Nick Cotton and family who live near Sydney were ripped off by their Qantas experience this year and want their correspondence with its Customer Care office published.
This is his story, told in letters to and from Qantas Customer Care,
I purchased 4 tickets on Qantas to Johannesburg for my family (2 adult children + wife) flying 26th Dec 2008 returning 23rd Jan 09. We are Australians, going on a holiday of a lifetime and our experience was atrocious.
To cut a long story short, on the way out the in flight entertainment was broken on the whole plane for most of the flight. On the way back in our section of the plane everything was down, no entertainment, no lights no call button, no acknowledgement, etc etc. I have corresponded with Qantas and they offered me $400 voucher to be spent on Qantas. That’s for all 4 tickets. I have exchanged more correspondence but that is all they will offer.
I attach my letters and their replies. My complaint tried to make them aware that it was not just the lack of entertainment. Staff attitudes were poor, and my feeling was that because this route has no competition on the direct flight, the planes are old, crammed and Qantas are milking it to maximize profit.
I am disgusted.
Customer Care
Qantas Airways Pty Ltd
Level 5 – Building A
203 Coward Street
Mascot NSW 2020
27 January 2009
Dear Sirs,
My family and I have recently travelled to Johannesburg with Qantas Flight QF63 26/12 and back on QF64 23/1 and have some customer service issues that I wish to raise with you.
On the outgoing flight the whole aircraft suffered from breakdown of the entertainment system. The flight crew did advise over the PA that they were trying to fix it and frequently closed the whole system down to reboot it. Eventually however the interactive part of the system was closed down and we could only access audio and some visual on TV.
On our return flight we encountered further issues of service which began at the check in. We checked in about 2.5 hours before the flight departure and our family of four adults were unable to get seating together. I know this happens but we were disappointed to find that we were put two and two in rows 69 and 70 against the window with extremely large people on the aisle seat in each case. These people had also been separated from their families so no-one was happy. To say we were crammed is an understatement. How can one avoid this? Are people being allocated seats prior to arriving at the airport because if this is the case we were not told this option was available? When we arrived at the gate we were met by more security, taking all containers bigger than 100ml regardless of contents. In our case this consisted of empty water bottles which we wanted to fill on the plane to avoid the tiny plastic cups which usually run out and also some virtually empty hair product (pump spray) and some unopened body creams which had been purchased at an airport shop. We refused to hand these over and returned to the shop (The Body Shop) to get them sealed in a bag with receipt attached to demonstrate where they had been purchased. We were told this draconian procedure and confiscations were on the strict instructions of Qantas but since this did not happen on our departure in Sydney we are confused about the lack of consistency.
Once on the plane we settled in as best we could given the extraordinarily cramped conditions and tried to watch the entertainment system. This lasted less than an hour I think and then crashed. Our section never came back on. No announcement was made and eventually when I asked was told they were working on it. I became aware that nothing worked in our section. No seat lights, handset did not operate the service light etc. When the lights were dimmed for people to sleep I had to stop reading. The steward advised after I got his attention, that I could sit in the crew seat and read if I liked. I declined. Later on he came back to me and said ‘you paid top dollar for this flight. I strongly urge you to write to customer care.’ About half an hour before arrival in Sydney the chief steward wandered down our side of the plane apologising with what I thought was a very carefree attitude.
As feared the water cups on the plane did run out and our consumption of fluids was restricted. No hot towels came round as advertised and not once were we offered a drink other than with the meal. I asked for a beer with the meal but it never came despite a promise that she would come back.
As the steward noted I paid nearly $13000 for these four seats for my family to go and visit my terminally ill sister and am extremely disappointed with the service. I will certainly be encouraging V Australia to speed up their entry to this route and when I travel again next year will be examining all other options. Because there is no competition on this direct route I suspect the planes used are the older ones in your fleet. The current alternative is to fly cheaper but for 21 hours or so through Asia or The Middle East. I think, in hindsight, for comfort and economy that may well have been the better option.
I look forward to your response and whether you might consider some compensation for our inconvenience. You have failed to provide full service as advertised, and have also failed in your obligations to me and my family as customers.
Yours faithfully.
N Cotton
12 March 2009
Dear Sirs,
I refer to my letter dated 27th January (6 weeks without acknowledgement) and your letter of reply dated 9th March ref BF/93307777.
I am grateful for your enclosed voucher to the value of $400 usable only on Qantas and Oneworld airlines not Jetstar. However, I note that this represents only 3% of the value of the original tickets.
I presume I did not properly make clear the agony of these flights. The outbound flight to Johannesburg was nowhere near as bad as the return. We only suffered from no interactive audio visual throughout most of the flight. The staff was, for the most part courteous and apologetic about the situation. By the return flight all that had changed.
My wife and adult children, when reading my first letter to you, reckoned I had understated the situation. They reminded me that many people on our section of the plane staged what was almost a mini revolt and carried their trays back to the galley because they waited so long for them to be removed by the crew. No apologies or explanations were forthcoming regarding the lack of lights, call bells, TV, film etc. is it normally Qantas policy to keep customers in the dark? The service in general was atrocious and did not just involve the breakdown of equipment. Not providing people with adequate hydration is a health risk and surely is something that you should have a basic service. I have noticed a letter in the press from another dissatisfied customer who recently travelled this route so I am aware my experience was not an isolated case. Frankly, I dread flying with Qantas next time I need to go in 12 months time. 14 hours is a very long time to spend in such circumstances.
Bearing in mind that we are a family of 4 looking for compensation I believe $100 each will go nowhere. I look forward to hearing from you with an alternative offer, and sincerely hope that it does not take a further 6 weeks.
Yours faithfully.
N Cotton
6 May 2009
Dear Sirs,
I refer to my letter dated 12th March (a further 6 weeks without acknowledgement) and your letter of reply dated 23rd April ref BF/93319604.
You are correct in your assumption that I am still unhappy with your offer.
Rather than just state that the offer was appropriate, I would appreciate it if you could address and comment on the points I raised. Specifically, how can $100 compensation per ticket be appropriate? If we could use the voucher on Jetstar then it may have some value, but restricting us to just giving the money back to Qantas seems to be insulting. Please try to actually visualise yourself in our position on those flights. Would you not be angry and frustrated if you had been forced to sit in the dark with no diversion and no information for 10hours? What action have you taken to avoid this in the future? Very little it would seem as I have another similar incident to report in the paragraph below.
I am not normally keen on pursuing such matters but I feel so strongly about this that I can assure you I will be persistent and in due course will explore what third parties may be able to assist me. I am unfortunately reinforced in this by news from my sister and her husband who flew business class to Hong Kong last week from Sydney and they also suffered the breakdown of the in-flight entertainment system. They however, were lucky enough to have lights and cabin service; a luxury not delivered on our flights to and from Johannesburg. They also assure me they will avoid flying Qantas next time they fly. My brother in law flies every week from the UK on business and in his case his dissatisfaction and his contacts will result in loss of business for Qantas.
I look forward to hearing from you very shortly.
Yours faithfully.
N Cotton
Nick Cotton thinks Qantas will fail if it continues to deliver low cost service at full service prices.
He is not alone in having such thoughts.
8 Comments
These Angry Flyer tales of woe are becoming incredibly tedious and reek of an over inflated sense of self-entitlement: but with this one Plane Talking is going from the sublime to the ridiculous.
No matter how good or bad an airline is, or is perceived to be, there will always IFE failures, cabin crew having a bad day, large passengers who get seated next to you, luggage that gets lost and flights delayed or cancelled. All generally outside the control of the airline or the passengers. And 90% of the time, these things aren’t happening.
Seriously – what was the expectation? That the Captain would divert the plane, land and have the IFE and cabin lighting fixed but delay the flight for hours.
Liquids requirements are well known, well advertised, easy to research and quite universal. It never ceases to amaze me that people complain about them when they get to a hand baggage inspection point. Complaining about them at that stage is just sheer ignorance.
Qantas’ response is polite and absolutely fair. Afterall, the family did actually reach their destination and return, which ultimately is the purpose of air travel.
Cam “Liquids requirements are well known, well advertised, easy to research and quite universal. It never ceases to amaze me that people complain about them when they get to a hand baggage inspection point. Complaining about them at that stage is just sheer ignorance.”
Dude, his letter states that the water bottles were empty. Now I’ve just gone and searched Qantas’s website and after a bit of searching I find:
http://travelsecure.infrastructure.gov.au/international/lags/index.aspx
where I discover the 100ml liquid rule applies to vessels capable of carrying more liquid but completely empty. maybe.
It actually says:
“Remember:
Containers larger than 100 millilitres, even if only partially-filled, will not be allowed through the security screening point.”
Now I can’t be bothered to read the actual legislation but I would first state that that little tidbit of information is not very well known and goes against what any rational human being would expect. But more importantly does the phrase “even if only partially filled” restrict the prohibition on containers over 100ml to those with some liquid in them? If not then why even include that phrase. I question your personal attack on this man’s ignorance.
Anyway What I’d like to know is what genius decided that someone can carry a clear plastic bag onto the plane with a volume significantly in excess of 100ml but not an empty clear plastic bottle? Unfortunately it appears that in many areas air travel safety is overseen by people with barely a functional high school education. It’s no wonder people avoid flying whenever possible.
Things do go wrong on planes – we all accept that – what we don’t accept is poor service from the flight crew, rudeness, poor food choices and bloody awful seat spacing.
We have just returned from our annual trip to europe (4 pax fares of $11000) and because of several less than comfortable trips in previous years we voted with our wallets and flew with another airline.
It’s time both Qantas and Jetstar took a long hard look at their service standards.
Unfortunately intense competitive pressure has pushed most major airlines into a situation with IFE that is far from comfortable with astronomical costs and numerous customer complaints. Having full IFE in each seat for economy passengers is relatively new and was always going to be a headache for airlines for reliability with manufacturers like Rockwell Collins completely swamped with orders and trying to fulfill complex installations that most airlines wanted before yesterday. I was involved in a 2 hour test flight of an A330 delivery aircraft in Toulouse following a software upgrade to a new version IFE system and having the technicians regularly re-booting full rows of seats in economy, as the screens went down, was a good insight of the problems most airlines would face maintaining IFE in service.
‘cam’ asked “Seriously – what was the expectation?”
The ‘customer’s’ expectation is very clearly laid out in their initial letter, cam. They wanted an explanation and perhaps a little recognition for their plight from the cabin crew – virtually none received, and sufficient compensation. They may as well have been travelling on AirAsia X, Air Austral, or dare I say it, Jetstar Int’l for the level of comfort and service they received, not one of the world’s premier full-service airlines.
An air fare on a full-service airline is so much more than getting from A to B these days. People choose these airlines over others because there is, a) perhaps a greater chance of getting to B, b) the schedules are often more convenient and, c) there is sufficient differentiation in the various products (i.e. comfort levels and amenities) offered by the airlines to pay the extra money.
While most Australians will usually look at Qantas because of a (misdirected?) sense of national pride, more and more are steering away because of falling standards of basic customer service and passenger comfort.
I have taken two long haul flights on Qantas recently, one in Business class and the other in Economy, and apart from enjoying the quietness and ride of the A380 on the first trip, I was generally left disappointed in the cabin products, the stability of the IFE product (on all four legs), and the general levels of customer service. Once the lights go out, the flight attendants all retreat to their galleys or crew rest areas and do not emerge again for hours.
On SQ, EK and even BA and UA this is not the case, and the service levels and I’d even suggest the cabin products across all classes even on BA and UA have long left Qantas in their dust.
Hi Nick, You should get me to write your letters.
In 2006, during the Christmas period, my family and I flew Qantas to Las Vegas, on a cheap ticket. On arrival our luggage was still in Australia. The Qantas ground staff in Los Angeles told us we could have USD$200 each to buy clothes as our luggage would arrive 24 hours later. They gave us a card for the Qantas Customer Service in Australia. On ringing that number we were greeted with “We are closed over the Christmas period call back on January X”. Off we went and bought clothes, shoes, underwear, shampoos, toothbrushes etc etc, having being verbally reassured we would get a refund.
On arrival back in Australia I rang to be told we were only entitled to AUD$100 each. We had spent AUD$900, as we had gone from high 30’s to near freezing planning on putting our cool weather gear on at the airport on arrival. After my letter with receipts we received a full refund of the $900 and an apology.
My last letter of complaint to another organisation regarding a refund ended with “Try me on I will surprise you at how angry I can get”, refund arrived in the next post.
Keep writing!! Try the ACCC they handle these complaints and the airlines HATE dealing with them. I mentioned the ACCC during my complaint and was sure that helped. Good luck, I would have at least another 5 letters left in me!
As an aside, we took a cab back to Las Vegas Airport the following day. Walked in went to the luggage carousel, collected our luggage and walked out with it. No checks, and no apparent security inspection of our luggage. No questions asked.
Why shouldn’t the original poster expect decent service when plenty of other airlines seem to be able to offer it.
The thing about the water bottles is that it doesn’t make sense.
I had a horrible experience with the water bottle issue recently. When leaving Sydney airport I took my empty bottles through security, no problem, filled them up from taps in the toilets and happily drank the water on the plane to Hong Kong.
On returning from Hong Kong, I went through security but didn’t have empty bottles, so I bought some new ones in the secure shopping area. I was horrified to discover that on flights to Australia they do a secret bag check right before you get on the plane – in the jetway – after handing over your boarding pass. I’d bought $10 worth of nice green tea drinks and sports drinks and had to hand them over. I still managed to get one bottle through, which was underneath a jumper in the bottom of my bag. Just goes to show the ludicrousness and (non)effectiveness of these checks.
How come you can take bottles of water from the shops at Sydney airport on the plane, but not ones from Hong Kong airport?
All the above comments except for Cam show thoughtful attention to the various points raised. Magoo especially grasped the main point by pointing out that what was required was staff courtesy, acknowledgement and attention, both at the time of the flight and subsequently when responding to the written complaint. A call from Qantas customer care this morning has gone a long way to dealing with this in the correct manner.