Qantas deteriorating Service

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Qantas website Chat service. I have used it effectively in the past, although recently it appears to be broken more often than not, forcing me to call Qantas instead of using chat. Mentioned it to 2 different agents I spoke to, but there seems to be no rush to fix it (it's still broken today). You would have thought someone would notice if no chat requests are coming in from clients for several days. It seems the service has indeed deteriorated.

I've been QF Platinum for many years (as well as Lifetime Gold) and have flown Qantas for decades, along with other airlines of course. The banner at the top of these posts is correct - the service from Qantas is definitely deteriorating.

Six to 10 years ago I was rating their service as excellent on both international and domestic flights. Today it's not the same and common threads have emerged in recent years:

- Regular, almost predictable delays to domestic flight schedules invariably announced as "awaiting arrival of replacement flight crew" and nothing to do with weather, technical issues etc. The later in the day, the greater the likelihood of a delayed departure.

- Late delivery of checked baggage, especially at Melbourne Domestic where it's not unusual to experience up to a 30 minute delay. On one occasion when I expressed concern at the baggage service counter the two staff agreed fully and said they and their colleagues see this regularly and they get upset because all their good efforts to provide a quality service on behalf of Qantas are let down by slow baggage delivery.

- Increasing delays in answering calls to their Platinum "priority" telephone service. Hence I recently tried the online Chat service but the response was from someone overseas who clearly had minimal understanding of English and couldn't comprehend my query. When I repeated my query (politely) I never saw another word, so I gave up.

- Lack of follow-up to or interest in any complaints. At Brisbane Domestic our aircraft's departure was delayed for two hours due to a technical issue (which I will readily accept for safety reasons), but the checked luggage was left on the trolleys on the tarmac uncovered. Heavy rain arrived (definitely not an electrical storm preventing exposure by ground crew) with the result the uncovered luggage was soaked. No one took an interest in my complaint.

- The decline in the menu variety in the Domestic Business Lounges. Once upon a time during peak periods you had hot choices of sausage rolls, pizza slices, pasties, tacos etc. Now it's just the usual rice and "something". In Melbourne even the bacon has disappeared from the breakfast menu (but not Sydney for some reason).

- The halving of the number of toilets in Business Class on the refurbished A380, the provision of only one toilet in some A330-200 international flights and the sharing of toilets between Business and Premium Economy passengers on the B787 Dreamliner extra long haul flights. The ratio of Business Class toilets to passengers on premium, reputable international carriers is around 1:14. With Qantas it is 1:23 (B787), 1:28 (some A300-200) and 1:32 (A380). This is akin to budget airlines.

- Although I've never flown Premium Economy, I have seen endless complaints about the seat pitch of the supposedly "revolutionary" design in the B787 Dreamliner and the same seats planned for the upcoming refurbishment of the A380. Not all of those passengers can be classed as unreasonable.

I could go on but suffice to say based on my long experience there has definitely been a decline in the standards offered by Qantas in recent years. I feel sorry for the flight crew who predominantly do their utmost to provide the best service possible but they are let down by factors outside their control.

Overall, I believe the decline in standards has been caused by the decision makers in Qantas' corporate headquarters. Basically, I suspect those responsible for making decisions about service quality and passenger comfort and convenience are overridden by the bean counters who have little comprehension of such topics, only the bottom line.

I must say the service onboard has always been great, but the food.....omg!

Qantas's telephone service appears to be based on the CentreLink model ....

All the bad service at QF. Just pop over to Virgin. They're happy to take you on. I generally always get a better deal, and service from VA.

I understand your frustration. As another poster said above, Qantas does have a loyal fanbase and I have to admit, I am one. I have to say that I fly with Qantas because over the years, I have needed to change flights and on the whole, the call centre staff were very good with me. I have been a gold frequent flyer for years and this year made it to platinum. I stick with Qantas because I have been treated well over the time. Yes, their service standards on the aircraft is fluid, but seriously what company in Australia offers stellar service? Ring Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank, even the Tax Office... all offering below expectation service. As I have gotten older, I read articles about Qantas and remain informed about their developments. What does frighten me is their plan not to commit to further operate the Hobart call centre and I hope this does not mean that the human interaction between Qantas and their customers will be depleted further. I too have recently used the chat bot service and throw in a curve ball question and it falls down. So it's on the phone to Qantas and a call centre consultant quickly rectifies my issue. In my own experience, Qantas still performs well above other carriers around the world. Travel with some overseas carriers as I have and you'll find that Qantas out-performs most of them with customer service. Finally, I recall travelling Qantas under Geoff Dixon and that it felt like the carrier was shot to bits. I have observed Qantas has improved under Alan Joyce. While I understand the original poster's frustration, I have to say in my experience, Qantas out performs many other carriers in customer service.

Some of this is #firstworlproblem stuff.

I’ll add my 2c worth having recently flown Qantas for the first time in a while. I think the biggest issue is that they have a near monopoly on corporate travel in the Australian market (similarly to BA in London) and this leads to some complacency. When I first moved to Australia 7 years ago one thing that astonished me was the near obsession with Qantas Points that seems so prevalent amongst Traveller’s. There seems little doubt that many people seem to believe they are almost ‘tied in’ to Qantas because of those alone. The old business seats are past their best (as I found out!) but certain things they do well. I generally find the crews to be great. The lounges are good (I’m always impressed with the new(ish) T3 lounge at Heathrow and they are dealing with the crowding issues at Changi with new F lounge). I’d agree with comments about the food which can be very hit and miss, it probably is time to move on from Neil Perry, so many fabulous other partners they could chose. Customer service - when you get to actually speak to someone it’s usually good, it’s actually getting to speak to someone that’s the issue. Overall are they as good as SIA / CX / QR - not in my view (I don’t do much domestic travel in Australia anymore so that may change your perspective), but I believe on an overall basis, they are better than the US ‘big 3’. There are areas that have scope for improvement, but they aren’t as bad as some would have you think.

Is it simply that most other Airlines service has gotten better rather than QF deteriorating?

So many other carriers have vastly improved their service and seating whilst QF seem to be stagnant.

Good time to cut the apron strings from QF and try the vastly better other ones.

I am due to head off at 11:45 AM This Morning on QF 153 from MEL-AKL. I chose to fly Business Class as they had a very good deal on late last year. I really wanted to utilise the Business Class seats on the A330-200. About 3 months ago, Qantas sent an email advising me that return flight (Also an A330-200) had been cancelled and that I had to phone them to make arrangements. When I called them, They told me that the flights that they were willing to put me on were all operated by 737s. Note: I would NEVER pay from Business Class on a 737. I asked if there were ANY A330-200 services that day and there was one, which they put me on, QF 158. I was really upset because QF158 is scheduled to be flown on VH-EBG, One of only 2 A330s that has NOT had its J class retrofitted to the same standard as the rest of their A330 Fleet (IE EBG is 2-2-2.) At least it was an A330 service I thought, and my outbound flight was with the 1-2-1 configuration, so I was really looking forward to this product.

just returned from a first class QF disappointment! Flew the QF35-36 on the 380-what a tragedy! Wear and tear-mediocre food and very slow service-soiled napkins and the silverware??? Even on economy most airlines serve with a better quality -simply a disgrace-and I don't even mention the huge rip off that QF charges as processing fees 'tax' on the ticket-I bought 2 tickets one with QF points and one with AA-QF charged nearly 5x more than AA for the 'experience' I urge anyone who plan a trip like this -please don';t waste your time and money and points with QF it;s simply won't worth it-it's nothing more than a premier business class product to say the best-even their amenity kits were rotten-I came home and try on of the moisturizer and it was rancid!!

Qantas management need to stop listening to the bean counters on ways to reduce services to reduce costs, and listen to the customers who actually purchase the air fairs.