‘Third world airline’: Retiree’s scathing letter about Alan Joyce and Qantas

A Brisbane retiree has written a scathing letter about Qantas and Alan Joyce after spending $20,000 on “horrible” business class flights.

A business class passenger has taken aim at Qantas and Alan Joyce in a scathing letter where he described Australia’s largest carrier as “a Third World airline”.

John Brizee, a retiree from Brisbane, claimed his recent trip to Europe with his wife on Qantas proved “what an absolute disaster business class has become” despite spending $20,000 for a luxury flying experience.

In a letter published by theAustralian Financial Review, Mr Brizee described his cubicle on the outbound leg to Hong Kong as dirty “with food spills everywhere and unvacuumed seats and floor”.

But it was the return flight that had Mr Brizee seemed most disappointed by.

He spoke highly of the first leg of his return flight with Finland’s Finnair, before expressing his frustration at the second leg of his flight with Qantas from Singapore.

A Brisbane retiree has penned a scathing letter about Qantas and Alan Joyce. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

He described the A330 he travelled on as a “shaking old aircraft” that looked “less modern than those on the nostalgic safety program”.

He wrote that his experience gave “a glimmer of what Alan Joyce has done to the Qantas brand”.

Mr Joyce will step down from his role as chief executive in November after 15 years with the airline. Chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson will replace him.

Chief financial officer Vanessa Hudson will take over from chief executive officer Alan Joyce in November. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Mr Brizee went on to explain his seats were at the front of the business class section and looked directly into the galley cabinets and Qantas staff, who he claimed were “constantly noisy for the duration of the flight”.

He claimed the USB charging ports didn’t work and the food was the “most atrocious meal” he had seen.

“For breakfast, a bowl of chunked fruit too hard to eat, a sweet stale bun with a tasteless blob of egg and tiny strip of bacon, a small Danish which had been microwaved out of existence, and coffee which can only be described as putrid dishwater,” he wrote. “The food ingredients could not have cost more than $5-$10.”

Mr Brizee concluded: “Never again with Qantas – Joyce has turned it into a Third World airline and the brand will never recover.”

Qantas said the letter was not reflective of the feedback they normally get from customers.

“We are disappointed to hear about Mr Brizee’s experience but it’s not reflective of the feedback we receive from most customers on our international flights,” a Qantas spokesman told news.com.au.

“We’ve been getting great reviews of the new inflight and lounge dining that we have recently rolled out with generous portions and premium produce and we are continuing to invest in new aircraft and lounges.”