A subscriber writes:
Qantas’s long haul division has over 250 Japanese-speaking flight
attendants (many of whom are Japanese), each armed with a PA book
containing a multitude of different emergency scenarios. Since John
Menadue was at the helm, Japanese-speaking staff have been an integral
part of the Australia/Japan route services and were always generously
supported by the airline to maintain a high level of language
proficiency.

However, current management have worked out that it’s cheaper to
run their domestic short haul crews up to Japan and in more and more cases, run
their international crews on domestic sectors. Complete role reversals. Short
hauls have language speakers. They don’t have PA books. Japanese passengers
on those flights operated by short haul crew will receive a pre-recorded version
of the initial safety demo in Japanese and that’s it. If the flight that made an
emergency landing in Osaka had been crewed with its traditional long haul crew
there would have been at least three Japanese speakers on it. You can’t be relying
on a passenger to come forward and help co-ordinate emergency evacuations. There
is a lot of stress involved in a diversion due to technical malfunction. Keeping
passengers informed is a vital part of defusing panic.

So is cost-cutting
compromising safety? You better believe it. An alternative to cost-cutting? Put
up the fares. The travelling public want a high level of safety but they don’t
want to pay for it. People are just too blase to the fact they are 40,000 feet
above the earth, going at up to 1,000 kph with just a flattened piece of
aluminium between them and the freezing, oxygen-depleted air outside. If you want
that experience to be safe you can’t be paying peanuts for it. Think about the
money NASA put into the space shuttle.

A subscriber writes:
I share some concerns about Qantas as identified in today’s update (and
the issue with the jet returning today with a backfiring engine this
morning).

Last week, I went to Sydney on an evening flight. After leaving
we were told that none of the in-seat audio was working. They
showed the news (with tiny subtitles) then a comedy (without subtitles
and sound). The overhead reading lights did not work after they
darkened the cabin. The crew said that they knew the audio was
not working before leaving but did not know that the overhead lights
were out (“they were working before!”).

Yesterday, a flight from Brisbane was late. The auxiliary engine
in the tail (runs ground power and helps engine start) was out so it
was hot on the ground and they needed a different arrangement to start
both engines

Three weeks ago a flight to Brisbane was delayed as a small fault actually
grounded the plane after we had all been called to the gate.
Don’t they check first? We had to await another flight.

And a tipper writes:
Can/will QANTAS management comment on the report that a B747, full of
passengers, could well have been lost in flight due to structural cracks,
(which would have caused explosive decompression)? The cracks are said to have
been initiated in the course of paint stripping in Malaysia, when a
technician used a sharp tool or a small grinder to remove paint between
skin butt joints. The sharp tool or grinder initiated a crack in the underlying
metal strap which runs around the circumference of the fuselage. The
crack was found only in the course of unrelated repair work. Boeing is said
to have described it as a close call.

If the report is correct, it
is all the more reason to have maintenance done in Australia, by well-trained
and well-supervised tradesmen, even at greater cost.