Howdy all! Well, how’s everyone doing today? Do I need a new sign in phrase? Not feeling very creative I guess at the moment. So yeah, we need to talk about Qantas. Australia’s National Airline with a decided monopoly over all things aviation in my home country. Sadly, it’s an airline whose reputation has taken a battering over the last few years.

To be fair, most of Qantas’s wounds are self inflicted. Over Covid they laid off thousands and thousands of workers, especially in baggage handling and the result of this is STILL being felt today. At some point last year they actually had management doing the baggage handling duties, and when it comes to international airlines flying into Australia, who do you think is responsible for their baggage handling at Australian airports? Yep. But things are still not sorted out and not long ago Qantas announced they were going on a big hiring spree. Not to mention last year they turned the biggest profit in the airline’s history which leaves you wondering why they still aren’t hiring enough staff.

I arrived in Melbourne a few weeks back now and waited nearly an hour and a half for my bag to arrive. It was Business Class and I had a priority sticker, though to be fair I didn’t mind that much as it was so early in the morning and I had a wait in front of me for pickup, however it was the same palette as the flight crew who told me this happens every time in Australia, especially Melbourne. Sometimes they have very tight scheduled rest periods which they are required to complete to be allowed on flights. There’s no excuse for the flight crew’s luggage to be last off the plane. This was an Etihad flight, and I do wonder if other airlines get better service.

Their frequent flyer program has slipped as much as any part of their business. Good luck finding flights to Dubai using rewards points, and with their limited number of destinations that come up when you are searching for frequent flyer flights, you end up having to phone in to book which costs an extra 6000 (or so) points per seat. And this is a problem stretching a decade or more back. Anything outside the listed cities on the Frequent Flyer Website – an many cities are listed as destinations but not departure points which is kinda weird, locks you into a phone call and the loss of extra points on top of the points fare. You can sometimes use the ‘multicity’ option to bypass the issue, but basically it’s almost a scam to get you to use more points.

Clearly their alliances with Emirates and Qatar Airways aren’t what they could be because finding flights in and out of Australia on those airlines is difficult if not impossible depending on when. What you may not realise is that the Frequent Flyer program is a big money EARNER for Qantas. Yet they flood the program with flights that nobody wants. Ok, they have the free seats so it’s kinda logical but when you consider I don’t think any program makes you pay the fees and taxes they do, you simply have to reach the conclusion that there are many MANY better frequent flyer programs out there. If you are an Australian and wanting a Frequent Flyer Program, Velocity is better on availability, taxes, and bang for your buck especially with Business Class seat bookings. Their network is not as wide however when you realise that there are airlines on Qantas’s program that never show up even when they are logical, what’s the point of having them? For example, my parents were looking for a flight Paris to Istanbul, checked a wide range of dates. British Airways, Emirates and I think a combination of Iberia and Royal Air Maroc were offered. Poor connections, flying past Istanbul and then BACK. Using extra points in the process too. The thing is, one of the Qantas’s partner airlines is Air FRANCE. With direct flights to Istanbul. NOT ONE Air France flight in ANY class showed in the search results. In fact it seems very hard to get any flight with Air France on Qantas FF. Not so Malaysian Airlines, which I presume is because they are still struggling to sell seats after, well, you remember the disasters of MH370 and MH17.

So last week I booked flights for my wife and I in Premium Economy for later in the year. Singapore to Melbourne. Loads of flights to choose from, only one or two flights were direct and most were either with Jetstar or Malaysian. But we wanted direct. Five days after booking I receive an email that our class has been cancelled. We’ve been bumped DOWN to economy. I went in and selected the seats online so I was bit confused. What got me was that I was told IF I wanted a refund of the difference of the points I needed to call Qantas. Now I have had experiences on the phone waiting over 2 hours to be answered with Qantas. Why any company, and there are many not just Qantas, thinks that letting customers wait a long time on the phone is a good idea I don’t know, but it seems to happen so much that we now DREAD having to call.

Thankfully they picked up right away, this time. And I did my best to show how unhappy I was (Sorry, first world problems I know) without having a go at the person at the end of the line (which cut out at one point and I was called back) who explained to me they had changed from a Boeing 787 – a large spacious aircraft, to an Airbus A330, which is not. More to the point the flight when I was booking was filling up fast and most of the Premium Economy Seats were already booked. So why they would DOWNSIZE the plane, I don’t know. But many airlines right now are trying to only fly full or nearly full planes to recoup lost profits over Covid. Qantas was, along with Jetstar their budget arm, cancelling flights daily and combing them with a second flight to save costs. It’s a way to save money but at the same time it doesn’t impress the customer.

In short, Qantas are just not an airline Australians feel proud of anymore. Skytrax had them in the top ten airlines of 2022 and everyone here (and indeed overseas) couldn’t believe it. The customer is not central at all to their current business model, and they don’t value loyalty either. I have gotten rid of 2 credit cards earning Qantas points and am now committed to earning Velocity Points over them almost exclusively.

Anyways, thanks for dealing with my rant today. What do you think? If you an Aussie, has your opinion changed for the worse on our national carrier. If not, how is your national carrier regarded at home? Thanks for reading, take care wherever you are in the world, May the Journey Never End!