J Lounge Melbourne Good News

[Ansett]

Finally some good news for the Melbourne Domestic J Lounge offering

Just been talking to the lounge Angels and it seems that Sofitel are taking over the running of the lounge from Saturday and they are promising a big change and improvement in food quality and service levels.

They are also going to be moving things around at the buffett area hopefully to avoid the issue of having to buist through ques to get to the glasses so that one can get a juice a little further down with out the need to again bust through the que awaiting the Barista.

It would be good to get feedback on how they go. Lets face it at the moment they couldnt do any worse.

I went for a hot Breakfast and firstly had to return 6 plates to them as they were not clean still had remains of food on them. There was no sausages bacon etc just scrambled eggs some rotti and a tomato sauce and it had run out and we were told it would be quite some time before any more came out. Really poor service.

Still sitting here waiting for the offerings to be refreshed.

 

[ReLoad]

I was in there yesterday (I wish those pesky CLs would go back to their club house) and there was an all new staff in there.

Let's hope it has a few improvements

 

[markis10]

I am a bit puzzled why people expect long term improvements from this move which we have known about for some time, Qantas are cost cutting and this is a part of that move so why do we think it will be good?

Paying someone to do something you do yourself means there is now a profit involved, if we take the money out that Qantas have saved by making their lounge managers redundant as the saving for Qantas, then we take out the profit for the contractor, the OPEX budget left is smaller than before, so will we see more with less?

 

[serfty]

Maybe Qantas expect the new management to be able to provided similar or better service at a reduced cost.

Perhaps Sofitel staff have more experience (the do run the International lounge catering) and can do it with greater efficiency.

Of course, what the Sofitel management need to be aware of is that any perceived reduction in service could reflect negativelyon them - check the "Baxter-Story" kerfuffle when they took over catering the BA lounges at LHR ...

 

[medhead]

I thought they'd been running the SYD J lounge or a while. New staff and all that. There has been a significant downgrade in service levels in SYD. Will be interested to see if that changes from Saturday. Will be interested to see what happens in MEL J lounge.

 

[JohnK]

Just been talking to the lounge Angels and it seems that Sofitel are taking over the running of the lounge from Saturday and they are promising a big change and improvement in food quality and service levels.

Isnt the SYD lounge run by Sofitel as well? There is definitely no improvement in the food offering.

 

[Rebekkap]

They are also going to be moving things around at the buffett area hopefully to avoid the issue of having to buist through ques to get to the glasses so that one can get a juice a little further down with out the need to again bust through the que awaiting the Barista.

Well I call that a victory for common sense. I've been wondering for the last three years (since I first achieved the lofty heights of WP) why on earth they hadn't rearranged the layout so the coffee queue was somewhere more sensible and wasn't blocking access to the juice.

 

[boomy]

I don't understand what's so bad about the MEL J lounge. The island dining breakfast is usually very nice IMO and they even serve coffee and juice to the table so no need to queue up for that.
The regular hot food is OK, nothing special but not bad. I don't see any better offerings in SYD after Sofitel took over.

 

[Ansett]

I don't understand what's so bad about the MEL J lounge. The island dining breakfast is usually very nice IMO and they even serve coffee and juice to the table so no need to queue up for that.
The regular hot food is OK, nothing special but not bad. I don't see any better offerings in SYD after Sofitel took over.

Well all I can say is what I see every time I go in there. I noticed yesterday afternoon that the coffee machine had been moved to the Bar area which is already an improvement.

Also please consider that not everyone can sit at the island dining area as it becomes full and that it is not available at all times of the morning with service provided.

The queing issue for coffee directly obstructing the juice machines and glass ware has been a long time bug bear of mine.

Food quality and variety varies substantially from good to very bad. Tuesday morning was very bad with food running out all the time, the sausages consisted of around 6 pieces in a bowl mixed in with the beans in tomato sauce. Had to go through around 6 plates and discard them due to having food still stuck to them after wasing. They ran out of plates and napkins numerous times. Need I go on?

Had to ask an attendants to wipe down the table after they removed plates from the previous people who had been sitting there and had made a mess with sauce etc, and by ask I mean I waited around 5 minutes after the plates etc were removed then had to hail down an attendent to get this done. Is this what you would call good???

 

[Mal]

I am a bit puzzled why people expect long term improvements from this move which we have known about for some time, Qantas are cost cutting and this is a part of that move so why do we think it will be good?

Paying someone to do something you do yourself means there is now a profit involved, if we take the money out that Qantas have saved by making their lounge managers redundant as the saving for Qantas, then we take out the profit for the contractor, the OPEX budget left is smaller than before, so will we see more with less?

It depends. Can the new supplier get stock a lot cheaper? Are they less constrained by HR laws? Are they more agile and have better staff? What about equipment and other capex costs.
Yes. Management costs go up, but it depends on the contract drawn up as to whether things are better or worse.

BA stuffed up their lounges by changing the management company. Hopefully Qantas hasn't made the same mistake.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Well consider the same company runs the F lounges so they should be more than capable

 

[medhead]

Food quality and variety varies substantially from good to very bad. Tuesday morning was very bad with food running out all the time, the sausages consisted of around 6 pieces in a bowl mixed in with the beans in tomato sauce. Had to go through around 6 plates and discard them due to having food still stuck to them after wasing. They ran out of plates and napkins numerous times. Need I go on?

Had to ask an attendants to wipe down the table after they removed plates from the previous people who had been sitting there and had made a mess with sauce etc, and by ask I mean I waited around 5 minutes after the plates etc were removed then had to hail down an attendent to get this done. Is this what you would call good???

Sounds exactly like SYD j lounge since Sofitel took over.

 

[Ansett]

Sounds exactly like SYD j lounge since Sofitel took over.

Thats not very encouraging then Damn !!!!

 

[lovestotravel]

Only reason for Sofitel taking over is that's it's cheaper for QF

I have noticed the QF J MEL lounge going slightly downhill over the past few months, mainly in terms of running out of food, and having to wait 5-10 mins for more eggs/bacon etc, during peak times in the morning this is not acceptable!

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Only reason for Sofitel taking over is that's it's cheaper for QF

I have noticed the QF J MEL lounge going slightly downhill over the past few months, mainly in terms of running out of food, and having to wait 5-10 mins for more eggs/bacon etc, during peak times in the morning this is not acceptable!

It's a very crowded place at peak times in the morning . Long queues for coffee AND food. It's not a good look.

 

[Ansett]

It's a very crowded place at peak times in the morning . Long queues for coffee AND food. It's not a good look.

It is often quicker to jump back to the QP and get a coffee and come back

 

[boomy]

Well all I can say is what I see every time I go in there. I noticed yesterday afternoon that the coffee machine had been moved to the Bar area which is already an improvement.

Also please consider that not everyone can sit at the island dining area as it becomes full and that it is not available at all times of the morning with service provided.

The queing issue for coffee directly obstructing the juice machines and glass ware has been a long time bug bear of mine.

Food quality and variety varies substantially from good to very bad. Tuesday morning was very bad with food running out all the time, the sausages consisted of around 6 pieces in a bowl mixed in with the beans in tomato sauce. Had to go through around 6 plates and discard them due to having food still stuck to them after wasing. They ran out of plates and napkins numerous times. Need I go on?

Had to ask an attendants to wipe down the table after they removed plates from the previous people who had been sitting there and had made a mess with sauce etc, and by ask I mean I waited around 5 minutes after the plates etc were removed then had to hail down an attendent to get this done. Is this what you would call good???

Looks like we had different experiences but I do agree there is always room for improvements such as extending the island dining to all 3 tables (not just the middle one), moving the juice machines away from the Barista and make sure all the plates that leave the dishwasher are clean.
Based on my recent SYD experiences under the new management, I don't expect much improvement with the food, but again, I think it's already not bad.

I really like most of the staff in the MEL J lounge, I think they are very professional and usually doing their job well.

 

[lovestotravel]

It's a very crowded place at peak times in the morning . Long queues for coffee AND food. It's not a good look.

Once some of the CL members go back to their home it should be a little better!

I don't mind a queue for coffee and food but there should be a constant supply of food available!

 

[Kangol]

Once some of the CL members go back to their home it should be a little better!

Here I was thinking the good news was that the CLs were sent back to the CL!

 

[ReLoad]

The MEL J lounge this morning was a zoo, not only were there no seats, every table had uncleared food on it (the poor lady couldn't keep up!)

I don't know how many CL's there are invading the lounge at present but I've certainly never seen the lounge this busy before.

Dare I say it, but has the proliferation of us WP's affected the quality of the lounge?
Will the new lounge management combined with the excess numbers cause a bigger issue?