Qantas wins Shonky Award ... again

[astrosly]

Award Winner for its controversial flight credits scheme, months of lost luggage, long call wait times and cancelled flights.

Choice chief executive Alan Kirkland said Qantas appeared to have gone deliberately out of its way to earn the award.

"Qantas might call itself the Spirit of Australia, but we think Spirit of Disappointment is more appropriate. It is well and truly deserving of receiving a Shonky Award this year,” Mr Kirkland said.

Qantas wins Choice Shonky award for being the 'Spirit of Disappointment'

Qantas has picked up a Shonky Award from consumer advocacy group Choice over its flight credits scheme, flight cancellations and lost baggage. A finance product for pet owners and an online florist also picked up gongs.

www.abc.net.au

Third time a winner

 

[antycbr]

They didn’t even get into award ticketing problems!

I note QFs strident defence - if VA or ZL had won QF would definitely be endorsing the result.

 

[summit_32]

QF are also getting smashed in the aviation focused media; YouTube - The downfall of Qantas

Some may say that it doesn't really matter but this video has had 18k views in 24hrs....

 

[Zanzara]

A well deserved award!

 

[Gold Member]

I’m loving the new motto, “The Spirit of Disappointment”. Wonder if Olivia came up with that one.

 

[HSB44]

It's a fantastic slogan, isn't it!

 

[RooFlyer]

Dispiritment of disappointment. ?

 

[PineappleSkip]

It’s quite a perverse achievement for a large public company to win an award on multiple bases (travel credits and call wait times). The Hall of Shame of past shonkies is mainly about particular products, and Qantas’s shameful company this year was Vetpay doubtful finance, Steggles missing veggie chicken nuggets, Bloomex dead flower delivery, and Zeta dodgy digital cookware.

Qantas is also the only Australian airline to win a shonky twice, and the only other airline in the hall of shame is Tiger, which shared a shonky with Qantas in 2009 for credit card surcharges.

Cheers skip

 

[siri]

Considering how other airlines recovered after covid, qantas board should look into AJ’s management tactics or employee hate culture that brought great damage to the brand and the country. Unfortunately board chairman may be in cahoots with the irishman since he got deaf ears or on a gravy train with nero fiddle on his hand…

 

[goldenhorn]

This is the MOST deserved award EVER!

Never have I had the urge to scream into the phone at CS staff until the hours and hours I've spent on the phone to QF call centres going absolutely nowhere. They should be ashamed of themselves. I'm embarrassed they are an Aussie company.

"The Spirit of Embarrassment"

 

[jpp42]

It's interesting that for a brief period, Qantas was issuing TravelPasses that were actually useful, being a debit card sort of system that could be spent on anything. Yet they quickly went back to the old fashioned flight credit method of keeping the value in a dummy PNR, which is the root cause of all the difficulties in using them. I wonder if Alan Joyce found out about the TravelPasses and quickly nixed them for being too customer friendly (couldn't have that, could you) - figuring people might just give up and abandoned their credits if they keep making them so difficult to use?

 

[summit_32]

In my opinion the central problem for QF is one of expectations. They are genuinely loved by many Australians, have an incredible history and an enviable safety record. Australian's expect big things from QF based on that pedigree of success. Unfortunately, management have decided to exploit that brand equity for short term gain despite the longer term consequences. Surely the board can see clearly that the CEO is no longer trusted or supported by his workforce. Speaking of workforce, many are now 3rd party contractors and have nothing invested in QF's future beyond their paycheque. How will QF management be able to motivate them to go the extra mile for customers. Renewal at the top is needed ASAP to restore employees trust and customer confidence.

A clear danger for QF is their diminishing share of international business which makes their 'national carrier' claim increasingly tenuous. The fact is QF wasn't there during the COVID pandemic and didn't do much, except some Govt-funded repatriation flights. QR (and other airlines) kept flying the entire time and are absolutely right to call that out. As industry capacity rebuilds, i think QF's share of that market will continue to decrease.

The other issue is QFF points - this has been a gold mine for them but i think the general public are growing increasingly sceptical of their true value. Will people jump through hoops for a few thousand QFF points. A few years ago the answer was probably yes, but i'm not so sure anymore. Avid flyers are already looking for value elsewhere.

I don't hate QF and want to see them succeed. That said, personally i'm only a couple of hundred points away from LTG. Once that's achieved, i will be instructing my corporate travel agent to avoid QF when and where it makes sense to do so. Not going back until some big changes are made!

 

[ole nimeton]

The other issue is QFF points - this has been a gold mine for them but i think the general public are growing increasingly sceptical of their true value. Will people jump through hoops for a few thousand QFF points. A few years ago the answer was probably yes, but i'm not so sure anymore. Avid flyers are already looking for value elsewhere.

They’re just too bloody hard to use for any decent international redemptions, particularly if you’re using the online system rather than phone. Availability just isn’t there and no business on the likes of Qatar has seriously devalued the program for me.

I’m currently points club plus but don’t think I’m actually getting much value out of it so have started focusing on Virgin and flexible points collecting rather than QF.

 

[dajop]

Meanwhile, no coincidence that QF PR department are working overtime, leaning on some of its advertising vendors to strategically place some puff pieces that subtly counter the message with positive vibes ... such as this piece in the Age which is I presume about Steak Sandwiches (not providing a link, as don't support "advertorial" articles ...) It's important news that is only the eighth story as you scroll down.

 

[drron]

Well Neil Perry obviously sold his soul to Qantas. Their first class passengers don't demand caviar as it is not served in the traditional manner.
Then there is the matter of chilli. quite a few can't eat it or dislike it. 4 of the main dishes out of 5 are spicy. Mrsdrron does not approve.

 

[straitman]

I have a friend who is in the right situation and would be appropriate to take over from AJ. When asked about when he is going to take the helm the response was "Some things can't be fixed"

Not much else I can say really other than I am 'normally' a Qantas supporter however I have little faith in the abilities of the management at the moment. Unfortunately I have to support the Choice award.

 

[AIRwin]

Choice chief executive Alan Kirkland said Qantas appeared to have gone deliberately out of its way to earn the award.

QF was match fit to win... Congrats!

 

[djkelly69]

Unsurprisingly, QF has 'hit back' at Choice by nit-picking a few of the claims (saying their data is out of date for flight delays, hold times, etc), but not actually looking at the bigger picture issues.

Seems like from the top down they just want to have petty arguments rather than dealing with real problems.

 

[Mattg]

Unsurprisingly, QF has 'hit back' at Choice by nit-picking a few of the claims (saying their data is out of date for flight delays, hold times, etc), but not actually looking at the bigger picture issues.

Seems like from the top down they just want to have petty arguments rather than dealing with real problems.

Yep. The core issues raised, that flight credits are too difficult to redeem and that Qantas has a customer service problem, are true.

(The call centre wait times have indeed come down, which is good, but we all know that the service provided by the outsourced call centres is still dreadful. Qantas is choosing to mark itself on wait times when it should be looking at the quality of service, number of call dropouts and whether issues are getting resolved.)

 

[Franky]

Yep. The core issues raised, that flight credits are too difficult to redeem and that Qantas has a customer service problem, are true.

(The call centre wait times have indeed come down, which is good, but we all know that the service provided by the outsourced call centres is still dreadful.)

And not many comments on their IT performances...