By Amelia McGuire and Carrie Fellner
Qantas will formally apologise for the carrier’s chaotic recent performance and extend an olive branch to millions of Australian customers this week, offering them $50 flight discounts, additional lounge invitations and improving reward seat availability.
The mea culpa from chief executive Alan Joyce will be issued to frequent flyers after months of disarray at the nation’s airports, with the airline beset by delayed and cancelled flights, snaking queues and lost baggage.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has faced continued criticism over delays, cancellations and baggage issues.Credit: Louie Douvis
The chaos has been attributed to rebounding demand for overseas travel colliding with COVID-related staff shortages, a shrinking labour pool and prolonged bouts of wet weather.
In a video message to Qantas frequent flyers, Joyce said the airline’s recent performance was not good enough despite having “good reasons” for the mishaps including cancelled flights, delays and increased instances of lost luggage.
“On behalf of the national carrier, I want to apologise and assure you that we’re working hard to get back to our best,” he said.
Australian and New Zealand frequent flyer members will be offered $50 towards a return Qantas flight and an invitation to visit a Qantas lounge.
Silver frequent flyer members will have their status extended for 12 months and receive an invitation to the Qantas Club or an international business lounge. Gold members will be invited to visit one of the airline’s domestic business lounges.
Platinum and platinum one members have also been promised between 15,000 and 30,000 Qantas points.
The airline has also extended its “classic reward” seat availability program, where seats are booked using Qantas points, through to June 30, 2023, and added seats across international and domestic flights on Sunday. One in every 11 passengers carried by the airline uses a reward seat.
The formal apology is the latest move by the airline to improve its falling reputation but it has failed to impress the Transport Workers Union. In a statement on Sunday, the union’s national secretary, Michael Kaine, said “Australia sees through this stunt”.
“Enough of the gimmicks,” Kaine said. “If Qantas management, or indeed Joyce, really cared about customers, the right thing to do would be to appoint a new chief executive with the business acumen to bring back highly trained, experienced workers and treat them with respect.
“Aviation has been obliterated by corporate greed.”
Kaine said the industry needed a Safe and Secure Skies Commission to protect service standards and employment security.
This month, Qantas announced it would increase the waiting time between domestic and international connecting flights by 30 minutes to mitigate the number of people arriving at their destination without their luggage.
Qantas outsourced baggage ground handling in 2020, a decision that resulted in 1700 redundancies and has been blamed for contributing to the travelling chaos. The Federal Court found the move was in breach of the Fair Work Act, a verdict the airline is appealing in the High Court.
Qantas and other aviation employers have enlisted the help of managers and executives to opt into frontline operational duties, including baggage handling, to remedy some of the staffing issues in the industry. At the start of this month, Qantas called for at least 100 executives to swap some corporate responsibilities for baggage handling and driving tugs (the vehicle used for ferrying luggage around the airport).
The airline will report its financial results on Thursday.
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