Not happy Qantas! Not happy!

Dear Qantas,

I don’t usually give you and your brand a hard time, but this time, I’ve had enough.

As a current Qantas Club member and Frequent Flyer, I usually enjoy your service, however recently, the experience shared on your aircraft and with your staff and airport services has been absolutely appalling.

Bad weather, strikes, you name it and you have blamed everyone except for taking responsibility.

I’m sick of defending your brand to other passengers who choose to use Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways; especially for those of us who commute between Melbourne and Sydney on a regular basis.

First of all, Thursday night was not a bad weather night. Wednesday was – granted. Surely 24 hours later you can get your act together. I was booked on a flight. I got bumped off that flight because even though I had spoken to your telephone staff to check my flight had not been cancelled, I was told not checking in online would not be an issue, especially when I didn’t have a printer at hand to print the boarding pass; and that checking in at the airport would not be a problem. Wrong.

First complaint: Let the passenger know that checking in online can be done without a printer, and the need to print a boarding pass beforehand.

Second complaint: If a passenger has booked a ticket and the flight is still going ahead, do not bump that passenger onto standby, simply because you stuffed up and need to have other passengers get to their destination sooner.

Next issue. Well done for sending me a text message to say my flight was one hour late. Only problem is that when I did got to the airport, I had been bumped and put on standby; where there were no other available flights leaving that night. Maybe the text message should have said “call us” if you weren’t planning on having me fly that night anyway!

Lucky for you, within 20 minutes of arriving to the airport and complaining to staff lingering around the check-in area, you had put on a “special service” flying from Sydney to Melbourne to accommodate the backlog of grumpy passengers; and lucky for me, my dinner expectation was now catered for in the Qantas Club lounge.

Third complaint: All of your flights that night ended up leaving late or being cancelled. There were no weather delays etc and by Thursday, you should have been back on schedule. No excuses.

Next. Turns out that the special service flight that landed in Melbourne after midnight; yes, we were all exhausted and this started my terrible weekend in Melbourne – being exhausted is not a fun way of starting a relaxing holiday… so too, NOT HAVING ANY LUGGAGE! – so it turns out, none of the passengers’ luggage was loaded onto this aeroplane!

Fourth complaint: Usually when you lose luggage or a passenger doesn’t receive their luggage at the other end, you send a text message telling us so. Why I know this? Because you lost my luggage AGAIN on my return flight!

Fifth complaint: Which airlines loses a passengers luggage in both directions?! Yes, twice in two flights! Talk about trying to win over customers. I’m losing patience and fast.

So what happened next… Hmm. Let’s see and where do I start?!

We arrived after midnight on Thursday night, only to head to the carousel thinking our luggage would arrive. But no. Not only was there no announcement on the aeroplane, there wasn’t even an announcement when we got down to the baggage services area.

Some poor lady who was exhausted and frustrated with the day’s painstaking mistakes by the airline staff was handing out paper forms, telling people in the nearby vicinity that no one’s luggage had been put on the plane as there were concerns the flight wouldn’t get to leave before Sydney’s curfew came in.

Our flight was meant to leave at 10. It left at about 10.40pm. You still had 20 minutes to get our bags on the plane; and even more so, the special flight service was announced at about 8:45pm, so you had from then until about 2 hours later to get our bags on the plane. Seriously Qantas.

Sixth complaint: Lack of communication. As mentioned above, we had no idea our bags weren’t on the plane. We weren’t told this even when we were all exhausted and waiting around till almost 1am trying to find out what to do about our missing bags. In the end, we were told to fill out a form and the missing luggage report would be filed on the computer system overnight. I went up to the Baggage Services counter, after waiting about 20 minutes for my turn to reach the counter (yes, many people had already given up by now so the line wasn’t too unbearably long, mind you at that time of night, everything seemed to take forever), and asked for them to process my report then and there so that I could have a reference number. The lady there said she couldn’t access the system at that moment in time and to trust that the report would be done overnight and I would have a number by the morning…

Again. Fail! I even put an urgent on my form.

Seventh complaint: If you know that your phone line for handling Baggage Services is going to be very busy and “experience longer than usual wait times”, why not put on more staff to handle the incoming calls?! I think I must have rung Qantas at least 6 times in the last 6 days… and to waste over an hour each time, simply waiting for you to pick up the phone when you’re the ones that have made the mistakes day after day in the first place, this is ridiculous!

I finally got through to a human being after waiting over an hour (using my mobile phone!!! on a 1300 number) to be told that my hand written form had not yet been entered into the system and was ‘next in line’. So much for being done overnight and stating that the urgent forms would be done first!
Eighth complaint: You gave me a reference number to then be able to trace my bag’s movements online using the World Tracer; or to use when calling up the Qantas Baggage Services line on other occasions. Problem: Your online system wasn’t tracking any bags so no one knew whether the bag was in Sydney, Melbourne or otherwise.

Ninth problem: You can’t just say to your passengers that no compensation will be offered, as the bag was lost due to bad weather!? The bag was misplaced because your staff chose not the put the bag on the plane. If the aeroplane was able to fly then bags are able to go onto a plane. Especially when it wasn’t even raining in the hours leading up to the plane leaving Sydney.

The lady on the other end of the phone line basically said that no compensation would be offered and I should speak to my travel insurance company. Most people buy travel insurance for overseas holidays, not domestic ones, especially when using their ‘most trusted airline’.

I had to borrow my grandmother’s clothes that day, for a 9am commitment on Friday. No shops are open then. No toiletries on offer. Nothing. Can you understand how embarrassed I was walking around in someone else’s clothes, almost 60 years old than me! And then I had a job interview to go to and you could tell the lady noticed my discomfort in my appearance. I did apologise in the end, but I shouldn’t have had to!

I rang Qantas again on Saturday morning as the WorldTracer online status still said there was no sign of my bag being tracked anywhere, only to wait for over 75 minutes this time around. Again, I used my mobile and I had places to be on the Saturday morning.

Tenth problem: Surely after someone hasn’t had their luggage returned to them within 24 hours, they deserve compensation – especially if they’re a loyal, frequent flyer, and Club member?!

Again, the lady on the phone line said no, and that there was nothing she could do because of the bad weather that had affected the entire airline network since Wednesday night. I asked if I could buy things and claim the receipts. She said I could do what I wanted but there was no guarantee of reimbursement.

Surely, an airline has insurance for these sorts of catastrophes, with inclement weather and having to put one customer out after another, including missing flights and no luggage…

Currently, I am in a temporary job, and have been unemployed for a few months leading up to this role. Consequently, I am trying to save my pennies, especially until my next more permanent role comes around. Because of this, I spent no more than $25 to buy toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a pair of socks. Luckily, I had two spare pairs of underwear in my hand luggage.

Thanks to a lovely friend, I was able to borrow some clothes that fit me and look more my age, to make it through Saturday and Sunday. However, that said, I was very frustrated during my first three days in Melbourne, having got minimal sleep Thursday night due to the late arrival of the planes, no luggage, and the stress of having to sit on a phone for an hour each time I called Qantas, and not having my clothes to wear. Only three days into my 4.5 day holiday did I get to relax as my luggage was back in my possession.

Eleventh problem: So much for getting to have a holiday!? Do you know how stressful it is for someone to not have their luggage with them, AND for your electronic system to not even know where it is.

To make matters worse, I have a friend that flew from Melbourne to Sydney on Saturday, with a less than 24 hour turnaround, as he was then flying over to France to attend the Cannes Film Festival.

He was so angry about the situation, and with no time to wait around for his misplaced luggage, he ended up going into the Sydney CBD to shop for an entire new wardrobe for his commitment overseas, let alone a new suitcase too. I wonder if Qantas is going to compensate him. You had better. He’s an up and coming movie producer; who’s worked on projects both here and abroad. He won’t be doing any brand placement for you in his films down the track if you don’t pull your socks up Qantas!

Twelfth problem: After learning my lesson, from the online check in experience on Thursday, I decided to do an online check in for my return journey. Exhausted as can be as my holiday was not at all a holiday, and with an early morning flight on Tuesday: 1) The flight was again late; 2) I received a text message upon arrival into Sydney to tell me my luggage was not on the flight; 3) My special meal was not on the plane either.

Address the no luggage issue. I ask, how can you get it wrong twice with the same passenger in such a short space of time? You have a 30 minute cut-off to get our bags from the check-in area and onto a plane. My bag was there in lots of time, so why can’t your team get it onto a plane in time?

I acknowledge you had a baggage handling strike last Friday. I acknowledge that your company is having MAJOR problems. Still, get it right. You may have a good track record in the sky – or used to anyway before your A380 dramas last year – but seriously, you need to sort your ground staff out too.

Furthermore, I made sure that when I did my online check-in that the meal request was in my booking. It was. Yet, when I was on the aeroplane, waiting for my breakfast meal to arrive, I was told by the crew serving the ‘normal’ meals that my meal was not on the plane and hadn’t even come through as a request.

Thirteenth problem: Do your systems not talk to each other? If my online booking says that I have a special meal, doesn’t that mean your catering company will provide one for me during the actual flight? I couldn’t have the breakfast as I’m lactose intolerant and all of your cereal meals had yoghurt through them. I didn’t even know to go to the Qantas Club lounge this time around to get something before the flight, and seeing as though I had a job to get to upon arrival into Sydney (mind you, I was even late for that when my luggage wasn’t on the carousel – yes, I am seeking compensation for wages amongst other things, as I’m currently paid by the hour and had to miss out on more income!)…

The staff on the flight said I need to call up Qantas each and every time I request a special meal, just to make sure that it is provided. Surely, if my booking says there’s a special meal requested I should be able to trust that it will be provided?! Why waste customers’ time even more, and how should we know to do this. If we make a request, then please provide.

And, maybe when you do stuff up, at least have fruit platters as a back up for customers to consume!? The head steward approached me as I was leaving the plane to offer a small packet of nuts and the business card of Qantas Customer Service to provide my feedback, and so here I am…

Do you really think a small packet of nuts is enough to provide as breakfast, the ‘most important meal of the day’?!

So again, I was back at the Baggage Services desk on Tuesday morning, placing a report as my luggage had not come on my flight. This time at least, the SMS received at 8.30am said that my luggage would arrive around 10am on another flight. Again, I was on the phone to Qantas at lunchtime (waiting again for over 30 minutes this time), wondering where my luggage was as it had not shown up in the WorldTracer system as having arrived in Sydney or been scanned to get delivered by a courier.

Fourteenth problem: It was only after the lady at the other end of the phone line rang Sydney airport to find my bag (and yes, she noted my anger that this had happended twice in two flights), that she said, “oh yes, the bag has arrived, it just hadn’t yet been scanned and put on the system”; and of course, until this happens, the courier couldn’t deliver it. Finally after 5pm, my bag got delivered to my mother’s work address, as she had a car with her and kindly offered to drop it to my house later in the evening.

Qantas, I bought my Qantas Club membership in June, in anticipation of catching several flights with you over the next financial year. I am very sad to say that I am EXTREMELY disappointed in your service, staff, customer experience and more over the last few days and don’t know what to do about this money badly spent, and the fact that I feel trapped, knowing I have thousands of points stored in your frequent flyer program, and am hesitant to have any further dealings with you.

I am born and bred in Sydney Australia and have always been a loyal supporter of the Qantas brand. Other airlines were able to get their systems and processes sorted due to the inclement weather on Wednesday night, with little hassle and impact to customers.

Why is it, a brand that is trusted by so many, has been so terrible lately? You have become arrogant. You have forgotten about the people who have supported you over the years – whether it be through international or domestic travel. Yes, the industry may be suffering right now, but you as a company are not. You’re still making billions of dollars every year and your shares are still performing.

So seriously, get your shit together and start behaving the way your reputation dictates, else you will be losing even more customers as months go on. Virgin Australia is currently rebranding themselves as new, hip, and a trusted brand. You had better catch up else we won’t be calling Qantas, the flying kangaroo and Australia home anymore.

I look forward to hearing what your ‘customer service’ staff have to say for themselves…as I know your CEO won’t be the one reading this.

I work in communications; I know that you have a stock standard template that responds to complaints like mine.

Please get your act together, as the loyal customers that actually choose to fly with your airline, and not because of corporate deals and contracts etc, are seriously losing faith in your service.

Yours sincerely,


Mishij


Ps. It’s time your passengers were offered compensation… if not a mental holiday then a physical and financial one!