| In-Flight |
| Not affilliated with Qantas airlines - in fact, they hate us.. |
US Gov: 500% increase in Handicapped passenger problems at Qantas
From : US Dept. of Transportation (http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/pubs.htm) - Feb 28, 2008
Under the Aviation Consumer Protection Division under the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA), the US Government tracks formal written
complaints by disabled customers. In the last 3 years, the US government reports that complaints against Qantas surged from 6 formal filings
in 2004, to 30 in 2006. Last years statistics will be released shortly. The majority of International Airlines had few or no compliants issued
against them. In 2006, 42 international airlines had no handicap complaints, and 28 others had less then 5 complaints. Qantas had a steady
increase of formal complaints for all years. During the period, over 30 passenger in wheelchairs filed official complaints in the US, and 20
other disabled people experienced other issues. Australian statistics were not available
Qantas Plane Smells - Flight is Cancelled
From: AAP and Ten news (February 19th, 2008)
A bad smell caused a Sydney-bound Qantas flight to be cancelled, leaving stranded passengers to spend the night in Perth's domestic
airport. A Qantas spokeswoman said flight QF566 to Sydney was cancelled last night because of a "recurring issue of odour detected in the
cabin". "Accommodation was found for some of our passengers but, unfortunately, we could not secure accommodation for all of our
passengers.Angry passengers accused Qantas of leaving them in the dark. "I felt like refugees, there were no announcements, anything we
wanted to know, we had to line up at least an hour for," passenger Rebecca Watson told Ten News.
21 hr Delays & Dirty Plane- Business Passengers Explains
From: tf. in Johannesburg, South Africa (www.hellopeter.com)
The Qantas engineers might be able to explain why flight QF 63 to Johannesburg on 5 January 2008 was delayed by 21 hours at Perth
airport. As passengers, we were given conflicting reasons. I’ll begin with a compliment by saying that once the flight got going again, the air
crew was excellent. However, from a passenger point of view I feel that we were very poorly compensated for the delay by merely being
accommodated at a hotel, a decision reached already late into the night, after eight hours of being confined to the terminal building. Also,
the plane (which was not swapped during the delay) had an old and tatty interior, by no means justifying the price of my full fare ticket in
Business Class. But the worst of it is that as a result of arriving 21 hours after the scheduled arrival time, I missed the wedding of a very
close friend. This was an event I'd especially flown back ahead of my travelling companion, to attend. So I cut short my stay in Australia for
nothing. The handling of the incident and its consequences has left me with a very low opinion of Qantas.
Flight Attendants: We are Short staffed in The Plane
From: Marco at (blog.photos2view.com)
Michael Mijatov, secretary of the Flight Attendants Association of Australian, International division, has said that "...we believe this is not due
to poor service or poor attitude on behalf of the cabin crew but to inadequate numbers of cabin crew on the aircraft. The service procedures
laid down by airlines are not matched by adequate crew numbers on the aircraft."
Qantas Ranks Worst airline in 4,000 people survey
From: (http://www.choice.com.au)
The survey of 4000 subscribers to consumer magazine Choice also found Qantas' domestic service
was outshone by all rivals except its low-cost subsidiary Jetstar. Singapore Airlines was voted top
international airline while minnow Regional Express was the favoured domestic operator. Choice
asked subscribers to rate airlines for value for money, booking processes, convenience, the
check-in procedure, inflight service, including food and entertainment, as well as seat comfort,
legroom and cleanliness. Qantas scored 63 per cent compared to Singapore Airline's 78 per cent.
On the domestic front, Qantas fared little better with a 67 per cent rating, with consumers labelling
the service "arrogant and aloof", while Jetstar scored just 62 per cent. Qantas would not comment
directly today on its poor marks in the Choice survey, preferring to draw attention to better showings
in specialist airline polls......... Some travellers said they continued to fly with Qantas to earn frequent flyer points, even though they rated the
airline significantly lower than average. Some comments on the survey included:
“It saddens me to admit that as an Australian, I would prefer not to fly with our national carrier if I could reasonably avoid it. However, given
the significance of market share that Qantas has domestically, and the relative absence of a comparable ‘comprehensive’ product that is
able to tie in both Australian domestic and frequent Australian-based international air travel with the likes of linked Club Lounge and frequent
flyer points schemes, it’s highly likely that I will continue to remain a reluctant captive consumer of their meagre product offering.” (Michael,
Queensland) “On a single Qantas flight, we experienced: an armrest panel missing, which exposed sharp metal edges; a seat which would
not recline — my wife spent the whole trip bolt upright; a seat-back video screen which did not work.” (Geoffrey, WA)
US Couple with Baby: Qantas was a Disaster
Submited by RedRonnie February 18, 2008
We got to LA just fine. Our first hint of trouble came when checking in for the Australia flight, as it took 2 staff members
and about 5 minutes to get us all into our (pre-assigned) seats (little did we know that this would in fact be our shortest,
fewest person check-in with Qantas). There was more trouble preboarding, as it took some time to find the labels to
prove to Qantas that our seat was approved. We did OK with that, got on, and strapped the seat in. When the plane
had fully boarded, staff came around to complain that our seat was "installed wrong" (i.e. rear-facing). We pointed out that Qantas' web site
said it had to be installed according to manufacturer's directions even if rear-facing. They pointed out that the passenger in front of her
couldn't recline. We pointed out that if they had seated us and our BABY instead of the teenagers in the bulkhead row, that wouldn't be a
problem. They upgraded the other passenger to business class, so by our reckoning our baby gave her a net increase in comfort.
Brisbane to Melbourne was worse, requiring 15 minutes and 4 ground staff to get us into what turned out to be illegal seats behind the exit
row. The in-flight staff were very sweet, although they did not notice the illegal seats and usefully told us that if the oxygen masks descended
we should put the baby's on first (wrong). For the first time, we were told that Qantas policy calls for putting the car seat in the last row of the
plane. This makes sense for Australian car seats, which require a top tether that is provided for in that row; unfortunately nobody we met at
Qantas had any clue about the top tethers or the reason for the last row rule. Luckily, this was so apparently pointless and punitive that
none of the agents we dealt with did it, one of the few ways that Qantas' inability to follow their own policies actually benefitted us.
We thought this would be the low point, but no! Melbourne to Brisbane was reasonably uneventful, aside from the fact that they failed to pre-
board us despite another all-hands-on-deck warn-the-gate-about-the-crazy-people check-in. In Brisbane, Paul attempted to get things
straightened out before we got on board. At this point, Qantas staff moved from merely implying that our desire for our baby to safely use
her paid-for seat was inconsiderate and silly to being outright rude. The ground staff told him 1) that they had never heard of anybody taking
a car seat on board except for capsules for newborns 2) that the bulkhead seats were all reserved already for unpaid babies 3) that when
we got on board we'd just do as we were told and 4) that every seat on the plane was full, and it was in fact overbooked. As it turned out,
there was a toddler in a car seat by the same manufacturer on our flight, and a family with a baby we talked to on board said they had been
behind him in line and when they got to the counter, there were adults ticketed in the bulkhead row they got. We were already miserable
when we pre-boarded in our middle of the airplane seats. Since we could, we decided to put the baby between us, in seat E. After the plane
was fully boarded and getting ready to go, a flight attendant noticed she was rear-facing and started to argue with us. We trotted out all the
usual arguments, and were told we should have gotten a seat that would hold a 7-kilo (15 lb) 5-month old forward-facing. (Try it if you like;
they don't exist.) Eventually, in the interests of a peaceful, on-time departure, they agreed that she could stay rear-facing as long as the
passenger in front of her didn't complain, and even (once we showed them the line in their own crew manual!) that we could offer to trade if
he did. They then didn't mention it to him, so he had no idea why his seat could only recline a tiny amount, and he suffered in silence. On
the other hand, this meant he kept trying to force his seat back, squishing the car seat, and he and the baby both looked uncomfortable. 6
hours into the flight, I realized that the seat in front of me had not reclined at all, and we stood up and looked. It was empty. We had all been
tortured for 6 hours for NO REASON AT ALL. If Qantas' staff had spent even a tenth as much time on thinking about solving the
problem as they did on badgering us about it, everybody would have been comfortable and safe. It turned out about half the
rows in our section had empty seats.
So, to sum up, faced with a baby in a car seat, which their policy says is not a problem, Qantas staff were incapable of following applicable
safety regulations or airline policy, and mostly ranged from unhelpful through incompetent to actually rude. They were mean to us and our
baby, and when they tried to be helpful and competent, they were let down by other parts of the airline and by shoddy documentation at
every turn. Just to add to our annoyance, they also mangled our luggage on the last leg of our flight, apparently dragging our baby
hammock across the tarmac until it wore through the bag and several things inside. By comparison, American seated us illegally (and was
not surprised or thankful when we caught the error and asked to have it fixed a month before the flight), failed to pre-board us, and hassled
us about having the seat rear-facing, and while we would choose another carrier if all other things were equal, we're still not that mad at
them. They were kind of annoying, but not actively rude. We'll be paying extra if necessary to avoid ever flying Qantas again.
Australian court protects Qantas - Passenger almost dies of Economy Class Syndrome
From: (www.overlawyered.com)
The High Court of Australia has dismissed a claim against British Airways and Qantas by a businessman who suffered a stroke arising from
deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), sometimes known as "economy-class syndrome", after a long-distance flight. "If his case had succeeded, it
could have opened the floodgates to dozens of DVT cases which had been prepared to go before Australian courts." (Chris Herde, "Court
throws out DVT-related case").
Did Qantas start to hire big heifers? - Confessions of an Qantas Attendant
From: (www.ex-hostie.com)
When a hostie begins her career she is young, slim and energetic, allowing her to cope with the lengthy, narrow aisle in cattle class. The
‘herd’ she is responsible to look after is numerous, so she rarely gets a moment to rest and eat, and besides the food in this cabin is barely
palatable. As her career progresses and she is promoted to work in Business class, she develops a ‘spare tyre’ because the food in this
cabin is more abundant and palatable, and the aisle isn’t nearly as long as in cattle class so she expends less energy. The aisle is much
more spacious in this cabin too. By the time she is working in First class, she has attained ‘heifer’ status. There are only a handful of
passengers and therefore much less work to do, which means more time to eat relatively good food/ sit down and gossip/ read magazines.
Her metabolism rate has decreased with age for she has been in the company for a number of years now. The novelty of being a hostie has
well and truly worn off, and she is hardly motivated to get off her huge lazy bottom and attend to the passenger’s call bell, although even if
she summoned the motivation she wouldn’t have far to walk in that small cabin with the short and very wide aisle. As the aisles widen in each
cabin, so do the waistlines of the hosties. It’s almost as if the aisles deliberately accommodate to the change of the body from slim to super-
sized.
However for TomN, the aisles are not accommodating enough. He complains about chunky QANTAS hosties banging their hips into his elbow
every time he takes a cup or glass to his lips. TomN, I suspect that when these incidences occurred you were travelling in cattle class, where
even the slimmest people have trouble fitting in the aisles, let alone big hosties. In my old airline (which was not Aussie, European or Asian) I
recall constantly having to apologise to passengers for knocking their elbows with my hips (and I am not fat, or ‘hippy’). In order to avoid this,
I soon learnt to walk in crab-like fashion down the economy class aisle. And if you were seated in premium class (where aisle space is
plentiful) when your elbow met with a hostie’s hip every time you took a drink, then you must have been served by the beefiest hosties in
airline history! I can offer a couple of explanations as to why you didn’t experience the same problem on European and Asian airlines. Either
their aircraft have huge aisles in economy- unlikely, or you didn’t notice any hosties bumping into you as they were walking past because
you were too busy gawking at the “eye candy”- very likely!
No Help for Travelling Academic before flight, or In the Air
From: Francesca of Lubbock TX
I have two complaints about Quantas. On my flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, I asked staff to help place my backpack on the overhead
bins. I am 5'1 and the overhead bins are too high for me to reach. My backback also happened to be heavy, since it contained books and a
laptop. Staff flat out refused to help. In years of flying, during which I have met my share of rude staff, this takes the cake.My second
complaint is more serious. I hold an US green card, a valid Italian passport, and a letter extending my green card until 2008 pending my
renewal process. All this is certainly sufficient to allow me to enter the US-except that Quantas staff at Auckland airport decided that it is not. I
had to wait for 40 minutes, during which (fortunately) someone at the US consulate persuaded them that my documents were sufficient for
US custom. Even so, staff rudely threatened me, claiming that in Los Angeles US Immigration would take care of me. Considering that I am
an academic, travelling to present a paper at a conference, I am not used to be treated this way (not that it would be acceptable if I were a
janitor rather than an academic, of course). I wrote to Quantas, complaining about the rudeness and downright incompetence of its staff, and
informing them that if I ever were to go back to New Zealand (an unlikely event), I most certainly would not use their airline. Needless to
say, Qantas did not consider my complaint worth addressing.
Racial Discrimination - Qantas use Police to abuse Filipino Passenger
From: Screwed Central (www.screwedcentral.com)
I am Mr. Jose Abiva - a 28 year-old Filipino and Managing Director of a Philippine IT company that represents US and Australian
book/software publishers in the Asia-Pacific region. I would like to report on Consumer and Human Rights violations done to me by Qantas in
Sydney on board flight QF19 13:45 from Sydney to Manila. A formal complaint was filed to Qantas last May 8. Here is a summary: During my
checking-in, more than a hundred passengers were waiting from 45 minutes to an hour in line for 3 Asian flights using only 12 counters. A
Qantas ground staff casually said, “We have a baggage system failure which is causing the delay.” I saw a Filipina being shouted at by a
Qantas staff at the check-in counter, “If you do not want to pay then get up here and get the luggage yourself!” I felt embarrassed for the
lady, as she was totally humiliated as she stepped up the conveyor belt and pulled off her huge heavy luggage.
Inside the aircraft, my cell phone rang. Since the hatch wasn’t closed and I did not hear an announcement regarding switching off of cell
phones prior or during boarding, I answered the call. Suddenly, a Qantas stewardess was shouting and pointing at my face commanding me
to turn it off. In a few seconds my phone was switched-off as I got really scared. I was humiliated in front of everyone. I knew I had the right to
complain. As she eventually passed by I gentlemanly touched her hand to get her attention. She gracefully turned with a big smile on her
face. “Yes?”, she said. I calmly said, “You don’t have to shout at me.” She looked at my eyes for awhile and said, “You touched my hand and
that is considered as assault! Do you want to talk to my manager?” The stewardess left and came back with the Qantas Customer Service
Manager, named Jock Granger. “Hand me your boarding pass”, he said. He tore the boarding pass and just left. He didn’t even look at my
face. In a few minutes, a Qantas Ground Staff named Ian asked me to get all my things and to follow him out of the plane. I pleaded, “Why
won’t you talk to me? I am a nice person.” But he didn’t listen. With his hands on his waist he turned and spoke near my face, “We are not
letting you board the plane!” He notified the Sydney Airport Police whom he said would be the ones to decide on the matter. Then the
stewardess approached the ground staff showing two nail imprints on her palm.
The Sydney Airport Police came and asked details about me. The Qantas staff allowed that I’d be interrogated in full view of all the
passengers and crew at the glass-covered gate. Afterwards, the chief explained to the Qantas ground staff that it would be the decision of a
higher-ranking group called the Federal Police because I am a Filipino. Then the Federal Police came and interviewed the passengers
concerned. I heard the Qantas Ground Staff talking to the chief of the Airport Police RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME that he said, “HE IS ONLY
FILIPINO? He is ONLY a tourist?” with hands on his waist. The Qantas stewardess came out smiling and waving her goodbyes to her fellow
Qantas crew. I kept overhearing the Qantas Ground Staff and other Qantas crew murmuring to the Police saying, “He grabbed her wrist, arm
and hand…then he twitched her wrist”, “He broke her bones…”, “The victim was hurt...”, etc. And the Qantas Ground Staff even made
gestures on how I “supposedly” did it. There was an atmosphere of hatred. I felt that the Qantas staff tried their best to make sure that I’d be
put to prison or charges be pressed so I won’t be allowed to come back to Australia.
To date, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) and Anti-discrimination Board of New South Wales are
investigating the issue. The Philippine Embassy has also expressed their sympathies for what had happened to me and advised me to get a
lawyer in Australia. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the Philippines are investigating on the matter as well. Moreover, US
Aviation Consumer Protection (under US Department of Transportation) has placed my case in their file to be published in a complaint report
distributed to all airline authorities (in expense of Qantas they say) for future policy making regarding airline customer service and racial
discrimination issues. The story has been published as included in a news article of the Philippine daily Inquirer – “We need laws that protect
air passengers” (September 16 Sunday Issue). I went to Manila Bulletin newspaper about it as instructed by the Australian complaint site.
The reporter investigated on the matter. A certain Qantas lady who has an accent, as the reporter told me, called twice and faxed Manila
Bulletin to destroy my name stating that the stewardess “sought medical treatment for an injury to her arm.” And also Ms. Felicity Bent, the
new customer relations manager of Qantas Australia, replied to an inquiry about my complaint that I allegedly “injured” their staff and that
she sought “medical attention”. And statements that say, “Qantas reject claims of discrimination regarding the incident…” As also suggested
by the complaint site of Australia, I wrote the CEO regarding my concern. What I received was a form of threat. Mr. Dominic Dunne, Assistant
to the Qantas CEO (Mr. Geoff Dixon), wrote that it was the “touching issue” that is the somewhat significant point in the incident and they
consider this as a “serious matter
Mr. Jose Abiva, Managing Director (Pisces Publishing Philippines / Pisces Technologies Australia); you may ask for copies of evidences.
robroy2737@hotmail.com or technology@pisces.com.ph. Address: Pisces Publishing, Inc. Rm306, Corporate Center, 948 Aurora Blvd.,
Quezon City, Philippines. Sydney: c/o Stephen Spackman, Pisces Technologies, rm 110, Exclesior, 242 Elizabeth St., Surrey Hills, NSW
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