Qantas CEO Blames passengers for delays
 

From an NZ news site..

"Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has blamed passengers for contributing to mass delays at Sydney Airport"

"The airport continues to blame a multitude of factors, including “inexperienced” passengers who are slowing down the security screening process."

I always thought the passengers were a nuisance...Are they really necessary?

I read he did apologise later for his remarks but of course what else could he do,it has been very clear over the years that apart from a few of his so called 'leadership team' who dare not criticise him he has no respect for government,passengers or his workforce.
I heard his sidekick Steph Tully apologising on radio the other day about the call centre fiasco & of course it was a rehearsed response with the aim of covering her ass & blaming covid.
Instead of blaming anyone they can for their disgusting customer service,they should start listening to the customers who they continually belittle whilst at the same time continue to fill their bank accounts with no guilt.

They have shed so many staff, that they only have passengers left to blame...

AJ a great contributor to the current debacle. His time at the helm of his low cost juggernaut refining the airline ticket cost structure to make baggage an extra now has everyone taking the biggest bag possible as carry on. Airport security parent company offshore. You reap what you sow. I notice the service at QF also slipped massively and now far from a premium carrier since he let all the ground people go. 5-10mins just to get an aircraft door open and then another 30mins waiting for a checked bag. That combined with the check in and security debacles will make a lot of people especially the leisure type really assess their quick weekend escape. Is all the aggravation worth it for a weekend in Melbourne or the Gold Coast.

I think if you only have to wait 30 mins for a checked bag you should actually consider yourself very lucky.
I was told by somebody that works there that on a sunday afternoon a few weeks back there were aircraft sitting on taxiways waiting up to an hour to get onto a gate as there were no staff to load the departing aircraft.

To a certain extent, maybe 10%, he is right - I dropped the kids at the airport on Thursday evening as they were going to see their mother for the first time in 12 months. I had checked them in online, so went to a self service kiosk to get the bag tags and then shot straight off to join the (massive) queue for security........with checked baggage still in hand!!! It was a SACL terminal person who pointed out my error as I was about to join the line in the old VA valet parking area. Hands up, I'm out of practice at this travelling lark. To be fair also, we were with VA and it only took 50 mins or so from getting in the terminal and getting to the gate. I'm not sure if the massive queue was for JQ or security????

However, the other 90% is due to staff shortages all over the airport. Everyone from the mentioned security to ramp staff, cleaners, caterers, check in, co-ordinators, crew and engineering is short because as usual companies let go of the operational staff (the people that make the system work), but probably kept proportionally more staff back in fluffy towers managing social media, marketing and "management". I've seen it every time we go through something like this (9/11, GFC, SARS etc), but this time it is worse due to the extended period and depth of cuts and people have left the industry and found other careers and jobs, and in many cases better paid with more sociable hours so aren't interested in coming back. Airlines' commercial departments have thrown the flights back into the schedules to get cash flowing again, but without any real co-ordination with the operational departments, and the airports have been caught out in the process. I'm not sure what the answer is to this as obviously the cuts had to be made, but really a bit more of a planned, gradual ramp up matched to the amount of operational staff available should have been in mind, and not going straight up 110% of pre-covid capacity at the first opportunity.

Swissport seem to be a tad undermanned. Next to the roo the other day, we noticed they unloaded all bags, sat in rain on tarmac, loaded next lot on, then drove the inbound bags to the terminal after they removed the stairs and ready for push. 30 mins sounds about right.

Some airlines now offer increased cabin baggage for a similar fee vs checked bags.

Swissport baggage handling is under staffed by 500 Australia wide. It’s a Casual workforce and most of them are 18-25 years old. They don’t resign they just never turn up and no certificate required for sickies so they just don’t turn up as they don’t give a ****. The Chicken has come home to roost and going for an ultra cheap casual workforce will cost QF way more than if they had ever just kept the reliable in house crew that they just shafted last year. I’m actually happy, this has shown them that 20’s something MBA idiots don’t make decisions that are practical. Bring it! QF is shot for at least 2 months, Get these idiot managers to actually do something. I will sit and laugh while they scramble….it’s hilarious.

Swissport offering $2000 sign on bonus for Melbourne baggage handlers at the moment. Must be super super desperate.

They are also offering pax from other ports to SYD and MEL do a days work pax home with $1000 bonus, tell me how much the casual workforce helps? Lol I’m just laughing at a bunch of new idiots that have no idea how the real world works…

About 15 years ago I worked at a place that wanted to cut flight crew pay by 10% due to some challenging market conditions at the time. When they asked for my opinion on that, I told them half the captains would walk to Qatar and Etihad (boom years) and the costs associated with a lack of bodies would cost tens of millions in cash burn for cancelled flights and some eye watering overtime rates for whoever remained. The executives disagreed and opted for the wage cuts. Needless to say they got it wrong, three quarters of captains walked and I earnt three times my normal wage that year. Executives however lived to see another day.

Completely agree & was told the same thing by somebody that works there a couple of weeks ago.
If its a sunny day or theres some event on that is more important than going to work to throw bags for a few hours well you can guess what takes priority.
The reliable in house crew did get paid pretty well & had good conditions but in return they provided a good service & there were many long time serving guys with the experience required to see & fix a problem quickly.
Now,as you say,the swissport people are a lowly paid casualised workforce who are not there to think & just go through the motions if & when they decide to turn up.
I wonder if ex kiwi farmer & now QF int & domestic ceo Andrew David who boasted about how much money getting rid of the unionised workforce would save is having any regrets about his brilliant decision.

I highly doubt it. His bonus cheque would have cleared long ago and if QF ever goes tits up he’ll just wander off into some other highly paid job.

Just wait till one of these new kids on the block buts a ding in one of those carbon fibre Dreamliners.

is that for real, they’re ’deadheading’ baggage handlers around???

There was close to a dozen QF RPT flights into MEL cancelled today and then reassigned as a crew only ferry at the same arrival time.

short of Cabin crew in one direction or short of ground staff at BNE/SYD/MEL and an empty, crew only flight is easier to turn around than a passenger service?

Yet, Qantas and just about every other international airline and most of the world's domestic operations are conducted with outsourced workforces. Some of Virgin's airports in this country have customer service staff dressed as VA staff but employed by Swissport or someone else.

So, every other airline in the world can use outsourced ramp and baggage (including Qantas outside Australia and at many places within for many years, even going back to when domestic was 'TAA') but somehow Qantas is different. I think you might find that part of the reason at least, is the lack of work available during the pandemic has led people to find other work and many of them have not returned.

My reading of the situation from the recent delays at Sydney Airport, is that this is primarily the fault of a lack of security staff. Anyone who's spent any time at an airport knows that security standards are set by regulation, the resources are also set at a minimum and if for whatever reason the minimum resources are not available, the standard is maintained by the process being slowed down. Not sure about VA but Qantas employs checked baggage screening and AAA at all it's domestic airports, including Sydney, so that process, when subject to a lack of security personnel, slows down check in as well. You can have a 100 check in staff but it won't make any difference if the belts keep stopping because of a lack of screening personnel downstream. There are several levels of screening that stop bags and/or diverts them to be further examined. If there aren't enough security staff then that process has to be stopped while they deal with each level of escalation.

With the call centre debacle, no dispute QF has itself to blame. My view is to not offshore the work - I'm sure that the offshore people are very competent and intelligent but basically, it's like Telstra, if you want outsource something to service a predominantly English-speaking market, then contract to someone who has staff that can identifiably speak the English language. The only slack that can be cut Qantas is that the call times have increased due to multiple questions about covid screening, etc. I believe I read somewhere where there were some problems with certain functions on their website as well which increased the number of calls.

Please watch the TV coverage, at least 50% of which has been from the VA terminal, with queues along the elevated roadway snaking back toward the Qantas terminal so this is obviously not just Qantas.

As for the lack of baggage staff, aren't VA having the same problem?? Is this a lack of baggage staff or is it because of delays up-line causing inbound arrivals to be delayed, thus stretching resources to the maximum and causing delays?? Not saying it's one or the other but inbound delays have knock-on effects that can cause disruptions and delays because the staff are rostered for a schedule.

No such thing as RPT anymore now that Part 121 and Part 135 have come into force. Just sayin'

Today was OK in SYD, MEL not so much, apparently MEL will have record numbers or pax Monday and Tuesday and I can guarantee it will be a catering and baggage handler cluster. I got away with a 2 hour delay at midday and felt happy, Stockholm Syndrome? Tomorrow I won’t be surprised with a 4-6 hour delay. Aerial yep security have been an issue but to be honest QF have had 2 years to prepare yet they are offering free meditation and Zumba lessons in the office while the core business burns..20’s something MBA’s have been proven over the years to be useless yet they still use them lol! The suits need to leave their little world and get to the airport and interact with pax and help on the front line, the time for bull**** emails has ended, get out there and do something useful !

You must be fun at parties..

Just sayin’ 🙄

20 something MBAs don’t question and that’s how weak leaders make it appear like they’re leading.

Haha, it was a rhetorical comment - fact is I think it's stupid. We've used RPT and Charter for decades and the US still has the distinction yet the regs are supposed to be 'aligned'.

The MBA rot had started to come in before Ansett was gone. All of a sudden someone with an MBA was OK to employ as an airport manager or senior manager, didn't matter that their only experience prior was Crew Manager at McDonalds, Aisle 10 at Bunnings or handing out samples in the gaming room at Star City Casino.

To be fair, it's all industries AND politicians as well. In the past they had a bit of character and life experience, now they've got an MBA, been a staffer and engineered their pre-selection, having failed at everything else they'd done previously.

For example, it doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to stop and think that "I don't know how many aged have died on my watch so MAYBE going to the cricket isn't a good look??"

Back in the day when I started in the industry, Airport Managers and Cabin Crew and Tech Crew management didn't say "spare me the detail", because they actually KNEW the detail because they knew the industry.

Hopefully, it will swing back the other way at some stage. A certain airline across the ditch went through this in the late 80s, early 90s, putting people in management positions who didn't know the first thing about how the airline worked. They went back the other way after a few aeroplanes departed with loading errors and/or things that would have been picked up if the local management knew what they were managing. Goodness knows, they've probably lapsed again the other way.

Just another observation - while the MBAs are there, I'd suggest they just stay in the zumba class or in their office. My experience in operations, when those who know nothing about the operation go out and try and 'do something useful', they create more problems than they solve.

These are the sort of people that sit in their office and invent utter BS such as 'customer lens walks' - where they briefly come out of hibernation and walk around the terminal pretending they are a customer or walking the route taken by customers. When I first heard that I thought their was a limit to BS, but I was wrong.

The treatment of some pax leaves a lot to be desired.
Family of 3 booked on a 6am flight to a NQ port for a three day break.
Received an email to say flight cancelled and re-booked at 6pm that day.
Phoned the airline and complained. Reply was can carry two on a 9am flight but at double the airfare. Teenage son still on 6pm flight.

As they had a two hour drive to their accommodation, instead of starting their break at midday, it started about midnight after waiting for teenage sun to arrive at 9pm.

Not happy Jan!!!!

He doesnt care how he treats people,he fronts up & gives excuses that mean nothing with that smirk on his face that shows just how insincere he is.
The whole management team under him arent much better & as far as the spirit of australia is concerned the word 'mean' needs to be included between 'the' & 'spirit'

Word is that it is absolute shambles at MEL and SYD this morning..?

Whoever's in charge of security needs to be called out. problem is these fancy new body scanners pick up everything including a spare mask in the pocket, go back and try again. what used to take seconds in a metal detector now takes more than a minute.

a child can do the math, 1 minutes per passenger, 4 security lane's, thats 240 passengers per hour. good luck getting 10000 passenger's through by lunch.

Security was only 15 mins. Issues today seem to be airline related, check-in, bag drop, loading, unloading, a broken baggage belt, flight crew sickies and so on.

QF seems to be doing all the cancelling also, everyone else appears to be getting away.

Sounds like security was relatively a ghost town for the reasons given above. Can’t blame them today

https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/trav...urne-airports/

Probably because QF is the only mob attempting to significantly increase capacity within the timeframe of a week or so. I believe that until recently, JQ and VA have been running at higher (relative) capacity than QF, who have been running a pretty light schedule until now.

Alan and co have obviously bitten off more than they can chew, and too busy doing Zumba to notice.

Apparently Swissport had to send some of their SYD staff to MEL due to them being way understaffed. SYD itself isn’t running at capacity, and there were hundreds of bags stacked up in the group area apparently.

I used to laugh at Rex, but now I think that if they can be a viable alternative they just may make a go of it. Qantas sure seem completely indifferent to their customers, and likely will continue that way until there are none left.

Clearly the solution is simple, jut follow the Telstra approach, make redundant all your useful staff, send the call centre overseas and give the CEO a big pay rise. Problem solved no.

Alternatively we can take the "Yes Minister" approach and get rid of all passengers and only keep management. No complaints then about poor service and the like .....

Have been told that some QF managers are out loading aircraft today,imagine the compo claims in the next few days!

That must be why AS shot through to VA

Baggage handlers required by Victorian Government to work from home during covid.

Unfortunately we don’t have a land border with Mexico . Leaders would be campaigning on building a wall today while everyone turned a blind eye to the cheap labour coming across .

Just pay a reliable living wage. FFS. I am glad that the casual workforce model is turning against the man.

surprise!
 

So the airline coffers fill with payments for flights, and the bookings software is clear about who has booked for what flights.

Then, what a surprise to airline and airport managers, pax turn up at airports and overload services. WTF?

The QF Facebook page is in meltdown, presumably because no one is having any success in getting through on the phone