qf94 said
Ushuaia, I can't believe I'm even saying this, but it has been reported by AJ on many accounts that RR paid $95million for QF32 and the remainder under insurance, and that it was a design fault in the engine that caused the explosion and is part of their financial reporting and so on. AJ didn't try and blame the engineers this time (he must have slipped up on that one).
Yes, you are absolutely right, mate. I know that, you know that, most people in the industry know that. But ask around amongst Joe Public a bit. See what THEIR perceptions and recollections are. You will be dismayed, as I am. They blame Qantas, they see it as a Qantas failing. From the taxi driver, to the hairdresser, to the banker. That is what the average impression is. There are exceptions; I am talking about the average.
QF used to have two big differentiators; two things people were happy to pay extra for. "
Australianism" and
Safety. We have blown the first one by doing things like cutting QF international routes, replacing them with JQ flights filled with Thai cabin crew, or Jetconnect flights filled with Kiwis, and having an image of offshoring as much of the airline as possible. The latter is not as significant as the public thinks, but it doesn't matter - that is what they think. Ask them. The engineers rhetoric has not helped in that regard. And I heard a terrible "Qantas" experience today from complete strangers who flew NZ-Aus and were well aware it was Jetconnect and that it wasn't "Australian". They have now given up on Qantas - their next international flight is to be with EK. They volunteered the story to me with no prompting at all.
The second differentiator, Safety: we have blown it with how
PR has handled many of the incidents that were not QF's fault, and indeed how too many trivial things even make it into the media. The media has a lot to answer for here but QF
PR shares blame here also - unable to reign in the media clowns, unable to convince the media to leave things like RTO stories and G/A stories alone. Note how every such story invariably trots out a litany of QF's recent failings in the final paragraphs, thus reinforcing the negative perceptions. Qantas is still definitely safe, no question, indeed safer than most other airlines but the public doesn't think that anymore.
In the end, the differentiators are gone. QF is just another airline in the eyes of the public, and one that has an inferior cabin product and is more expensive. So it is little wonder we are losing market share.