Qantas named most complained-about airline in Australia

Australian travellers complained the most about Qantas with one thing topping the list. Can you guess what it is?

Australian travellers complained the most about Qantas, with the national consumer watchdog revealing those complaints were up nearly 70 per cent on the previous financial year.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission received 1740 complaints involving Qantas in the 2021-22 financial year, which was 68 per cent higher than 2020-21.

The latest data showed Qantas received more than three times the number of complaints than the second most reported airline Jetstar.

Qantas passengers have complained about the airline more than any other service to the ACCC. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Complaints to the ACCC during the 2021-22 period about Jetstar declined by 33 per cent to 544, while Virgin Australia received 27 per cent less complaints having only received 359.

Cancelled or delayed domestic and international flights during and post Covid-19 travel restrictions period were the highest complained issue.

The report stated Qantas’ customer service issues, including long call wait times, were also a key problem.

“Qantas needs to do more to adequately invest in its systems, processes and people to dramatically improve its customer contact services and customer dispute resolution,” the ACCC report stated.

“As Australia’s largest airline, and an airline that generally charges a premium to fly, consumers expect a better service.”

Complaints included the cancellation of flights and poor customer service when calling the helpline. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Roy VanDerVegt

The ACCC is continuing to investigate issues that consumers have raised about Qantas.

A Qantas spokesman told NCA NewsWire the airline had worked hard to improve its customer service issues in the past eight months.

“We know there were times last year when we didn’t perform at our best,” he said.

“We apologised to customers and promised to fix it.

“And since then, thanks to hard work from people across our business, things have improved and we are getting Qantas back to its best.

“We’ve been the most on time of the major domestic airlines for five months in a row and our service levels across bags, cancellations and call centres are back to similar or better levels than pre-Covid.

“We’ve also made significant progress to speed up our refund processes and made it easier for customers to use their flight credits.

“Occasionally things will still fall short, as they did before Covid, but we’ll continue to work hard to keep improving our performance for our customers.”

Qantas states it has improved customer service since June 2022. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Meanwhile, the ACCC found domestic airfares have eased from the 15-year historic highs in December but still remain above 2019 prices.

Average revenue per passenger dropped by 13 per cent between December 2022 and January 2023.

“While it’s positive to see airfares fall from record highs in 2022, passengers are still generally paying more to fly today than they were before the pandemic,” ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey said.

“Airfares typically come down after the Christmas travel peak due to a seasonal decrease in demand; however, some of this reduction is also explained by the airlines increasing their seat capacity.”

The ACCC report found the price of jet fuel, which had been impacted by the war in Ukraine, should continue to fall, which would help reduce airfares in the coming months.