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

[opusman]

I've been in the F lounge when the floor has been dirty. People drop stuff, it happens. Having someone constantly vacuuming the lounge wouldn't exactly inspire a relaxing atmosphere.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not much wrong with Qantas in my eyes. They get most things right.

Qantas has huge issues with flooding the market with cheap points with high award surcharges but a dirty lounge floor at a certain point in time is nit picking.

Qantas economy, front row, platinum, with first class lounges and a shadow might be ok ‘most of the time’

CX business lounges are also insanely busy at peak times, but they are never the mess QF lounges are. BA galleries lounges can be a bit messy.

I think it just comes down to how QF sees their market. Both QF and CX are bound by OW rules, but QF lowers the bar with its lounges (business class gets an economy offering), but CX raises it (everyone gets business class, even if economy on status).

 

[Pushka]

Not much wrong with Qantas in my eyes. They get most things right.

Qantas has huge issues with flooding the market with cheap points with high award surcharges but a dirty lounge floor at a certain point in time is nit picking.

And I disagree with that. Those floors were awful. It doesn’t take much for someone with a long brush and dustpan to remove a lot of that rubbish.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I've been in the F lounge when the floor has been dirty. People drop stuff, it happens. Having someone constantly vacuuming the lounge wouldn't exactly inspire a relaxing atmosphere.

But there are manual carpet sweepers. Sometimes the QF clubs and J lounges look like they haven’t been vacuumed in a long time.

 

[Austman]

The clean floor issues in the Qantas lounges have been mentioned on sites like AFF for many years. Sometimes with a lot of criticism of how grubby the lounge guests must be. One problem is the typical small tables and easy chairs layout - which is nice to relax in but hard to eat tidily. I've tried it a few times with toast - pastries etc. You have to be vigilant!

I've also seen the manual sweepers brought out and they work pretty well and are silent.

An issue seems to be that they are not brought out often enough at peak mess times!

 

[Denali]

Maybe they need a couple of robot vacuums with a orange flag attached (for safety)

 

[JohnK]

I learn more from the negative ones than the fanboi ones. I look at their issues and decide whether such things are important for me and work from there.

I don't take much notice of airline reviews.

Hotel reviews can be useful. We just spent 3 nights in an overpriced budget hotel, in a non-smoking room in a non-smoking building and the hallway stinks of smoke with some smoke coming into our room. Complained and complaints are ignored as staff don't want to address the issue. This was not mentioned in any review I read of the hotel so obviously not important enough to mention.

 

[Pushka]

I don't take much notice of airline reviews.

Hotel reviews can be useful. We just spent 3 nights in an overpriced budget hotel, in a non-smoking room in a non-smoking building and the hallway stinks of smoke with some smoke coming into our room. Complained and complaints are ignored as staff don't want to address the issue. This was not mentioned in any review I read of the hotel so obviously not important enough to mention.

Which means the hotel reviews aren’t so useful after all........

 

[JohnK]

Which means the hotel reviews aren’t so useful after all........

That can be the case but I will definitely post this review.

 

[RooFlyer]

These are the type of reviews to ignore when you read through reviews on websites such as TripAdvisor.

What was wrong with the review of the Islington Hotel? Why would you ignore that?

Do you just ignore opinions that are contrary to yours? How do you learn anything new?

I Disagree ... generally the review is accurate.

Those who concentrate on the hypebowl are ignoring the pointed facts about what qantas is these days.

Yes. Those who defend QF at any cost, or in the face of any egregious defect don't do the airline any favours. BTW was that a 'Julia' hyper- bowl there, or just auto correct?

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

What an endearing chap that writer appears to be.

Yep- reading that review is 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

 

[dajop]

Yes OP makes many valid points, but most seem to be fixated on the one sentence that is in the thread title!

On that particular choice of words “... in the free world”, seems essentially to be a Cold War term. But if you take it to mean democracies, then you can throw India, Indonesia, parts of Southern Africa and most of South America into the list .... and even putting aside the likes of Ryanair, Tiger Australia, Vueling and Spirit, you could probably find an airline or three that is worse than QF.

What is better an airline with crumbs on the floor of a lounge, or one that doesn’t have crumbs on the floor of a lounge because it doesn’t even operate one?

 

[justinbrett]

The Sydney DOM J lounge is rubbish. I’m really surprised they haven’t announced an upgrade, it’s in dire need of one.

 

[SFO777]

My, my. I do seem to have touched a nerve. Thank you to m0hamed at flyertalk for alerting me to this thread. I did rather enjoy reading all of your comments, both positive and negative. We are back home and must say that my wife and I had a simply marvelous time in Australia. Tassie was a real treat with great weather, scenery and friendly people. And what's not to like about Hamilton Island, the GBR and Qualia, where we enjoyed one of the best meals of the past year.

Apologies to all for my ignorance about the MEL/SYD lounge set up and lounge titles. As a double One World Emerald (AA and BA), my status gets me access to any One World First Class Lounge anywhere, even when I don't fly international First. Indeed, I'm a regular in the LAX QF First Lounge when I fly domestic AA. When I'm not in a familiar airport, I have no problem asking even if others think that it may be a stupid question.

As for my criticism of your national flag carrier, a little perspective if I may. I am fortunate to accumulate millions of miles each year thru my businesses, so we travel Internationally frequently and virtually always in international First using miles. Since we've experienced the best of the best, anything less is obvious. Sorry, but QF First is closer to the bottom of my international First Class rankings. No doubt, the way I tell it as I see it may come across as entitled and whiney. If you think my criticism of QF is bad, you should read my FT comments about AA, UA and BA, three generally dreadful airlines much of the time. To anyone on FT, my reference to QF "as one of the worst in the free world" was clearly hyperbole. But I guess it worked as click bait. However, my characterization came after brutal day with QF which started with a 4:30am wake up call in Hobart. Between the comical HBA lounge, inedible breakfast on HBA-SYD, dire SYD lounge, no priority boarding anywhere despite Priority boarding signage that gate agents dutifully roll out for no apparent reason, breakfast offered on a lunch flight, uncomfortable 717 J seats and no Wifi, I was probably a little cranky.

By contrast, our 717 HTI-BNE flight (Economy exit row) was pleasant and comfortable, more comfortable than the J seats IMO. And our 789 BNE-LAX flight home was quite nice with an excellent crew and good food, albeit still no Wifi. Not very impressed with BNE domestic to international transit though, with the BNE international terminal so far away that it wouldn't have surprised me if it was in a different time zone. (Hint: hyperbole).

Some thoughts on some of your comments to correct the record or just to have fun.

First of all, he claims QF has no nonstop competition on the route - WRONG! UA fly and have flown LAX-MEL for years.. non stop for well over a decade. Idiot (specially for a guy called SFO777 who I know flies UA a lot). It stinks of entitled elitism ("If I were buying a ticket I'd...")

We were flying First Class and indeed there is no nonstop (First Class) competition on the route.

The errors are what get me. No escalator at MEL? Yeah, actually, there is and you even took a photo of it.

Indeed there is an escalator at MEL. But how is non-regular to know where it leads? It was in the middle of the terminal with no apparent signage that I saw. It could have led to a bus gate or the airport prison for all I know. (Hint: hyperbole on the prison thing)

He complained about no wifi on the international leg, but I'm not aware of any carrier offering free wifi from US to Australia - happy to be corrected if Im wrong?

I wasn't complaining about lack of free wifi. I was complaint about the lack of wifi, period. As noted by another poster, every other airline flying from the US to Australia has wifi.

For me it was when he referred to other people in the lounge as 'the masses' - as if he is somehow special and not like everyone else.

"Masses" or even "unwashed masses" are tongue in cheek flyertalk terms, which is where my report was posted. Other FT terms are lounge dragons who decide on access, and gate lice which refers to pax crowding the boarding lane prior to a boarding call, something that is annoyingly typical in the US and parts of Europe. Amazingly, I saw none of that in Australia.

Not much wrong with Qantas in my eyes. They get most things right.

LOL. Good one.

 

[opusman]

Welcome to AFF, and nice response

 

[Austman]

My, my. I do see to have touched a nerve.

What about your comments re the bar opening at 12 noon? At least when it does open it's a complimentary bar! Even for guests not flying!

I think a lot of your QF and QF lounge criticism is spot on! Especially the dirtiness of the SYD J lounge floor. That has been known about for years ...

I personally think the QantasLink 717 J class seats are quite good though...

And I think that flying during the ca 2 week peak holiday time is a little bit different in Australia. Both for better and for worse...

 

[JohnK]

And I disagree with that. Those floors were awful. It doesn’t take much for someone with a long brush and dustpan to remove a lot of that rubbish.

There isn't someone on hand to keep the floor spotless at all times. And one thing we easily forget is these are not Qantas staff in the lounges.

I'll see if I have time to check the floor in the BNE Business lounge tomorrow morning taking daughter back to Sydney.

 

[serfty]

And one thing we easily forget is these are not Qantas staff in the lounges.

Irrelevant - Qantas contract out their lounge operation and related services and for consumer intents and purposes the staff/management in the lounges are working for Qantas.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

There isn't someone on hand to keep the floor spotless at all times.

It's not exactly 'at all times'. I've sat in a QF lounge for a couple hours and not a single pass through with a sweeper.

 

[odysseus]

No ... but that's hyberbowl.

I ignore it in this context and concentrate on the reality.

Deity help us if VA ever goes under ...

When people exaggerate, and come across as excessively demanding, it removes any other credibility it may have.

I look at the numerous pictures of the floor and, objectively, mostly see someone with a bee in their bonnet than an actual issue. That's not to say there isn't an issue but the hyperbole and other factors discredit any merits of the report.