You're probably right on both counts. But I think that our foremost international airline has a responsibility to weed out this kind of attitude and behavior, especially when it's directed at paying customers. My national pride isn't affected by what happens on SQ, but the way that Qantas behaves affects all Australians to some extent.

Again, you're probably right. But again, I wasn't asserting that a majority of the staff display the kind of unacceptable behavior that I was talking about.

Having flown extensively on Qantas over a large number of years I can honestly say I have never had atrocious service, seen racism or rudeness nor been able to identify "legacy" staff by their attitude. In general the staff standard has been great. In fact, I can recall loads of times great consideration has been given to individual passengers including myself. Sure there has been the odd instance of less than exemplary service but there also has been the odd instance at the best hotels and restaurants in Sydney and on other carriers.

If you talk about their management policies such as May 25th changes and their attitude to FF'ers well I'd have a different view.

Maybe there are two Qantases and I fly the good one? :confused:

The weeding is restricted by unionisation and IR laws. Q is doing what they are able to change things with off-shore bases (new contracts), JQ and AO (new contracts) etc. There is only so much weeding that can be done without bringing the company to a halt from industrial action.

However, with that said, I am yet to meet any of these QF staff that have been described. I have always found them to be pleasant and effective. There is the occasional blemish in the service, but no more than I have seen on any other airline or any other service industry. And as a Lifetime Gold FF member, I have come across a lot of QF staff over the years.

My flying with QF spans a couple of decades and I am Lifetime Gold.

My experience with them is similar to NM and turtlemichael - service has not been blemish-free but certainly good to excellent almost all of the time.

My flying spans about 25 years and in contrast to the posts above, I cannot say that all QF crew are consistently very good. I agree that they are generally very polite and I have seen some great service. But I have also seen service that is less than adequate, where the general demeanour of the person left me feeling that they were doing me a big favour in serving me. As I mentioned above this is diminishing, probably because AN (whose crews seemed much the same) are gone and DJ crews are more relaxed and friendly.

I'm not saying that these "legacy" staff are a damning indictment on QF, but just a fact of life. Having flown on airlines such as SQ and TG, the difference is definitely noticeable. I've never actually seen extreme rudeness from QF staff mentioned by Antiqantas.

But with respect, NM being a WP, and often flying in J, you may not be in the best position to comment. There was a time in my career, during which I had a lot of contact with the police force, when I might have made exactly the same observations about the police. I saw an awful lot of them, and they were all very defferential to me. Does that mean that on occasions one or two cops might not have given a hiding to someone they regarded as meriting it???

If you read the QANTAS thread on the pprune forum you might glean some of the attitudes to paxs (and to their own colleagues) that should at least raise questions whether the service offering experienced at the sharp end of the plane is uniform.

AUS_MD - you make a good point. As one who has flown mostly down the back until the last 4-5 years, there is a helluva difference between that and service upfront/upstairs. :(

That was the voice of experience talking - sigh :(


Fortunately I'm making my way forward.

Mostly i find the FA's in econ. to be fine, but the hardest thing i usually ask for is them to reboot the IFE when it screws up..

Adrienne

I believe I am in a perfect position to make the comment I made. My comment was about my personal experience, not about the experiences of others, and who better than me to comment on my personal experience? Certainly nobody else on this forum is in a better position than me to comment about my personal experience.

I commented on my experience, which includes a great deal of flying in both business class and economy, and the occasional experience of turning left at the door of a 747, and with a variety of airlines. My experience is my experience and is not up for dispute or debate.

My experience may differ from that of others. They are the only ones qualified to comment on their own personal experiences, just as I am very much qualified to comment on my own experiences.

If your experience is different to mine, then just say so. That is ok - we are different people. I will not dispute your experience since only you are in a position to comment about it since only you have experienced it.

My experience (which dates back to Feb 89 with QF and over 500 sectors) is similar to NM and turtlemichael (maybe it's got something to do with possible having Qld-based crew sometimes??). The majority of my travel is Y (unless I've been able to upgrade to J using points or UC's :D). Whilst I've not experienced those poor experiences others have had, yes I've heard or read about them from time-to-time on BB's like FT and AFF.

Yes, there can be difficulties such as language barriers and the like, but we all have to put up with them when travelling. We (as pax) can also treat the FA's/CSA's with the same respect that we'd like to be treated. I was brought up with this ethos and I've found it works - try to understand the problem from the other person's perspective. "Stand in their shoes", in other words.

Perhaps those of us who have had good experiences have been fortunate to be on flights with good to excellent staff and pehaps it's also been a function of how we've treated them?? I don't think there is any simple answer to the conundrum...

Of course, for those of us who may feel we don't want to read certain posters comments - there's the Ignore function - go into your Profile and you'll find out how to use it.

I also have had very few bad experiences, and many very good ones, with staff when flying on Y on QF (and in J) - part of the reason why I am and am staying as a QF FF is that they are one of my fave airlines in Y and I find that I almost always enjoy (as much as one can enjoy 23 hours at the back of a tin can !!!) flying longhaul with them.

Are all their staff perfect ? No, of course not, and I'm sure a small number are crap, but the general QF standard of service is pretty good in my experience (which is quite extensive) and is vastly better than all the US carriers for e.g., and many/most Euro. ones. Its worst than the Asian carriers (espec. SQ and CX), but then this is the case with every single 'Western' carrier I have ever flown.

Ironically, the only time I felt let down by FA service etc on QF was when I last flew them in F ! (I was an Op Up though, so they were looking after the 'paying' pax first, but it did go a bit far for my liking). But only ever had a couple of probs in Y - meanwhile I have had more issues in 4 Y+ trips on UA this year than in all the QF flights (over 60 I guess) that I have taken over the last 5 years.

I think the key here (and we have seen it on other threads from time to time) is consistency. Unfortunately most of us have experienced the odd dragon or two when flying, and its not just QF.

I've never seen a race/language barrier incident but I am sure it has happened. However I do believe that if there is a "bad" FA on a flight then nearly everyone will receive substandard customer service from this particular FA. They may just be having an off day or may actually be poorly skilled in customer service which becomes an issue for the employer.

However on the flip side more often than not most FA's I have experienced have been good. The last flight I took was a perfect example of this when the service i received from check in through to flight was outstanding. I emailed QF to commend the employees (not an everyday occurence).

On the whole I think QF just need to work at consistency and retrain a few staff here and there. Sure customer service could be improved but it seems no better or worse than most service based industries in Australia.

NM I did not intend to deprecate or discount your own experience, which is obviously substantial. The point I was trying to make was that elite status pax are less likely to be exposed to the types of FA behaviour that I, Yada Yada and Antiqantas have all reported, than passengers who have no status. I certainly was not disputing your good experiences with QF. On reflection I probably should have written something like:

... comment on QF service delivered to no-status discount passengers in WHY.

I thought that should have been reasonably clear from the remainder of the post, and intended no offense.

Interesting observation, QF WP!

If anything, I find the converse is true, at least on INT!!! An old friend of mine, now a QF FA, told me BNE is referred to in jest as "Jurassic Park", and I'd have to say that matches with my perception of the root cause of my bad experiences ex or in to BNE - older FAs totally jaded with the whole thing, superior attitude etc. etc. I guess this is the "legacy" thing mentioned above? Several flights in J over the last few years (noth pre- and post- travelling with child) have just left me shaking my head in disbelief!

Haven't seen a race issue per se, but I have felt chillier attitudes from QF FAs in the two years I've been travelling with a small child. Or rather, an "ooh, little person, we'll just stay right away and hope the mother is too busy to actually want anything in the way of service!" approach. Not to mention the - "we don't seem to have a child meal loaded for your son (in J) and there's nothing we can do about that" which happens with monotonous regularity. To clarify, it's not that the mistake has happened that irritates me as much as the complete absence of problem solving skill-set as part of the service culture on part of many QF FAs I've encountered.

Sorry for my rambling addition!