Is Qantas Australia's worst airline?

The functionality of their website is so poor that all you can really do on it is buy a flight. You have to call them to do anything else. If they make so much as a 5 minute schedule change it locks you out of the booking and you have to call them. We already know that it is a full time job in itself trying to call Qantas and of course they refuse to provide alternative forms of customer service contact such as chat or email. Getting a knowledgeable customer service agent is a bit of a lottery and why does it take 4 months to get a refund?

Why do we put up with all of the above and even worse pay a premium to do so?

In comparison I called Virgin recently. Zero wait time on the phone and I received the refund for a flight cancellation the next day.

Jetstar's website has good self service functionality and if you do need to contact them they at least have a chat function.

I have never had a problem with the Qantas website. I find it pretty easy to use. I also find their interaction through Twitter to be pretty decent if I need to escalate. In fact, I have had FAR more issues with Virgin.

Perhaps it is user error?

Been a while since the last Qantas bashing post.

Schedule changes are always confirmed via the manage booking portal unless its extremely complex not like your 5 minute schedule change which is just a lie.

Refunds and call times are just a given in the airline industry at the moment for large airlines.

I do like flying on Qantas and have made 14 trips from the USA to Australia for business and prefer to fly Qantas. I hope to make number 15 this May on Qantas Premium Economy.

But....to put it kindly their website and telephone service stinks. I've spent hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone due to being locked out of my account as they have a landline in the area where a mobile should be, that, of course, won't take a text and the passwords I have on record do not work. I've tried calling the number I was given and ended up disconnecting the call after 2 hours on hold. No one home...after several attempts. It's extremely frustrating! But I REALLY feel sorry for the Qantas representatives who answer the phone after someone has been on hold for literally hours.

I wouldn't say that Qantas is the worst Airline but their customer service and website needs huge improvement. Especially for customers flying from the USA to Australia. Right now their motto seems to be it's our way or the highway...literally. I may end up flying UAL if my problems aren't resolved soon.

Stephen Newstrom

Qantas is a two-speed experience, depending whether you have FF status.

I’ve heard enough anecdotes to understand that the phone wait is at times painfully long. It would appear to be staffed for normal loads, without sufficient resilience built in for days where things go wrong.

Those of us lucky enough to have higher status get their calls answered first, resulting in a completely different experience.

Example from a couple of weeks ago:

My interstate flight, the last direct one of the day, was cancelled at short notice. (As it happens, it was Jetstar, but had been booked as part of a return trip via Qantas). When I drove into the airport car park and checked my phone, I discovered I’d been rebooked on a Qantas flight which would have meant there was an unwelcome overnight stop in Brisbane. This was what everybody else on the flight had also been put onto.

But I was able to call the P1 team from the car park, and get an alternative connection. From dialling the number to sorting the flight took five or six minutes, and I was boarding the alternative flight, the last one if the day, 15 minutes after that. It was one of those occasions where P1 status made a real difference.

The difference in phone waiting times, meant I was counting my good luck at making the tight connection, rather than spending a night in Brisbane cursing Qantas,

In almost every aspect, Qantas is a great airline. (Even is the website can get the odd, frustrating, caching bug if you use it a lot.) But the phone support for non-status travellers is perhaps their weakest spot.

QF is certainly not my preferred international carrier. Far from it. IMO SQ delivers on its promise for great service every time. In fact, QF don't hold a candle to SQ!

Domestically I was forced to fly QF a lot earlier this year due to the VA disruptions. It's been challenging, despite the fact all my flying was in J.

My overall feeling is that QF simply take customers like me (non-corporate account) for granted - no matter how much we spend. Consider unappealing catering, (quaint) impersonal trolly service, impossible call centre wait times, over-crowded J lounges. Not to mention a ‘computer says no' attitude when asked to resolve out of the box situations. And for this they ask a premium price. The airline seems to have a certain arrogance or entitlement about its place in the market.

I will be returning to VA soon, making my first flight in their new J. So I will be interested to see how it now stacks up.

Needless to say, QF has left me more than underwhelmed. The bar has been set pretty low for VA to win me back.

Yes.It's been ages since I last flew them domestically,while I can forgive them on say Dash 8 Qantas Link services for the rubbish food served due to limited cabin space,it's when one flies on their mainstream services it's not a patch on the old days.Only an Economy Patron but I prefer the youthful approach of VA today.

I find QANTAS excellent

I have flown only once with them, and found them OK. Will be travelling business class with QF in January with my wife to London Heathrow. On our return I will be in a position to comment on their overall service. What I have found, that sometimes there appears to be a one off poor service with some airlines, and on the next trip can't be faulted. Hope that was the case in most of your experiences with QF.

I am gold lifetime so obviously I don’t mind QF but I do find most others a much of a muchness. QF most times are friendlier than the others. Emirates is a bit less friendly but seem to be under the pump. Staff surveillance is a bit over the top as they point out CCTV cameras in galley areas.

Three hours on hold to change a booking because the website wouldn't allow it. Eleven weeks waiting for a refund for a flight they cancelled. Can't get much worse for a "premium" airline.

Can only mirror others frustrations in dealing with the QAntas call centre. 4 hour wait to cancel reward bookings that the airlines cancelled the flights. You have to call them if you want a refund as opposed to a travel credit. Still waiting for points to be credited back 3 weeks later.

I find it Australia's best airline but that's just a personal opinion.(Lifetime gold) What I would suggest is that you have a perfect storm of income being at an all time low for the company(any of them) corresponding with the most demand for personalised service due to rescheduling/refunding/rebooking etc. So they have to trim costs(staff) at the same time as needing the most experienced service. Travelling pre-covid the website did everything I ever needed it to. Now I'm guessing you have a lot of very unhappy customers due to flights being moved and cancelled all trying to contact reduced staff numbers. Everyone can decide whether that should affect service or not but I tend to give some leeway to companies that have been devastated financially due to problems outside of their control.

I'd have to agree with one of the comments above. If you get a member of staff that know what they are doing (and these staff members are mostly Australian based) it is often an excellent experience. If you get someone that has little to no clue, very painful.

One Hobart QF call centre staff member (who was extremely helpful) said she often hear's of complaints about overseas team members from other QF FF.

I love it that most peoples gripes here are about call centre BS or issues relating to changes, cancellations etc. I've always found that being nice to the person on the other end of the phone goes a long way, particularly because that person has probably had their most stressful couple of years working on their job in a while. If people think Qantas is shit, they should try flying Delta, American Airlines or (in times past) Alitalia. We have it good here.