I am a regular traveler, and yes, I did previously work for the airlines - not just one of them - rather across a career a few of them. I have see the good and resigned from the bad.
Tonight all I wanted was to travel tomorrow from SYD to OOL. This is how it goes.
1. QF won't take me to OOL except via BNE & un-necessarily 2 sectors.
2. Jetstar will but I simply will not fly Jetstar
3. That leaves Virgin or road
I had flown
VB in it's early days SYD - ADL, and thought that although I had received a good price, I was reminded of that at every turn, and further I disliked the virgin antics, so for future flights I decided to travel Qantas, which by that time as an added bonus had begun competing on prices with
VB.
Now, with this in mind, and hearing that
VB had been making an attempt at getting business travelers to fly with them, and also knowing that the vast majority of
VB maintenance is still done in Australia, I chose to fly to OOL direct on
VB rather than via BNE on QF & EAA, as time is important.
$109.00 - BARGAIN. Less than half the price I had expected. I booked it and as suggested proceeded to check in via the web. At this point a printer was needed so I proceeded from the media room to the computer room where the printer is working currently. Followed the prompts and was seated in the WRONG SEAT.
The web site offered me a phone number to call to change the error, and after a long period of silence I was greeted by a man with an American accent. An over seas call centre !!!!!!!!!!
Now - please let me say that I do not normally frequent suppliers who utilise over seas call centres as much as I do not want to frequent suppliers who utilise over seas engineering. For me it's all about supporting a local product, with local customer service and understanding.
Not withstanding this, I explained the situation re the booking and gee whiz to my surprise the operator couldn't help me in spite of the web site directing me to call him. He told me there was nothing he could do and to see the airport staff in the AM.
A clear cut case of you get what you pay for. The irony is that I was (and remain) willing to pay more than two times more for a product that simply doesn't mess me around.
The problem is that there is no other option - it's either low cost carrier or low cost carrier, and I simply don't want that.
Jetstar is no competition to
VB for business travellers, so
VB in the face of no competition from QF -- why not lift the bar out of the gutter - please