Exactly Ultralights, the reason everything has gone LCC now is because everyone wants everything for nothing! If they fly QF, they complain it costs too much and on a MEL-SYD they didn't get a full international service with all the smiles in the world from the crew. Unfortunately these days everything is about saving money, airlines are operating on minimum crew these days to save a dollar, so unfortunately the crew don't have time to talk as they're too worried about trying to get the service done in the time given and while they're doing that they have a j/class wannabe in row 24 asking for the crew to hang up his jakcet for him and find somewhere to put his suitpack! Believe it or not guys, 99% of crew would love to spend time going that extra mile for the passengers and smiling all the time chatting etc, but another thing is that sometimes you might have caught the crew at the end of a 10 hour day and that's not your problem, they chose their own career, but just take some time to think about it.
People you have to realise, these days even though the crew may want to spend time talking to passengers and smiling etc, they literally don't have time to do all the little things that they would be able to if they had an extra Flight Attendant. Per CASA rules, in Australia there must be one Flight Attendant to every 36 passengers, if not, the plane doesn't take off, it's law. In New Zealand, they have to have 1 Flight Attendant to every 50 passengers, so even worse! but then again NA crew get paid next to nothing. The current government want to introduce NZ's policy into Australia, so just think if this happens, there will be no service whatsoever on any Australian airline as there won't be enough crew to do it! So please don't support the governments change to the current conditions.
At the end of the day, there are crew at every airline that should've retired or never got the job in the first place and there are crew which are fantastic! I fly with Flight Attendant's which are great at what they do and the passengers are genuinely over the moon. Cut crew a little slack and realise they are human also. Yes if they don't like working with the public, they're in the wrong job, but if you see they're not smiling every second you turn around, then that's ok. and if they don't answer your call bell within 5 seconds, it's probably because they're in the middle of stuffing their lunch down their face. yes crew do need to have a break, we're not robots.
I work for Qantas, but i have also travelled Virgin Blue once or twice and hated it! I don't find them professional (being hit by a flying toilet roll) and definately not safety focused after getting a passenger to do the safety demo. Could you imagine as a business traveller who might fly 2 or 3 legs a day and hearing the same jokes over and over on each sector! I would much rather Qantas. Also i would rather fly Qantas for the experienced crew aswell, Virgin have 19 year old Cabin Managers who have only been flying for a year! Do you feel safe now?
Oz Ocker, your daughter and son in law sound like the type who want everything for nothing, Virgin can have them, they're more trouble than they're worth, trust me i know the type! an airline is an airline, unexpected things happen that you have to allow for and if you can't realise this then you definately should drive, that way you have no one else to blame but yourself if something goes wrong.
ps- Pullock, i haven't heard anything about Qantas increasing it's number of j/class seats at all? I know what it's like, j/class fills up in a second, especially with Qantas Club members who use their points in the QF Club on the day to upgrade. This is why it is so hard to use F/F points to upgrade as there is usually every other frequent flyer trying to do the same thing.
Also, i really hope that OZjet works out, especially for the people that have recently been employed to work for them and also because competition is healthy. From what i hear some of the people recently hired as Flight Attendants are a bit worried as the airline founder doesn't have a good reputation with airlines, they seem to disappear while under his direction. Hopefully though it works out for all concerned.
Happy landings!
Oz