[Source: Traveltalk]

Qantas Domestic and International chief executive Andrew David has warned passengers to expect “more bumps along the way” as the airline admits to not meeting customer expectations.

“Much has been said about Qantas in the last few months,” he wrote on Sunday.

“Some of it’s fair, as we’re absolutely not delivering the service that our customers expect, but some of it fails to take into consideration what’s happening across the industry here and around the world.

“So I want to explain how we got here and what we’re doing to fix it.”

David claimed that because Qantas went into the pandemic in a strong position as well as making some “very difficult decisions”, the airline which was just 11 weeks from bankruptcy was “able to weather the storm”.

He said that restarting an airline after a two-year grounding “is complex” and aviation labour markets are “extremely tight”. Add to this an uptick in covid and flu cases and Qantas is where it is.

However, he was clear that outsourcing ground handling was the “key reason the restart has been hard”.

“This is not true. We had completed the ground handling changes before Easter 2021 when domestic travel was back to almost 100 per cent, and we didn’t have the issues we had at Easter this year.

“Others are using scaremongering tactics by making safety claims that are baseless and simply false. Every supplier we work with must adhere to our strict safety management system – a system that sees us consistently rated with the safest airlines in the world.”

“Sadly, this is not the first time false claims have been made by a union to further an industrial agenda.

The truth is that the difficulties we are facing now are because of COVID and flu related sickness, as well as an extremely tight labour market.”

So what’s Qantas doing to turn it around?

It has recruited more than 1000 people, is rostering more people on stand-by, consolidating flights onto bigger aircraft, basing more customer support team members at airports and have doubled the number of people working in our call centres, with average wait times now better than they were pre-COVID, David said.

“Given COVID and flu will be ongoing, there will be a few more bumps along the way, but over the weeks and months ahead flying will get back to being as smooth as it used to be.”