With Qantas’ snub to vegetarian, kosher, halal and gluten-free passengers still exciting plenty of media interest yesterday, rival Virgin was only too happy to point out it doesn’t share the contempt of the “national carrier” for anyone who doesn’t like eating animals. Virgin continues to offer vegetarian meals to all business and economy passengers, it said yesterday.
While the nature of the meal you get on board might not outweigh flight availability and price for most travellers, the latest insult by Qantas is all part of what might be called the Joycification of the airline, in which a creeping contempt slowly extends across all facets of the company — first to its workers, and then to customers — that reduces the Qantas experience to a succession of impositions, insults and inconveniences provided by overworked, underpaid and wholly unappreciated staff.
Given Virgin can still offer vegetarian meals, there’s no clear reason why Qantas has to nickel-and-dime passengers by offering such a steadily diminishing range of fare (the term is used generously) in its own cabins, beyond a desire to make flying as unpleasant as possible.
Possibly that’s Joyce’s strategy for reducing pressure on an airline he’s stripped of workers.
Passengers appear to be the thorn in Joyce’s side – second only to the Qantas workforce. But he hasn’t thought through to the next stage once he’s significantly whittled down both groups.
Don’t worry, he has phase two sorted. Like all asset strippers: take the money and run.
He will just hang around for a few more Government handouts paid to Board members as bonuses. Then leave when the Gov buys it out for survival.
That completes the Neon Con Circle.
Joyce’s principal achievement in the top job was making Ryanair look good.
Michael O’Leary at Ryanair chose the better option of putting a lot of his aviation workforce on reduced pay rather than sacking them during the pandemic and so his company has performed much better post pandemic than rivals such as Easy Jet that struggled to recruit enough new staff to function effectively. Alan Joyce could learn a thing or two from his fellow Irishman.
Singapore Air gave faultless service on our first flights OS for some years. Was rusted on TAA/Australian/Qantas but now looking at airlines which offer service
Qantas has had poor standards for over 30 years compared to many other international Airlines. Service was already poor and cabins often shabby. I never understood the fondness people had for it. Already second rate and over priced long ago.
I once was upgraded to business class and although you get more room, the cabin was very worn out and the club lounge was cheap and nasty. I’ve had much better service and standards on Emirates for example in economy.
Why people feel the need or desire to eat (low quality) meals on domestic flights (with the exception of east coast to Perth perhaps) is beyond me.