Ms Needham's "story" was generated by a call for people with bad stories about Qantas to email her. Note that the call was only for complaints about Qantas... no other airline
Considering the culture of complaint being generated in the world at the moment, 130 replies out of the millions that fly Qantas, is probably to be expected.
As a Qantas employee, I do not like to see such things in print, but I cannot help but wonder what other agendas are at work here.
An example of this, on Thursday in the Australian, one of the columnists mentioned that Qantas was delayed again, this time due early morning "Ice on the runway" in Melbourne. Apart from the ignorance being shown here, (the delays were due to aircraft requiring to be de-iced due to rain coupled with sub-zero temperatures), surely Virgin and other airlines operating out of Melbourne that day were being delayed for the same reason?
Why pick on only Qantas, and why for something that is safety related and totally out of the airlines control?
I have been doing a fair amount of paxing on the domestic network of late. Generally, the aircraft have been departing on or close to schedule. Generally they have been arriving on or close to schedule. Generally, the crews have been efficient and friendly. Generally the food (and no-one is ever happy about the standard of airline food) is of a reasonable standard. Generally my bags were on the belt soon after I got to it.
It begs the questions, just what do people want and do people really just like to complain about Qantas simply because it is the 800lb gorilla of the region?
Maybe, as an employee I just lack objectivity. Maybe.