Qantas Staff Perks

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Dave Noble said:
points use are a way of allowing any SPARE availability not an expectation that they will cater specifically just in case upgrades are wanted

Yes, Dave, you are entirely correct, there are any number of scenarios leading to a given loading.

We are agreed that catering is limiting and that the reason for that is business driven through cost saving. To justify the airline's practices, you have now introduced the term "spare" availability. I would gently point out that the defintion and extent of "spare" is entirely within the control of QF - some extra catering might produce more "spare" availability if the airline was so inclined thus reducing the probabliility of unfavourable customer experiences, but at a small additional cost (over catering) to the airline.

I would also point out that if I rock up at CNS airport for my flight and pay for the J seat at the last minute the $1235 cash is probably sufficient incentive for them to find an extra meal for the flight, but they couldn't be bothered to put in the same effort for an upgrading customer.

Adjoining posts have also introduced a differential between "expectation" and "benefit". It seems to me that this is essentially because customer expectations are indeed not always being met. We know that the QF FF induces a lot of distrust and angst in members who perceive (rightly or wrongly) that they are not getting sufficient access to "benefits" (despite the fine print on the terms and conditions).

Clearly, then, there is a disconnect between QF and many of its customers as customers perceive that expectations created by the airline are not being met. But it is also in the control of the airline to manage the expectation of its customers and the delivery of the associated "benefits", "awards" and privileges".

Could QF do more for their FF customers, why certainly yes they could. Why don't they, because they don't want to bear the expense.
 
Platy said:
Could QF do more for their FF customers, why certainly yes they could. Why don't they, because they don't want to bear the expense.
Or perhaps because under the current environment they do not believe they need to bare the expense? Only QF management can answer these questions, so please report back with their response following your discussions with them.
 
Platy said:
We are agreed that catering is limiting and that the reason for that is business driven through cost saving. To justify the airline's practices, you have now introduced the term "spare" availability. I would gently point out that the defintion and extent of "spare" is entirely within the control of QF - some extra catering might produce more "spare" availability if the airline was so inclined thus reducing the probabliility of unfavourable customer experiences, but at a small additional cost (over catering) to the airline.

That has always been the case as far as miles upgrades go. There has to be availability to do so and that needs more than just an empty seat

Platy said:
I would also point out that if I rock up at CNS airport for my flight and pay for the J seat at the last minute the $1235 cash is probably sufficient incentive for them to find an extra meal for the flight, but they couldn't be bothered to put in the same effort for an upgrading customer.

If J=0 then they will not sell a seat; if J>0 , then they will. If there are empty seats but J=0 then they will probably not sell you a seat; even if they would put the effort for a PAYING customer, why would there be an expectation that they'd do it for upgraders

Platy said:
Adjoining posts have also introduced a differential between "expectation" and "benefit". It seems to me that this is essentially because customer expectations are indeed not always being met. We know that the QF FF induces a lot of distrust and angst in members who perceive (rightly or wrongly) that they are not getting sufficient access to "benefits" (despite the fine print on the terms and conditions).

Clearly, then, there is a disconnect between QF and many of its customers as customers perceive that expectations created by the airline are not being met. But it is also in the control of the airline to manage the expectation of its customers and the delivery of the associated "benefits", "awards" and privileges".

perhaps it is your expectations that are unrealistic

Dave
 
NM said:
Or perhaps because under the current environment they do not believe they need to bare the expense?

Yes, indeed, I agree with you, that is extremely likely.
 
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Dave Noble said:
perhaps it is your expectations that are unrealistic

Yes, Dave, you may be right. (Although clearly I don't expect to be able to buy a seat or upgrade if the J cabin is full (if that is what you meant by J = 0)).

There are many occasions that QF has not met my expections when my expectations are likely to have been entirely reasonable (eg. adequate numbers of doonas in a first class cabin, QF sales superivisory staff being across product detail for a DONE4, process being followed for customer coming before subload staff).

There have also been occasions when individual staff members have gone way beyond my expectations and exceeded their brief in delivering customer service (eg. cabin crew unexpectedly bringing a bottle of champagne to the back galley of Y from the J cabin for my enjoyment whilst sitting in the back row on a BNE-CNS domestic leg of a international flight after I had casually mentioned how much I had enjoyed a glass in the BNE first lounge earlier).

And yes, indeed, there are other situations which are likely to be open to more subjective levels of expectation (eg. the accessibility of FF awards/benefits, etc).

One valuable aspect of this forum is being able to solicit alternate opinions on such situations and experiences. ;)
 
Platy said:
Yes, Dave, you may be right. (Although clearly I don't expect to be able to buy a seat or upgrade if the J cabin is full (if that is what you meant by J = 0)).

I am not sure exactly how QF operates, however it may be that once they have decided to what level to cater the service to, they restrict J sales based on the catered level rather than the number of seats in the aircraft

Dave
 
Dave Noble said:
I am not sure exactly how QF operates, however it may be that once they have decided to what level to cater the service to, they restrict J sales based on the catered level rather than the number of seats in the aircraft

Yes, you may be right. It might also depend on things such as the particular airport and individuals involved - eg. smaller airport perhaps it's easier to grab and deliver an extra tray of food to the aircraft at the last minute, maybe some staff decide to exceed defined service levels at their own initiative. On the other hand, food may have been pre-allocated and loaded on an earlier sector subsequently restricting options (eg. on a 737-800 BNE-ISA-BNE run do they load catering in ISA or take enough from BNE???).

All we know for certain are our own customer experiences and our individual reactions to them!
 
Platy said:
Yes, you may be right. It might also depend on things such as the particular airport and individuals involved - eg. smaller airport perhaps it's easier to grab and deliver an extra tray of food to the aircraft at the last minute, maybe some staff decide to exceed defined service levels at their own initiative. On the other hand, food may have been pre-allocated and loaded on an earlier sector subsequently restricting options (eg. on a 737-800 BNE-ISA-BNE run do they load catering in ISA or take enough from BNE???).
All we know for certain are our own customer experiences and our individual reactions to them!

Rights and perceptions are hairy debate at best.
I agree when you feel yr not getting what is promised (percieved or otherwise)is annoying
I can only comment on my own experiences and they are
1/the only time I have been denied a J when travelling on a j fare and changed flight and travelled Y on the flight the only "staff" I could descern were tech crew in uniform. The crew on that flight went out of their way to make sure I was a comfy as poss in Y(Including a Takeaway bottle of J wine)
2/I believe Upgdes on dep are only done in the QF club and again when denied and travelled Y the punters in J didnt look like staff.( remember Full J and J redemption pax on ahead of you dont always wear suits).
3/I have travelled J dom and advsd becasue I changed flight that catering wasnt assured...but that just means normally no choice of meal.
I certainly dont doubt around a very large network there are some staff not doing the right thing by paying customers for whatever reason ,but am scratching to remember one for me.
As for putting limits on overcatering I imagine with 400+ dom flts per day ,excessive overcatering of booked J load would run into a bucketload
of wasted food and $s over the course of a year
 
Standby said:
I have travelled J dom and advsd becasue I changed flight that catering wasnt assured...but that just means normally no choice of meal.

...I imagine with 400+ dom flts per day ,excessive overcatering of booked J load would run into a bucketload of wasted food and $s over the course of a year

Thanks for sharing your own experiences. I totally agree personal perceptions is a hairy topic!

To pick up on your own example, if travelling on fully paid up J class fare, with the current cost of domestic J (eg. CNS-SYD at $1,235 one way, CNS-BNE $945, etc), I personally think the airline should move mountains to ensure catering for you, even if you have changed flights - carrying a fully paid up J passenger with "catering not guaranteed" is a clear failure to supply the service paid for. The customer benefit of flexibility is part of the cost of a J fare.

Would you accept going to an expensive restaurant promoting a high end product, order an expensive meal and bottle of wine and then settle for a meal cooked with half the listed ingredients with a cheap bottle of plonk served on a table without a table cloth. I certainly wouldn't.

Yes, over - catering will cost some money, which does add up over hundreds of flights per day and over all the days of the year, even if the unti cost is relatively low ($5? $10? per meal). BUT compared to the cost of ticket is it a very minor expense.
 
Platy said:
Thanks for sharing your own experiences. I totally agree personal perceptions is a hairy topic!

To pick up on your own example, if travelling on fully paid up J class fare, with the current cost of domestic J (eg. CNS-SYD at $1,235 one way, CNS-BNE $945, etc), I personally think the airline should move mountains to ensure catering for you, even if you have changed flights - carrying a fully paid up J passenger with "catering not guaranteed" is a clear failure to supply the service paid for. The customer benefit of flexibility is part of the cost of a J fare.

Flexibility is available on many business fares, but there has to be availability. I think that QF do a pretty reasonable job with service provision and I have rarely failed to get an upgrade when requested and there are seats available and I have had little difficulty getting J/F availability when on J/F tickets.

If I had a J ticket and wanted to make a last minute change, on a domestic run, I would rather risk a catering issue and be able to get on rather than be unable to change due to catering. It is imo ridiculous to expect them to excessively overstock in catering; if it was just $10 per flight, that is a lot of money a day. ime, QF yield management seems to be well run and have rarely had availability issues

Dave

Dave
 
Dave Noble said:
If I had a J ticket and wanted to make a last minute change, on a domestic run, I would rather risk a catering issue and be able to get on rather than be unable to change due to catering

I agree Dave, I feel the same and have indeed travelled under the risk of a catering issue rather than not travel or change plans. I was picking up on Standby's example, which (fortunately) has only happened to me on a fully paid up Y fare domestically. In that regard, yes, yield management has done a reasonably good job in my personal experience.

But I still maintain the practice is unacceptable for a high end flexible product. The alternative is for QF to their best to go and find an extra meal!!!!!

The brand promise for domestic J is clearly pitched as high end, thus "An innovative and flexible food service will enhance your inflight experience. Food experts have sourced products that represent the best Australia has to offer".

Flexibility is also part of the J brand promise, thus "Enjoy extra comfort and convenience when you travel in Business within Australia".

(I do accept, however, that the definition of flexible has changed in that it now defined as to the right to use full credit to another flight rather than simply swap flights - indeed, a telephone booking fee of $10 has sneaked in to make a change to a J class fare).

I also personally regard domestic J as very expensive and subject to falling standards - for that reason I have changed my travel profile from always travel J to hardly ever travel J - most of my travel is domestic.

When I do, I expect $1,235 worth of value for the 3 hour flight CNS-SYD. Since it usually disappoints, even on the dom legs of the international flights (which somewhere along the line got downgraded from international level to domestic level of service) I am loathe to pay the going rate or even be bothered to upgrade these days.

Through higher prices and lower service standards QF has encouraged me to become a budget traveller with low expectation, but in so doing they have lost 75% of revenue (the difference between J and discount Y) - being jerked around about upgrades when there are spare seats, subload staff etc in J, under or over catering, whatever, as a customer I'm not sympathetic to the challenges of running an airline only rightly interested in the delivery of the service I have been led to expect by QF own marketing (as quoted above for example).

Meanwhile QF has lost $15,000 annual domestic spend from me as an individual plus my upcoming international travel plus $170,000 per annum of business from first class frequent traveller family and close family friends who visit me from the UK. BUT hey QF are happy counting the savings on those meals!

Fortunately, for both QF and fellow travellers, my own personal experiences and perceptions aren't necessarily shared by others!
 
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"Catering not assured" doesn't mean Qantas doesn't try nor does it mean your not getting a meal. It's automatically prinited regardless of fair paid/class of travel. It's to alert you to the fact because you've made a most likely last minute change it may pay to eat (a snack at least) at the airport before getting on the plane in the SLIM chance you don't get to eat - but in J class you'll at least get an economy meal or snack.

I generally look at the loads before I go to work and in particular on domestic sectors the loads, more often than not, increase from the time I leave until onboard the plane. I've never had to refuse a customer a meal in J class - you might not always get a choice but that's always a possibilty even on a fully catered flight (and as I mentioned - in a worst case scenario there would at the least be an economy meal).
 
milehighclub said:
"Catering not assured" doesn't mean Qantas doesn't try nor does it mean your not getting a meal.

Many thanks for the information. I must say that I do find that in almost every instance actual customer facing staff do their best with whatever they have been given. :)
 
Dave Noble said:
I am not sure exactly how QF operates, however it may be that once they have decided to what level to cater the service to, they restrict J sales based on the catered level rather than the number of seats in the aircraft

Dave you raise an intriguing concept, which I guess none of us know the answer to...just for fun, a bit of parody and absurdist humour (forgive me, I'm a Pommie cough!):

A totally hypothetical question! (perhaps a rhetorical one so we don't end up in tireless debate!): Which airline will make more profit and have more loyal passengers, airline X or airline Z?

Airline X:

Imagine airline X, which runs a 737 service on a 3 hour flight between A and B. Their profit break even point is a loading of 70% and since the average price per economy seat on that route is $300 the real cost of that seat is therefore $210.

Now they run a business class and the cost to the airline of that seat is 30% more than an economy seat, thus $280.

Obviously, since every empty business class seat is costing the airline $280 on every flight flown, whether the seat is taken or empty, the airline has a very strong incentive to either sell those seats or lower its frequent flyer point liability by offering seats for redemption and/or upgrade. The potential revenue is $1250 for a paid seat or a $1,075 lowering in liability for a redemption seat or $300 cash plus a $600 lowering in liability for an upgrade seat.

Now airline X have a strategy that they minimise the number of empty seats on the aircraft because they know that filling a seat is ultimately the driver to increased revenue and reduced liability. Since they cannot fully accurately predict loadings to achieve this they must introduce some leeway into the system, but this comes with a cost, namely, the cost of over-catering. Since a J class meal costs $10, but an empty seat costs $280 they are not too concerned about the over-catering costs since they will recoup these costs if their strategy achieves even filling one seat per 88 over-catered meals in the case of an upgrading passenger (the difference between flying an empty seat of -$280 and flying with an upgrade passenger of +$600 reduced liability, but plus/minus 21 meal equivalents depending whether the vacated Y seat is sold). They also know that they have to surpass their magic loading figure of 70% to even start to accrue profit on each flight. They also know that their loyal customers appreciate them delivering on their brand promise of full flexibility with full service levels on paid flights and the opportunity to upgrade whenever there is an available seat. The overhead of the liability of unused frequent flyer points is also kept under control.

The extra meals are costing $1.46 million per year over the entire network (given one per flight), but an average one upgrade passenger per flight over a year is lowering liability by $86.6 million, whilst enticing one extra paid passenger on average per flight is providing $182.5 million revenue.


Airline Z:

Airline Z has exactly the same basic cost and revenue structure and also flies a 737 from A to B.

Airline Z's strategy is to cut costs wherever possible up to the point before the business model collapses. Airline Z has a coterie of very smart managers and accountants who set out to cut costs by defining the business as a series of sub-businesses, catering, engineering, etc, each accountable for their own financial performance. Everybody knows that this is good business!

So they don't stop there. Marginal routes which cannot regular sustain the 70% loadings are dropped. Parts of the busines are outsourced. The shareholders are happy with the $1 billion plus profit and the executive vote themselves $10 millions in bonuses. The executive are so flushed with self confidence that they even flirt with the idea of a buy out demanding a change from a 10% to a 20%+ profit margin and $100 million plus bonuses for themselves.

Meanwhile, the business model is extended downstream. Now every major cost centre has to be run as an accountable entity in its own right. But the catering cost centre is struggling. For J class customers they have already worked to simplify food offerings, downgraded catering on domestic legs of international flights to domestic catering standards, reduced the time periods for flight departures for flights assigned meals rather than snacks, removed pre-dinner drink runs on some flights that used to have them, removed table clothes from domestic flights, and removed real butter from domestic flights. A few loyal passengers have squealed about declining service levels, but most importantly the shareholders are happy and most regular passengers aren't paying for their own fares, their employers are, so let them take what they are given. Most complaining passengers will give up anyway if you ignore their correspondence for long enough.

Then someone has a bright idea :idea: ! Every meal over-catered for is costing $10 a pop, which over 100s flights per day means that for every one over-catered meal per flight the airline could save $1.46 million per year!

Subsequently, all flights become subject to strict catering limitations based on pre-programmed yield management models. Seats are left empty rather than used when the catering limits are reached. Very loyal pasengers even look over at those empty seats and sagely nod in approval - those people at Airline Z really are very good at their business and thank goodness the cabin isn't being diluted with people who have the temerity to expect delivery of a benefit for their unstinting patronage of the airline.

The Airline is saving $1.46 million per year (one meal per flight), and not at all concerned about lowering its frequent flyer liability by $86.6 milllion per upraded passenger per flight per year.

Answer

Airline X will make more profit and have more loyal passengers, but only in real terms. Airline Z will win on paper. Why? Because Airline Z has a yield management program which does not factor the cost of an empty seat into its calculations and the airline's bean counters are using accouting practices, which result in the liability of unused frequent flyer points not showing against the bottom line, so the cost of an unused meal can quite literally become more important than filling a seat or looking after a loyal customer.

NOTE: The above are hypothetical scenarios and not intended to represent any specific or actual organisations or individuals, living or dead...all figures cited are also totally hypothetical and not based on any real data. Any similarity to people or organisations is purely coincidental. The above scenarios have been created for comedy and light relief purposes only and should not be used by any airline employees, managers etc. Always read the instructions provided and consult with your CEO to ensure that you are cost cutting only within your own allocated cost centre.
 
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trouble is with all thi is that I think that QF seems pretty decent at yield management and the number of times when a J passenger cannot be accommodated when there are J seats is low

Dave
 
Platy said:
... (forgive me, I'm a Pommie cough!): ...
You'd be surprised at some on this board who were born on the old dart ... ;) (not me, I was born in Wonthaggi)
 
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Dave Noble said:
trouble is with all thi is that I think that QF seems pretty decent at yield management and the number of times when a J passenger cannot be accommodated when there are J seats is low

Yes, I suspect it is not usual to deny a paid J passenger a seat, although it does appear to happen. I have found such seats restricted in situations in which a larger aircraft is used and a whole cabin is shut off - failed to get into J on a 3 class 747 domestically where the first cabin is not used, the upper deck is not used, just lower deck J.

Personally, I have experienced many occasions of being refused ODUs only to find empty seats in J on domestic flights. Actually, I hardly ever bother any more in favour of OLCI in Y and trying to score one the back rows where if the aircraft is less than 100% loaded I will usually score 2 or mostly 3 seats to myself and reasonable attention from cabin crew who don't normally find WPs at the back and treat it as a welcome novelty!!! I do take my own food these days, however, just in case!!!

I have seen it written that QF has some way of accounting, which does not require it to put the liability of the unused frequent flyer points against it's bottom line - in my mind this means they have little incentive to lower the points liability and thus be more generous with redemption/upgrade allocations.

That could theoretically alter the values/algorithms used in its yield management and overall cost/benefit analyses, particularly for redemption/upgrade situations, whatever they may be (we just don't know!)...making them less available for customers. I suspect that this is real reason why the airline keeps "award"/"benefit" seating allocations to the minimum it can get away with
 
All I know is that when I travel with a QF GM I always seem to get upgraded to First where he always is.
 
NM said:
Ahh, that explains it :p

More accurately, selectively Pommie cough (eg. rugby), selectively Aussie (eg. cricket, Victorian pinot noir and climate generally) and highly selectively Pommie cough (eg. very very occasional Ashes Series)...
 
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