ABC 4 Corners on Qantas - Monday 5 September

[JohnK]

Your situation @JohnK is exponentially more complicated than the ASP - BNE flight in the story.

True I had a totally complex itinerary but my point stands. Staff at ATH airport were totally disinterested.

I remember sitting in the lounge in transit somewhere in Australia looking out at bags offloaded from the aircraft and I notice a Qantas baggage handler dropping/throwing luggage 2-3 feet onto the luggage cart. One of those was my golf bag with expensive golf clubs inside. What warped mind thinks this is adequate?

Qantas, Swissport, DNATA, whichever company is responsible for providing these services has to be committed 100% in providing excellent service at all times. I know this is lowest bidder type of situations but that's not good enough either.

Take and accept responsibility if you are there to provide a service

 

[BD1959]

I'm never sure who is responsible for bags.

<snip>

Someone has to go through each of those bags and find where they belong and reunite with their owners but bags keep getting added to these rooms. The impression I got from the staff is they just work there and couldn't care if you're reunited with your bag or not.

This is one of the huge problems with the airline industry made worse by outsourcing. Responsibility. It's not just a bag. They're my belongings and some are going to be very valuable.

The final handling airline has overall responsibility - that should include tracing back if required. They are paid a service fee to handle your bag - with some LCCs obviously explicitly - and should deliver on that. I can feel a mass-action case coming on this ...

Forget the current situation, I would *never* put: required meds, jewelry, cash, credit cards, keys etc in checked bags. Presents etc - sure would be a pain to lose - but can always be recovered in some way ... hopefully via your Travel Insurance if necessary. How many of those who cry because of lost baggage have taken out their own travel insurance.

Sure the airlines have a duty to do their utmost to reunite you with your bag but you need to take personal responsibility of the circumstance if they do lose it - and especially if there is a good chance of it happening!!

Regards,

BD

 

[BD1959]

I remember sitting in the lounge in transit somewhere in Australia looking out at bags offloaded from the aircraft and I notice a Qantas baggage handler dropping/throwing luggage 2-3 feet onto the luggage cart. One of those was my golf bag with expensive golf clubs inside. What warped mind thinks this is adequate?

Take and accept responsibility if you are there to provide a service

I would have done a "camel suit"-gate on this and filmed it.

Regards,

BD

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

The program was really just about how QF outsourced jobs, mostly illegally, but can't or won't rehire, and customers, safety, and employment conditions aren't a priority despite all the experts saying they should be.

I agree. I also don't think it's purely a QF thing. It's a certain type of executive and management culture that unfortunately infects many companies large and small, even government departments. QF is a good example of it, but it's not flying solo.

 

[Vic]

The final handling airline has overall responsibility - that should include tracing back if required. They are paid a service fee to handle your bag - with some LCCs obviously explicitly - and should deliver on that. I can feel a mass-action case coming on this ...

Forget the current situation, I would *never* put: required meds, jewelry, cash, credit cards, keys etc in checked bags. Presents etc - sure would be a pain to lose - but can always be recovered in some way ... hopefully via your Travel Insurance if necessary. How many of those who cry because of lost baggage have taken out their own travel insurance.

Sure the airlines have a duty to do their utmost to reunite you with your bag but you need to take personal responsibility of the circumstance if they do lose it - and especially if there is a good chance of it happening!!

Regards,

BD

Why does the pax have to take personal responsibility when in the case in question that airline has taken no responsibility?
Once Qantas got interested by the media asking them, the bag was found in a few days. The value of the contents is NOT an issue here. It's about the airline exercising even a small fraction of customer service. In this case, as reported, there was zero customer service.

Blaming the passenger is not appropriate when the airline has done nothing to help, and they're only interested in doing something when the story might be put onto National TV.
I don't accept victim blaming to defend the inaction by Qantas.

 

[BAM1748]

Regardless of where the responsibility sits for the contents of luggage, the airline has a duty of care to deliver the passenger along their luggage. If the airline wants to have arrangements with other airlines it has a duty of care to check their partner airlines have the systems and competency to deal passengers and luggage and recovery processes when things go wrong.

 

[Sojourner]

Why does the pax have to take personal responsibility when in the case in question that airline has taken no responsibility?
Once Qantas got interested by the media asking them, the bag was found in a few days. The value of the contents is NOT an issue here. It's about the airline exercising even a small fraction of customer service. In this case, as reported, there was zero customer service.

Blaming the passenger is not appropriate when the airline has done nothing to help, and they're only interested in doing something when the story might be put onto National TV.
I don't accept victim blaming to defend the inaction by Qantas.

I agree. It was not like Qantas tried to find it but the bag was irretrievably lost. When Qantas decided they wanted to find it - after attracting negative media attention - they found it quickly.

What I'm finding in most cases with Qantas on any issue at the moment is that their staff or contracted staff don't want to help or don't know how to help, and instead of being honest just lie about it and find ways to palm you off.

My experience lately is with three different reps telling me they'll "call me back" about flights Qantas has cancelled and then rescheduled - except the connecting flight they've put me on departs before my first flight is scheduled to arrive. Insistence on getting them to escalate it to a supervisor when they simply tell me there is no other reward seat available is simply ignored because no one is ever available except the call centre staff who are useless.

Oh, I've also had one call centre rep from the Customer Care line go through all the steps like he was rebooking it onto a more realistic flight, ending the call saying, "you'll receive the itinerary in the next few hours". Except days later I still hadn't received it, my flights had not been updated. Another call to Qantas only to be told they had no idea what I was talking about as if it never happened. And yes, that one also ended with a "We will call you back...."

There is zero accountability from Qantas' end. They screw up, time and time again. From a business perspective I also don't see how it is efficient for them to have to spend at least 20-30 minutes each time for the many times I've called to explain the issue repeatedly.

 

[JohnK]

Regardless of where the responsibility sits for the contents of luggage, the airline has a duty of care to deliver the passenger along their luggage. If the airline wants to have arrangements with other airlines it has a duty of care to check their partner airlines have the systems and competency to deal passengers and luggage and recovery processes when things go wrong.

I agree but if you see these rooms full of luggage that a lot of the time does not make it back to the owner you have to wonder how airlines continue to get away providing poor service.

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

Not sure I'd tarnish all QF staff with the same brush. With my lost bag experience at SYD domestic a couple of months ago, I experienced both ends of the spectrum. The staff member at the lost baggage counter gave me a lot of time and did all he could to try and track my bag down. He called the baggage handler who was adamant he remembered my bag (an unusual orange colour) and that he personally put it on the carousel - it was the first bag he loaded he said. Bulls##t. We were the first at the carousel. The lost luggage counter guy then went personally to look for it. He was probably gone 15-20 minutes when he re-appeared with my bag, both he and the bag were wet. It had been left out on the tarmac near the aircraft in the rain.

I think the issue is clearly one for the executive and management and I feel sorry for the staff being put in these situations where they're probably being asked to do more with less. Management have let the morale drop to dangerously low levels and it's hard to recover from here.

 

[bladeau1981]

Lost baggage is one thing, items left on the plane is another. I left a kindle and a pair of glasses on the plane in July at Sydney. I realised when I went to get on my next flight through to Adelaide, walked down to the gate we arrived at and was told to cough off and talk to baggage services basically (a bit nicer wording but they didn't want to help). I did ask if they could call them but was told I would need to ring them myself. By that time I had to get on my next plane so called when I landed, voicemail is all you get with these people now and no call back just a message on the voice mail saying if we find your stuff we might call you. I haven't been through the Sydney qantas terminal since and the couple of time via Virgin I haven't had the time to run over and check, but I doubt they have any sort of system at all.

I would have thought cleaners / cabin crew check seat pockets between each leg for cleaning sake, and even if they didn't someone could have told me what the next flight was that plane took so I could call that airport.

Another problem with outsourcing baggage services, they don't care about Qantas' client because that isn't their client.

 

[jase05]

This might get the media hounds snapping even more

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569081387751469056

 

[SYD]

This might get the media hounds snapping even more

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569081387751469056

Perchance the said “media workers“ are journos who sledged QF?

 

[bladeau1981]

Perchance the said “media workers“ are journos who sledged QF?

Probably work at ABC 4 Corners

 

[jase05]

Perchance the said “media workers“ are journos who sledged QF?

Ahh, yes I hadn’t factored that in. Good pickup

 

[Vic]

Probably work at ABC 4 Corners

I doubt it, the Queen's funeral is hardly something within scope for 4 Corners. Maybe Foreign Correspondent, but then that show has people in the UK already.
I thought news breakfast might have been sending people over to the UK for the funeral.

 

[AIRwin]

This might get the media hounds snapping even more

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569081387751469056

No later QF flight unless next day?

 

[SYD]

I doubt it, the Queen's funeral is hardly something within scope for 4 Corners. Maybe Foreign Correspondent, but then that show has people in the UK already.
I thought news breakfast might have been sending people over to the UK for the funeral.

The early Tweet is AFR. Follow the money trail…

 

[bladeau1981]

I doubt it, the Queen's funeral is hardly something within scope for 4 Corners. Maybe Foreign Correspondent, but then that show has people in the UK already.
I thought news breakfast might have been sending people over to the UK for the funeral.

It was mostly a joke, but there are media members / reporters that work on more than 1 show.

 

[Happy Dude]

From the AFR article:

"Now, Joyce’s ascendancy has reached a point where Qantas is losing the natural and lucrative loyalty of the business community."

Ah....nope. Not sure how this can be said. They're queuing up to fly QF J, journos and everyone else too, quite literally to the point of overflowing J cabins. Why though is a fair question. He'd need some examples of businesses taking their business elsewhere to support this assertion.

 

[jase05]

I doubt it, the Queen's funeral is hardly something within scope for 4 Corners. Maybe Foreign Correspondent, but then that show has people in the UK already.
I thought news breakfast might have been sending people over to the UK for the funeral.

Koch is over there