Should Qantas sack their website team?

[nutwood]

This question came to me as I was perusing the Qantas "Help" section.
My original question was "what Australian airports does Qantas fly into?" My work takes me to all sorts of places and as I like to support the local product, I generally fly Qantas. Sometimes I find myself on Rex, which I quite like, or Sharp, or a few others, but where possible, it's Qantas. I thought it'd be useful to get a list of where Qantas flies to. Not so easy! Perhaps I missed something but I couldn't find a list on the website.
OK, I'm stupid. I'll simply go into help, send an e.mail and someone will point out the obvious list that I'm missing. Perhaps I am stupid. I couldn't even find a default Help e.mail address. Lot's of stuff on solving really simple problems, that if I was too thick to figure in the first place, I probably wouldn't be able to follow the explanation.
Thinking about this, I started to consider all the quirks of the website that I've become accustomed to every time I book, they sort of add character, but does it really indicate that the people inflicting this on us have a clue?
Perhaps the best help to Qantas profits would be to sack the website people? Then again, I look at other sites and think, perhaps not! It works, it's got character and I found a list on Wikipedia!

 

[Happy Trails]

The route map works for me.
I do often find the help function to be something of a misnomer though.

Route Maps | Qantas

 

[trixydoza]

They should improve their website, yes. Sacking the entire team, no.

 

[nutwood]

The route map works for me.
I do often find the help function to be something of a misnomer though.

Route Maps | Qantas

The route map works for me too but I was simply looking for a basic alphabetical list that I could nail to the wall as a quick reference. Because I have to travel with baggage, Qantas destinations are much easier because I can book straight through, rather than mixing airlines and shifting luggage about. It makes a difference when you get a phone call asking if you can go to destination X.

 

[nutwood]

They should improve their website, yes. Sacking the entire team, no.

....

Ahh, but what if someone like myself spends many thousands of $'s flying with them and wants a simple answer to our question. Should we be simply filtered out and left with no-where to go?

 

[opusman]

Work experience is a very valuable experience for a kid you know!

 

[RooFlyer]

I suspect that Qantas doesn't have a 'website team' as such but a number of [-] kids with an ABN[/-] 'contractors' who work on different bits, whenever school holidays are on.

 

[medhead]

You know when you search for airfares and they have those boxes for departure port and destination? I reckon they would give you a pretty good idea of where Qantas flies.

Personally, I'm loving the Qantas website team at the moment, when my preferred route is suppose to be $160, but I'm paying $131.

 

[bsb]

Use foreign airline websites - Qantas is nirvana

 

[Pushka]

If you think Qantas is bad, then some of the cruise websites are horrendous. There is one that locks you out of your booking for 20 minutes every time you confirm or even view something on it. So the equivalent would be - check your allocated seat has stuck or you want to change it? Click confirm and boom - locked out of even viewing it for 20 minutes.
Qantas - clears out all the info you've entered if there is an error in the search. Their flaky way of selecting cities on the mobile.

 

[OATEK]

I suspect that Qantas doesn't have a 'website team' as such but a number of [-] kids with an ABN[/-] 'contractors' who work on different bits, whenever school holidays are on.

You are spot on with this - it is certainly the case (apart from the school holidays bit - they never stop tinkering ).

 

[Cheatah]

Basic usability on the site is poor. Automatically resetting/clearing fields, regular errors when searching for flights, some cities in the From field but not the To field etc - all very poor. Also appears to be way too many unplanned and planned maintenance events. Shouldn't happen for a major, consumer facing site. This is 2016 not 1996. All quite easy to fix, but requires more $$$ than Qantas are willing to spend and if consumers keep on booking flights then it wont change.

Saying other airlines websites are also bad is no excuse.

 

[Caversham04]

You know when you search for airfares and they have those boxes for departure port and destination? I reckon they would give you a pretty good idea of where Qantas flies.

Personally, I'm loving the Qantas website team at the moment, when my preferred route is suppose to be $160, but I'm paying $131.

Plus there was the screw-up where the change fees (and sometimes the CC fees) were not included in the Total Amount Due, so QF had to refund these when requested by the customer........

Haven't had an opportunity to see whether they've fixed this yet....

 

[greenfish]

Go and spend some time trying to do anything on the Virgin Australia website. After that, the Qantas site is nirvana.

My only persistent bugbear is when searching for award seats, there isn't an easy way of moving forward or backwards one day at a time.

 

[Daver6]

I suspect the problem isn't the actual people doing the coding for the site. The problem is likely to be those making the decisions with unrealistic time frames, lack of testing, lack of design, lack of requirements documentation etc.

 

[medhead]

Plus there was the screw-up where the change fees (and sometimes the CC fees) were not included in the Total Amount Due, so QF had to refund these when requested by the customer........

Haven't had an opportunity to see whether they've fixed this yet....

It seemed to be fixed last time I booked a flight.

 

[juddles]

I suspect the problem isn't the actual people doing the coding for the site.....

Not bagging the programmers for their technical expertise, but it is clear to me that they do not actually fly much. Anyone who can develop a flight search system where someone seeking business flights gets smothered in "mixed class" fares, is just not understanding the task.

I don't know if they fixed that, but seriously, MEL-SYD in J then SYD - DFW in Y is NOT what I am looking for when I search for a business class MEL-DFW ticket!!!!!!!!

 

[AIRwin]

The route map works for me too but I was simply looking for a basic alphabetical list that I could nail to the wall as a quick reference.

There is also the list of airports on the QF website:
Airport Guides | Qantas

 

[harvyk]

Not bagging the programmers for their technical expertise, but it is clear to me that they do not actually fly much.

I beg to differ, I certainly know one of them flies a fair bit.

Designing a booking systems such as the QF system would not be an easy task, throw in the mix of different airline / airport / state / country taxes, airline alliances, sale fares with conditions, making the system very user friendly so people don't require training to use it, making sure the system is secure, and then of course the desire to make the whole operation profitable (so no fares offering F for $10), it's would be a very hard job.

Programming is one of those things, everyone assumes it's easy (because us developers throw around the words "easy" a little too often), and because these days we hide a lot of the complexity behind splash screens and spinning mouse wheels. It is also impossible to test every possible permutation which someone might put through the system, either as a user, or as an administrator, so it is possible for undesired behaviours to sneak in.

(No, I don't work for QF, but I am a software developer)

 

[RickyT84]

The route map works for me too but I was simply looking for a basic alphabetical list that I could nail to the wall as a quick reference. Because I have to travel with baggage, Qantas destinations are much easier because I can book straight through, rather than mixing airlines and shifting luggage about. It makes a difference when you get a phone call asking if you can go to destination X.

This article from Wikipedia may also be useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_destinations