Re: Cut Plans for PS travel: Business Class [domestic] & International
If there was a way to remove FF points and Status Credits from all business-related flights, I suspect there would be less expensive (and less) flights actually taken. People would then fly based upon the flight schedule rather than seeking Points/Status.
Since former Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner's parting finger to his colleagues a bit over two years ago, whole of Australian government (WOAG) fares do not routinely earn frequent flyer points with Qantas and Virgin. That said, Qantas has told the Department of Finance and Administration (as well as Joyce himself directly to some parliamentarians' staff) that it costs Qantas more money to implement a process whereby routinely status credits credit but not points. Qantas has said it would be cheaper for them to simply give them passengers the points as well. The only reason frequent flyer points were withdrawn (and are unlikely to be reinstated) is because of the public perception. Headlines like 'Politicians rack up 10 million FF miles' and statements like 'that's enough to go around the world in First x number of times' are purely inflammatory. The article in, I think,
The Australian or the
Sydney Morning Herald over two years ago that gave rise to the change was a gross exaggeration. At the end of the day, those points amounted to, on average, just 70k FF points for each of the 226 members of federal parliament - not even enough for a return Business class trip from east to west. But because it looked bad (in aggregate), points get stripped away.
From my perspective, as an employee of a federal politician based in Perth who travels to Canberra, I'm only entitled to fly Economy. There is one direct flight a day between Perth and Canberra, departing 4.30pm WST and 3.30pm during eastern daylight savings. The flight arrives at 10.30pm. Realistically, the best you can do is be at your accommodation by 11pm and perhaps be in bed about 11.15pm. But that's either 9.15pm or 8.15pm on your 'body clock' time. Then you're up at 6am or 7am the next morning (which is as early as 3pm on your 'body clock' time). The return from Canberra departs at 7pm (Thursday only) or 7.30pm, arriving at 9.40pm or 8.40pm. But factor in the time difference of where you body clock has finally adjusted to and it's midnight. Then you're expected back in the office first thing the next morning. That flight time alone is nearly five hours.
To top it all off, there is an expectation that you will travel in your own time.
Now, don't get me wrong. While the conditions don't thrill me it is my choice to do the job. My point is, there's more to it then public servants simply flying Business and the public being slapped with the cost. For me, if I'm expected to travel from one side of the country to the other, in my own time, particularly when the time difference is three hours, there's gotta be some compensation of some sort.
I have digressed a bit from the topic, however.
My employer looked at it this option (shudder) but there are actually OH&S problems by forcing employees to sit in Y for lengthy amounts of time. It exposes the company to claims/litigation.... IBM might get stung by this!! So anyway we retained J for international travel.
Please,
please let me know where I can get my hands on this sort of information.
LOL they could save a truck load by booking with VA........no CL, Flounge or F will ensure this never happens.
In my experience, DJ fares are routinely more expensive than QF fares under the WOAG arrangement.
I'm with Hvr on this.
Where's the announcement about the pollies travelling down the back?
Apparently, even when they do, Qantas seems to routinely upgrade them as we found out in article about a month or six weeks ago.
Yes - I understand (and like) this approach.
The duration limit is a good policy IMHO.
I also like firms that have the alternate policy of extra days at each end if/when flying Y.
To me, that seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise. And guess what the primary difference is? Reporting. If a public servant chooses to fly J and have no day or two off either side, the cost of the airfare becomes a part of the 'Public servants spend $x million on Business class flights' headline. But if the public servant chooses the latter (ie. a day or two off), it doesn't get reported; in fact, I doubt there'd be anything recorded even internally, the same member would simply just not come into the office for a couple of days. While both have costs (albeit different), the latter is not 'public' and can't be used by the media to criticise the government or public servants.
