm - for those people who may not have rational cognitive ability - that SFO77 is largely correct in his observations and they are fairly representative or a typical experience flying QF. Perhaps the those of lesser cognitive ability might actually take one flight and think it was the best they've ever had. And good on them. They were lucky

I dunno how many times QF fans can come up with excuses on behalf of QF.

Whilst I am not a QF fanboi, I have had both great and not so great experiences on QF F/J/PE/Y and stellar experiences on other airlines, your claim of a confirmation is not true.
ie. your statement is a lie.

You/he/I/anyone cannot sample them all and barely come close to "enough" flights to give an accurate representation, meaning the inference from the observations cannot be "largely correct" or largely anything.

You simply do not know.

You lack knowledge, because the information you actually have is severely limited.
The link I posted gave a clue, but it is clear you either did not get it or chose to act like you did not get it.

No judgement, nothing personal, just that any claim about a viewpoint being fairly representative is inconsistent with the truth.

Whether one believes their extrapolations are complete truth is another matter.

Just saying.

 

[eastwest101]

Accurate, but not representative.

This is a typical case of:
What You See Is All There Is

The sad thing is, many people who may not have rational cognitive ability will believe what he is saying is the complete truth without considering any alternative(s). Too much confidence.

His style of report in the past has been good, however.

People can argue and disagree/agree with the written opinions or conclusions in any trip report. But the number of photos supporting that trip report would suggest that there is a fair bit of hard evidence to back up the contents of the trip report. Thats why a variety of photos in a trip report is so valuable, in my opinion anyway.

I am interested in the wording of the phrase "Accurate but not representative" though. Is the suggestion that to be accurate only someone whom has flown on airline YZ say x number of times qualified to write a trip report or offer an opinion about an airline?

I can't fact check everything that SFO777 has written, but I can see that a quick search of SFO777's trip report stats in Flyertalk would seem to indicate that they have flown almost 200 different airlines? If true that does not make them a once-in-a-year traveller who came down in the last shower of rain.

 

[Kangol]

I am interested in the wording of the phrase "Accurate but not representative" though. Is the suggestion that to be accurate only someone whom has flown on airline YZ say x number of times qualified to write a trip report or offer an opinion about an airline?

I can't fact check everything that SFO777 has written, but I can see that a quick search of SFO777's trip report stats in Flyertalk would seem to indicate that they have flown almost 200 different airlines? If true that does not make them a once-in-a-year traveller who came down in the last shower of rain.

Accurate about what was observed, but not representative of what was not observed.
He sees what he sees (I agree), but that does not mean everyone who flies QF else sees the same thing and experiences the same experiences.

To give a representative opinion, you'd need to sample every QF service. That's impossible.
Therefore you have the question the validity of the extrapolation.

Any human can offer an opinion, whether that applies to the rest of the world is not known, not true and it is only with a much larger sample that you become closer to the truth. Slightly. Part of this is mathematical...

 

[GoldCanyon340]

I can't fact check everything that SFO777 has written, but I can see that a quick search of SFO777's trip report stats in Flyertalk would seem to indicate that they have flown almost 200 different airlines? If true that does not make them a once-in-a-year traveller who came down in the last shower of rain.

It's Seat2A who has flown 200 airlines. I sat next to him on a sadly too short SYD-ADL flight 18 months ago. A lovely chap.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Accurate about what was observed, but not representative of what was not observed.
He sees what he sees (I agree), but that does not mean everyone who flies QF else sees the same thing and experiences the same experiences.

To give a representative opinion, you'd need to sample every QF service. That's impossible.
Therefore you have the question the validity of the extrapolation.

Any human can offer an opinion, whether that applies to the rest of the world is not known, not true and it is only with a much larger sample that you become closer to the truth. Slightly. Part of this is mathematical...

But that's where the collective experience comes in. One person in isolation doesn't necessarily give a representative picture.

But a dozen people reporting the same thing and perhaps you are getting a bit more perspective.

Plenty of people know that beds on the A380 droop. Are you going to tell us that that's not representative because we haven't sampled every single seat?

And really this hypothetical reasoning is of little relevance.

Firstly it's about risk. If one person reports something it might be explained away. If several report the same thing you may decide you don't want to take the risk of having your journey affected by the same thing.

That's why airlines - like most busineses where they rely on discretionary spend - put so much money on brand and protecting brand image. Because they know, in reality, that enough unfavourable reporting can start to have an impact on their bottom line.

I don't think paying customers would be satisfied if Qantas replied to all complaints with a link to a self-help page telling them that their views are wrong because they haven't crossed into the more mature 'stage 2' thinking.

 

[Scott K]

And there we are everybody. Next week we’ll discuss why climate change doesn’t exist, because it still feels cool in the Qantas F lounge when you’re in there.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Still think the article was rather overblown. However just flown two sectors with Qantas - the last I will ever fly internationally with them. 4 J tickets - paid not awards or upgrades (not that that should make any difference). 4 hour delay going over due to a variety of reasons - sub of the ancient 4 class 747, entertainment system not working, galley not working.

Coming back - slight delay - box on runway , which was quite funny - never had that before. However we landed at 6pm - plenty of time to get the 7:30 flight to Canberra - we are business right - bags are going to come off quickly. Wrong - they came off last - after all the economy. So now here we are totally exhausted standing in the international domestic transfer area, waiting for someone to come and give us new boarding passes and accommodation. Been told it will be at least an hour. Ankles are totally swollen and feeling miserable.

So not the worst in the world, or even close to it, but certainly not one I will fly again.

 

[SFO777]

Still think the article was rather overblown. However just flown two sectors with Qantas - the last I will ever fly internationally with them. 4 J tickets - paid not awards or upgrades (not that that should make any difference). 4 hour delay going over due to a variety of reasons - sub of the ancient 4 class 747, entertainment system not working, galley not working.

Coming back - slight delay - box on runway , which was quite funny - never had that before. However we landed at 6pm - plenty of time to get the 7:30 flight to Canberra - we are business right - bags are going to come off quickly. Wrong - they came off last - after all the economy. So now here we are totally exhausted standing in the international domestic transfer area, waiting for someone to come and give us new boarding passes and accommodation. Been told it will be at least an hour. Ankles are totally swollen and feeling miserable.

So not the worst in the world, or even close to it, but certainly not one I will fly again.

Let me see if I understand... paid J, ancient 747, IFE not working, galley not working, bags late, waiting at least another hour for a QF staffer to give you new connecting boarding passes and hotel vouchers, ankles totally swollen, feeling miserable, and you will never fly them again. I'm thinking that my "one of the worst airlines in the free world" characterization may actually not be that far off the mark.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Let me see if I understand... paid J, ancient 747, IFE not working, galley not working, bags late, waiting at least another hour for a QF staffer to give you new connecting boarding passes and hotel vouchers, ankles totally swollen, feeling miserable, and you will never fly them again. I'm thinking that my "one of the worst airlines in the free world" characterization may actually not be that far off the mark.

oh no I am sure that’s not true . I still have a soft spot for Qantas even though I will never fly them again internationally . I didn’t mention we also lost all power to the seat and the entertainment system for awhile on the flight back - but it did come back again. I must admit I had a minor panic when it happened wondering exactly what electronics had failed

 

[juddles]

QF have many failings, but so has everyone.

Despite quite a bit of travel, they are still my number one.

 

[SFO777]

QF have many failings, but so has everyone.
Despite quite a bit of travel, they are still my number one.

No, not everyone and not every airline has "many failings". Unfortunately, to the extent that your "yes, they are cough but they are still my number one choice" is a wide spread attitude in Australia, why should a for profit airline like QF spend any money on making improvements? BA suffers from the same affliction. They make money despite a horrendously bad hard product, as many Brits and others swear by them and continue to buy and fly BA.

 

[Flying mermaid]

QF have many failings, but so has everyone.

Despite quite a bit of travel, they are still my number one.

Just can’t agree - it’s been a litany of failures for years for me. I just haven’t had the same basic failures with SQ or EK. Service was very patchy yesterday as well - they managed to serve Ms FM a seafood paella with no seafood. Had to take it back and fix it up.

I agree everyone has failures - no airline is perfect and I have been on ones much worse than Qantas. I actually broke my number 1 rule, which is never have connections. I think what was so upsetting, was the flight was minimally delayed and I thought we would easily make our connection until the baggage fiasco...,

 

[Flying mermaid]

No, not everyone and not every airline has "many failings". Unfortunately, to the extent that your "yes, they are cough but they are still my number one choice" is a wide spread attitude in Australia, why should a for profit airline like QF spend any money on making improvements? BA suffers from the same affliction. They make money despite a horrendously bad hard product, as many Brits and others swear by them and continue to buy and fly BA.

Mainly because they are not airlines, they are frequent flyer programs. I just don’t give a stuff about status or points anymore.

 

[mattm199]

After reading and enjoying the back and forth on this thread, I Just had to add the data point that staffer with a Dyson vacuum is busy in the sydney J lounge right now.
I’m sure it’s usual, but can’t help picturing them reading these threads out the back and resolving to clean harder!

 

[Kangol]

But that's where the collective experience comes in. One person in isolation doesn't necessarily give a representative picture.

But a dozen people reporting the same thing and perhaps you are getting a bit more perspective.

Plenty of people know that beds on the A380 droop. Are you going to tell us that that's not representative because we haven't sampled every single seat?

And really this hypothetical reasoning is of little relevance.

Firstly it's about risk. If one person reports something it might be explained away. If several report the same thing you may decide you don't want to take the risk of having your journey affected by the same thing.

That's why airlines - like most busineses where they rely on discretionary spend - put so much money on brand and protecting brand image. Because they know, in reality, that enough unfavourable reporting can start to have an impact on their bottom line.

I don't think paying customers would be satisfied if Qantas replied to all complaints with a link to a self-help page telling them that their views are wrong because they haven't crossed into the more mature 'stage 2' thinking.

The collective does not change the fact that you willingly made a false and deceptive statement, were called out upon it and are defending dishonesty with an alternative (straw man) argument.
You also have not admitted to lying or made any concession, despite the facts showing the statements you made are wrong.
Again, no judgement, it's not personal.
Just next time try not to contribute to the demise of society (this part of it, at least) by making false statements.
If anything you should be thankful for someone giving you the opportunity to correct your mistake.

If you want to discuss another topic, feel free to make a new thread about it.

 

[ameno]

I really enjoyed his write-up.

I think those of you having a go at him/defending Qantas have just become accustomed to the sub-par product that Qantas has been delivering to us for years due to them having next to no major challengers when it comes to Australian aviation options.

And I say this as a QF LTG.

 

[Pushka]

I really enjoyed his write-up.

I think those of you having a go at him/defending Qantas have just become accustomed to the sub-par product that Qantas has been delivering to us for years due to them having next to no major challengers when it comes to Australian aviation options.

And I say this as a QF LTG.

I reckon most of us agree with the facts he has presented. It’s the hyperbole (and he’s acknowledged he did that) that get up the goat.

 

[ameno]

I reckon most of us agree with the facts he has presented. It’s the hyperbole (and he’s acknowledged he did that) that get up the goat.

I understand and that's fair enough.

I guess on a personal level I got a bit of a laugh at his reactions to a few things which are simply 'the norm' to us that experience them on a very regular basis

 

[Pushka]

I understand and that's fair enough.

I guess on a personal level I got a bit of a laugh at his reactions to a few things which are simply 'the norm' to us that experience them on a very regular basis

I think you made valid points though, like the frog that was slowly boiled.