Adelaide has Australia’s best airport but Qantas doesn’t know it exists | David Penberthy

You’re not a national carrier if foreign airlines do a better job of serving Australians than you will, writes David Penberthy.

The reputational collapse of Qantas under the helm of Alan Joyce has been well documented. Its most striking feature was that it wasn’t so much a collapse of its reputation but a total reversal.

Companies get bad names all the time. Rarely do companies go from being revered and idolised to being regarded as a joke.

We all adored Qantas. It was a genuine national icon.

Yet under Alan Joyce it became a byword for corporate greed and indifference through its treatment of staff and customers.

And it almost seemed that there was an inverted line whereby the worst its reputation became, the more money Joyce was paid.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce at the Qantas 100th Gala Dinner in Sydney last year.

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

This is the one advantage Vanessa Hudson has as its new CEO.

In terms of how your own performance is perceived, it’s helpful to take over from someone who’s been heavily criticised.

If Qantas is looking for an easy public relations win in the post-Joyce era there is one obvious opportunity right here in South Australia.

It is absurd that a company that purports to be the national carrier and weaves its federalist sensibility into its advertising campaigns appears to have forgotten that South Australia even exists.

It is now more than a decade since Qantas ran international flights out of Adelaide.

During that time other foreign-owned and foreign-run airlines have shown a greater level of loyalty to the people of SA.

For a company that claims to still call Australia home, it has a pretty poor grasp of geography as when it comes to flying overseas, as one-eighth of the Australians land mass has been left off the map.

Unless we want to fly backwards with Qantas and head east before turning west to go to Europe, South Australian holiday-makers save time and money by booking with the many overseas airlines that have operations at the Adelaide Airport.

We are serviced internationally by Air New Zealand, Fiji Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Virgin Australia and Jetstar, with Emirates also making the welcome decision to resume daily direct Adelaide-Dubai flights last month.

The last time an international Qantas flight left Adelaide was way back in 2013 when its Singapore route was axed.

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In the past 11 years we have witnessed the galling spectacle of other Australian capital cities having their international services enhanced by Qantas while Adelaide continues to be completely ignored.

Brisbane is the best example with the addition of direct flights to Dallas and the start of long haul flights to London.

Meanwhile in Adelaide a traveller hoping to head to the UK with Qantas might end up flying via Brisbane first to get there.

The worst example and byproduct of the ongoing Qantas snub of Adelaide came during Covid.

South Australians who found themselves stranded and local manufacturers and producers looking for export markets needed to find a white knight to get their products and materials out of the country.

That white knight came in the form of… Qatar Airways.

While our airline continued to pretend South Australia didn’t exist, a Middle Eastern airline came to our rescue.

It was a point Premier Peter Malinauskas made earlier this year when asked about the furore over the Albanese Government declining Qatar’s request for more flights from Australia’s eastern seaboard to Europe.

First Qatar Airways flight landing at Adelaide Airport in 2016. Picture Campbell Brodie.

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Ben Clark

“Qatar was flying in and out of Adelaide when others weren’t,” Malinauskas said.

“They backed in people who wanted to be repatriated, they backed in movers of freight.

“That really mattered to the South Australian economy when others went missing, so we’re grateful to Qatar for that.”

“The restrictions that we see on the Eastern Seaboard in and out of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane do not apply to Adelaide, so Qatar is able to fly to and from Adelaide as much as they like, and we’re very grateful for that, and they do fly in and out of Adelaide frequently. So we think there is a role for Qatar.”

Malinauskas did not offer those comments as a pile-on against Albanese over the seemingly preferential treatment Qantas (and Albo’s mate Alan) were enjoying through Qatar’s thwarted request to expand.

But it was a deliberate and pointed shot from Malinauskas in the direction of Qantas, rightly contrasting Qatar’s helpfulness with the national carrier’s continuing indifference.

All this can be changed overnight.

There is a huge and easy opportunity for Qantas to make good with SA. We have loved this airline before and can do so again.

And it’s not some issue that only benefits those who are well-off enough to travel overseas.

Having international flights coming in and out of Adelaide has a major spin-off effect for direct jobs at the airport, extra work for hosties and baggage handlers, more people spending money at the airport’s cafes and stores.

It will bring hundreds more tourists into South Australia.

Our airport deserves the positive affirmation of having a permanent international Qantas presence. It’s the nicest and most useable airport in Australia, as demonstrated by its winning two of the past three gongs as Capital City Airport of the Year.

And if we are serious about promoting our state as an event venue for major global summits such as the COP, or urging tourists to come here to visit KI or the wine regions, without Qantas we are doing it with one hand tied behind our back.

The biggest driver of business change is of course self-interest.

And it’s here where Qantas might need to act quickly, because everyone I know who travels overseas from SA now talks with a much higher level off affection about Singapore, Qatar or Emirates, than they do about the airline we all once loved.

Originally published as Adelaide has Australia’s best airport but Qantas doesn’t know it exists | David Penberthy