Not as glam as it sounds. I'm actually leaving QF in two weeks, one of the reasons is the staff travel is being eroded, i.e. more people travelling = less seats for staff on standby basis.
Probably a good thing if it means more revenue. Most passengers would probably not see the worth in increasing capacity or having an artificial ceiling on seat sales / upgrades / awards on account of providing enough for staff travel.
I can bet my last dollar here that most would rather have more award seats for customers rather than more staff travel capacity on flights.
No one gets free upgrades to J or P on leisure personal travel, you have to pay for it, and yes its cheap ( think around 1200 return Australia to Europe) but a few months ago coming out of London there were staff that had been waiting for 3-4 days to get on to come home. ( I was lucky - I had a higher priority than them). Its a pretty expensive town to get stuck in at the end of your holiday, and if you dont get back to work in time disciplinary action awaits:shock:.
3-4 days seems alright - sorry, that came out the wrong way. I was expecting you to say something more like 2-4 weeks.
If it is travel during peak times then I don't see why it can't be expected that getting a seat home would not be complicated. And this is
London. Again, I'm not sure how 3-4 days lines up against reasonable expectation.
One of my aunts works for Q Catering and I believe is afforded staff travel rights. From listening to her experiences, she has rarely - if ever - had any problems with using it, albeit yes they (a family of 3) do have to factor in slack for standing by. I believe they even went to Europe on staff fares.
Apart from that you are the last served meals, no guarantee of being seated together or even in the same cabin, and if the J seat is broken ( i.e. no recline or IFE) guess who gets to sit there for 24hrs home.
If you read a lot on AFF, you'll actually find that many have commented that, as passengers, this is exactly the kind of treatment that should be given to staff (whether deadheading or on staff travel). In a nutshell, passengers who are not affiliated with the airline should be served as a priority.
There have been plenty of anecdotes on AFF where members (as passengers) have had to deal with their preferred choice of meal not being available, being denied an upgrade or not being able to sit together on account of staff members taking the first dibs on these. Whether these anecdotes are based on truth or not may be dubious, however......
Apologies if this is harsh, but most people here are convinced that staff take the lowest precedence when being served on the carrier they work for, especially when the compensating factor is much cheaper travel
and the imperative to serve passengers first. In practice, the anecdotes here suggest that staff are not always last to be served anyway...
With the rise of cheaper J coming from extra competition, I now prefer to pay and have all the hassle of staff travel taken away.
I assume there's a lot more processes involved with staff travel
beyond simply waitlisting and waiting......