Originally Posted by
Antiqantas
As far as I can recall I have never struck a testy employee with any of the Asian airlines I've regularly flown with. I'm not saying they don't exist, and I'm not saying all my experiences with those airlines have been positive, but I don't ever recall dealing with an employee of CX, SQ, 9W, TG, MH, OZ, or KA who wasn't patient, courteous, and helpful, and that makes all the difference when something does go wrong, whether within or beyond the airline's control.
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I'm sorry to hear it's like this. Everyone needs a supportive work environment and due recognition for their efforts. Perhaps the current conditions at Qantas are exacerbating things but the problem I've described goes back at least a few decades so I suspect it's somewhat endemic to the airline, perhaps even to Australian corporate culture. For 30+ years I've been seeing Qantas staff saying incredibly inappropriate things to customers, e.g., very gauche attempts at humor that were obviously not appreciated by the victims, or even completely unintelligible to them. In fact, it was pretty much the same with Ansett and if they were still around I'd probably be raising the same complaint about them.
I have retrospectively raised some problems with Qantas management over the years. No case has ever been handled seriously, as far as I can tell, let alone resolved to my satisfaction, so I haven't bothered for a long time.
My one experience of things being completely mis-managed by SQ (whom I've used seldom since): a group of "special needs" Customers were not connected through at Changi, missing their onward flights. The communication from SQ was handled poorly, contact with individuals proved difficult in the 24hrs until they were embarked and SQ did nothing to remediate the situation on their return, despite this being flagged to local management.
A subsequent meeting with the local Area Manager elicited nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and the comment "there's nothing we can do now", SQ weren't even prepared to offer a written apology. This took me by complete surprise; having flown with SQ numerous times prior to this I'd found their service to be second to none - indeed it was one of the reasons why I booked my father with them in the first place - but it seems that if something goes bad then their Corporate Culture does not allow them to acknowledge and apologize.
Finally, having endured 45mins of nonchalance, I questioned whether the media might be interested in the fact that though the passengers missed their connections, their baggage didn't - it was flown unaccompanied on their booked flights although the pax were mis-connects - the AM's attitude changed in the blink of an eye. I'd also expect would happen with QF, if faced with the same sort of challenge to their own nonchalance.
Seems to me that the majors have more in common that we like to think.
BD