Ever since Qantas closed its airport sales counters and service desks, customers at the airport with ticketing issues have been forced to phone the Qantas call centre.

If you arrive at the airport and there’s a problem with your booking or you need to purchase a ticket, the Qantas staff at the airport have not been able to assist directly since November 2020. All they can do is give you a “priority” phone number for the Qantas call centre.

This isn’t great, but would be manageable if the Qantas call centre actually answered the phone in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, as regular AFF readers (and anyone who’s tried to phone Qantas in the last several years) would know by now, this is no longer the case. Even Platinum frequent flyers and customers stuck at the airport are now waiting hours on hold for assistance.

Qantas’ latest call centre “enhancement”

Recognising that the wait times at the Qantas call centre are unreasonably long, airline staff have made an “enhancement” (in the Qantas sense of the word, not the dictionary definition!) to make this a little more bearable for customers. I hope you’re sitting down…

No, Qantas is not reopening airport service counters. Even if you’re already at the airport and your flight is about to leave, you’ll still need to call and the wait times are still so outrageous that many people are missing their flights. (This exact scenario happened to me at Perth Airport last year.)

Instead, Qantas staff are now giving some customers a chair to sit on if they have to phone the Qantas call centre from the airport, so that they are less uncomfortable during their long, long wait.

An AFF reader sent us these photos from Brisbane Airport’s domestic terminal this week. While at the airport, they observed several elderly passengers waiting on hold for a very long time. This is terrible, but at least they didn’t also have to stand for the entire time!

Australian Frequent Flyer understands that even frontline Qantas airport staff calling an internal phone number are waiting more than half an hour to be connected to an operator.

If Platinum frequent flyers, customers at the airport with imminent flight departures, and even Qantas’ own staff can’t speak to somebody within a reasonable amount of time, what hope does everyone else have?

It may be April Fool’s Day today, but I’m not even sure that this article qualifies as a joke because it’s true! These are real photos supplied by an AFF reader from Brisbane Airport this week. They are not staged. The real joke is Qantas’ customer service.

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.