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

[Happy Trails]

It's still there, just as it was last week, as the closing throwaway line to this section of the TR.

QantasLink to Hamilton Island | SFO777

"Happy to arrive here after a long day on one of the worst airlines in the free world."

 

[BAM1748]

I'm pleased wifi isn't everywhere. A reason to open a book or close the eyes.

 

[JohnK]

Had a chat to SYD business lounge staff earlier this afternoon. They've been quite busy the past few weeks. Someone does go around with a vacuum cleaner but their first priority is to clear tables and if there's time to then vacuum the really bad areas.

It was mentioned they refrain from using vacuum cleaner during really busy times for guests comfort. If you want an area cleaned then please ask and they will vacuum.

And I made a mess again.

 

[opusman]

I'm starting to think most of the problems with the SYD lounge are caused by JohnK!

 

[Mattg]

Well I just had a read through the trip report and wow, that guy complains a lot! Seems very difficult to please.

 

[juddles]

I'm starting to think most of the problems with the SYD lounge are caused by JohnK!

I suspect that in the fullness of time, JohnK will "fess up" to having been in that lounge just before SFO was there.

At the end of the day, this thread provoked some lively discussion. We all know that QF, as any airline, has weaknesses. It also seems clear that SFO was having a bad day when he posted about the lounge and made the infamous "one of the worst airlines in the free world".

I really do appreciate that he has given us what I am sure will be an enduring topic. There will be jokes about the state of airline lounges for years to come.....

 

[JohnK]

I'm starting to think most of the problems with the SYD lounge are caused by JohnK!

You're probably right.

I suspect that in the fullness of time, JohnK will "fess up" to having been in that lounge just before SFO was there.

Think I was in Thailand at the time.

What this thread has done is made me check the state of the floors in the lounges. To be honest, I don't care and if something is messy enough just alert staff and they will come and clean.

In November was taking daughter to SYD and we were in BNE business lounge. She knocked over my glass of coke zero with ice going everywhere. Staff were there immediately cleaning and I was apologising and helping.

Things happen.

 

[juddles]

Perfect cleanliness is hard to achieve, especially in such scenarios as short-haul aircraft with minimal turnaround times, and also such as in this case, a lounge at peak period. And I think that on long-haul routes the cleaning level is often dictated also by the contractors. (not saying the airline has no blame - but seriously in some places it is hard to find good people).

I have always found LATAM as a generally good airline. But on one 787 flight I dropped something and had to search around the seat. The things I found were quite astounding. I do recognize though, that a reclining J seat is an absolute nightmare to perfectly vacuum around.

If I had a true peanut allergy I would admit that it is not safe to fly any airline, anywhere. :0

 

[Choosethedrew]

I have been trying to think what bothered me about this whole thing. It wasn't the blogger's attack on "our national flag carrier". Qantas is just a business really, and I don't have a particular affinity for them over someone else because they are 'Aussie' (Or as the blogger may say, Os-see). It wasn't the boastful American-ness of the whole thing either. Been there, seen that before. It's a thing.

When it comes down to it, I think it's because the blogger's personality is so different to mine that I simply can't find myself relating.

I get that the internet is full of hyper-critical agents that think everything is either the absolute-best-amazingest-ever or the absolute-worst-in-the-world. Naturally everyone that feels the need to be hypercritical has some factor that qualifies them to why their opinion is so important. Great... I get that. And as a blogger it pays to say everything is rubbish too. Just look at YouTube. It is full of videos slagging off products purely to earn bias-confirming clicks from people wanting to hear someone else say what they think, just to confirm their opinion.

We've talked pages and pages about the J lounge in Sydney being dirty. I even saw someone talking about the new lounge in Melbourne's carpets already looking worn. But none of this matches my own personal experience. I get that, different times, different factors. Sure.

But what really irked me about this posting, and why I say it is because our personalities are so divergent, is that when I see something I don't like that could be easily fixed, I don't jump onto the internet and make a song and dance about it. Whenever I've been in a position where I've seen cough spilled like that all over a lounge, I've drawn attention to the problem to whoever is at the desk, or to a cleaner personally. I just think a quick 'hey, I know you're busy mopping the showers but the family that were just over that table have left it a bit of a bomb-site. I hope you get time to sort it soon' is better than jumping online and telling everyone that you've earned a lot of points through your business and because of that you're qualified to tell everyone that an airline is bad because the floors of a lounge were dirty, and that it offended you so much that you couldn't give the feedback to the company, or the people working there directly, and would rather do it publicly online.

Maybe I have too much empathy for the people working hard in the company in many other areas to have them besmirched because the lowest paid members of their community haven't done a job that is up to the standard of someone else. I'm sure there's plenty of people whose feelings are totally different to mine, too. The blogger hasn't been to Qantas J often enough to qualify that this mess is the norm but has made an assumption that it is. Something that some of our members here have been happy to back up. I'm just not keen on dragging something down for online likes. I'd rather give my feedback to the company and then judge by how they respond.

All good - if there are sufficient numbers of lounge attendants to cope with it all. If Qantas is anything like BA then they staff their lounges to the bare minimum and the few poor souls working there are only too aware of the insurmountable amount of work to do, in which case asking “have you seen the mess on totally the other side of the lounge” isn’t going to aid the situation, no matter how friendly. This is surely a resourcing issue for HQ, rather than staff performance on the job.

As for the OP posting this online, I would be a lot more suspicious of his motives if he were tweeting the airline or slating it on TripAdvisor, but what is he to gain from doing it on his own blog apart from simply indicating his experience with Qantas? It’s not like it’s an established customer service channel.

 

[stm1sydney]

Well I just had a read through the trip report and wow, that guy complains a lot! Seems very difficult to please.

My take (from the perspective of a non-QF-fanboi) is that he was critical when there were things to criticise and very complimentary when deserved (eg, the standard of the food and accomm in both Hobart and Hamilton Is, and the heli-tours). And he provided a lot of useful detail, as well as lots of photos to back up his criticism. And that is exactly what you want in a trip report.

 

[RichardMEL]

The OP picked out the quote from the TR as the title here because it's a pretty astounding statement. I have no problem with that. It's not inaccurate to quote the author. OK it's not the title of his TR, but it was something he wrote not something made up by the OP.

Anyway moving on

re wifi (separate topic I know) really QF will have to do something to keep relevant in the space. Specially with Project Sunrise and suggesting flights of nearly a day's duration they will honestly need to provide the facility or lose business pax to competition like SQ, EK and so on. Even the struggling MH has it on their 350's at least (not sure about the rest of the fleet).

Now, some years back QF did trial it on a few A380's and I remember using it transpac on one flight (I was in F, so was given a free voucher to use it) and it was OK but not great, and I do recall the pricing structure was pretty out there. That was also probably 5+ years ago. Maybe around 2011/2012? A lot has changed in the space both technology but pricing wise to the carriers. And on mammoth flights like PER-LHR I am sure pax, specially in J(or on business trips anyway) will really want the ability to stay connected and if they can expense the cost then they will. I just think it's a no brainer.

Having said that I do agree with the earlier poster that having forced "downtime" can actually be a good and relaxing thing to be "out of touch" for say 12-15 hours... it can be quite nice.

 

[Lynda2475]

So in fact it has very little to do with First as the title of this thread has been amended to

Well the blog author clarified on this very thread that his statement wrt worst related to first class as he predominantly travels first class and flew Qantas as it is the only airline to fly LAX to MEL with first class cabin. He followed this up by listing his top 20 first class cabins rankings.

Although had he flown LAX to SYD he would have had more than one airline to choose from in First, unless AA have discontinue their first service.

Its not relevant to the domestic lounge reviews, as us Aussies know there are no First domestic lounges or first domestic flights here. But accurate in that his view point that he is comparing to his usual first experience.

 

[drron]

AA dropped their F offering on SYD-LAX some time ago.
American Airlines Will No Longer Send The 77W To Sydney From November

 

[Justinf]

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

 

[GoldCanyon340]

And I made a mess again.

Are you secretly Alan Joyce planning an episode of Undercover Boss?

 

[JohnK]

Are you secretly Alan Joyce planning an episode of Undercover Boss?

Nah. Clumsy, curious, gorgeous 2 year old with me. Treasure every moment especially when she's constantly saying "Da... da.... da."

I had better not stuff this one up. Guy sitting in window seat on flight down Sunday said I do quite well with daughter. I was surprised as I think I'm hopeless.

 

[ayebee]

started to scan through the report... I feel sorry for his wife who has her face plastered over the internet (and who has this look of weary resignation about the whole thing). Couldn't be bothered continuing as far as the contentious bits as there are simply way too many photos - can't see the forest for the trees.
Comparing domestic with domestic, as a generalisation I feel the Oz lounges are better than in US. At least he thinks the Qantas LAX lounge is the best in the US.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

started to scan through the report... I feel sorry for his wife who has her face plastered over the internet (and who has this look of weary resignation about the whole thing). Couldn't be bothered continuing as far as the contentious bits as there are simply way too many photos - can't see the forest for the trees.
Comparing domestic with domestic, as a generalisation I feel the Oz lounges are better than in US. At least he thinks the Qantas LAX lounge is the best in the US.

By way of background the wife approves all photos before they are posted on the internet. That's apparently why one of her is 'blurred out' in one of the photos as she didn't approve! The rest we can assume have had her 'ok'.

 

[Ric Willmot]

In my opinion, under Joyce, QF has become one of the most unloyal and unfriendly airlines in the world from a strategic perspective. Everything we love about QF is because of the incredible efforts of the frontline staff and crew. Everything we hate about QF is because of the rules, terms, conditions, and imposts put in place by senior management. Joyce is a joke and gets away with too much because people are afraid to criticise him for fear of being labelled a homophobe. His talk far exceeds his walk.

 

[Pushka]

In my opinion, under Joyce, QF has become one of the most unloyal and unfriendly airlines in the world from a strategic perspective. Everything we love about QF is because of the incredible efforts of the frontline staff and crew. Everything we hate about QF is because of the rules, terms, conditions, and imposts put in place by senior management. Joyce is a joke and gets away with too much because people are afraid to criticise him for fear of being labelled a homophobe. His talk far exceeds his walk.

I think perhaps they may have a different concept of Loyalty to what it’s loyal customers have.

I do hope that someone in Qantas corporate does see either this or the FT report because there does need to be an improvement in the cleanliness in a few of the airports, regardless of how busy they may get. I’d also go with a stronger reinforcement of some of the etiquette rules in the lounges, like use of telephones, watching videos etc without earphones, and general hygiene around the self service area, especially the breads. Provide more tongs. No self serve for kids. Etc etc.