QANTAS: It’s Australian For SHIT

Now that I’m back from my holiday in Singapore I’d like to take some time off from my usual pro-business stance and have a good long whinge about the worst company in Australia: QANTAS.

If you are the type that doesn’t like to read long, whiny posts then I suggest you stop reading now, because I hate QANTAS more than all the lefties in Australia hate John Howard, if you get where I’m coming from.

Warning: The length of this post gives Steven Den Beste a run for his money, so I’ll do the right thing and include my own cliff note: QANTAS sucks, don’t ever fly with them if you can possibly avoid it. If any anti-globalisation protestors are reading, please lay off McDonalds for a change and by all means go throw rocks at QANTAS. They deserve it. Fuckers.

I don’t claim to know an awful lot about the airline industry, but it seems to me that there must be some pretty serious regulation involved to be as fucked up as it is, especially where Perth is concerned.

The Perth-Singapore route is serviced mainly by 2 large carriers: Singapore Airlines and QANTAS. Anyone who’s done a reasonable amount of flying around Asia will know that Singapore is probably the best airline in the world, and that QANTAS is easily the worst. It would stand to reason then, that there would be a bit more demand for Singapore flights, and that they might realise this and put a few more planes into action, so that the millions of travellers who hate QANTAS aren’t forced to fly with them.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Singapore flights are always full unless you book 2 months in advance, so I was again dreading the large amounts of bullshit and ridiculously bad service that comes with flying QANTAS. I wasn’t disappointed.

The differences between the two are pretty stark: Singapore, as a company based in Asia, is unburdened by the political correctness endemic in QANTAS corporate culture that dictates that they must hire the ugliest, rudest old women and most combatitive fauxmosexual men they can find for cabin stewards. Singapore instead hand-picks the best looking young ladies on the Island and forcibly retires them when they become ugly.

QANTAS apparently gives bonuses dependant on 3 factors: 1.) Ugliness, 2.) Passive-Aggressive customer management techniques and 3.) Laziness. Master all three disciplines and you might just get made vice-president of customer service at QANTAS.

Singapore also has much better food, and are world leaders in in-flight entertainment. They had the seat-back TV system with Super Nintendo before just about anyone else, and it’s only recently that QANTAS has tried to catch up, albeit in their own uniquely shithouse way.

For those who haven’t used the seat-back entertainment system before, it’s basically a pre-programmed system where you can select from 10-20 channels all showing a different looping program consisting of a movie and space filling TV shows. The loop is usually 2.5 hours in length, so if the movie is only 90 minutes then there will usually be a couple of crappy TV shows like a repeat of “Will and Grace” will all the sexual innuendo edited out and such.

On a flight to Hong Kong you could usually squeeze in 2-3 movies. If the movies are crap you can play Mike Tyson’s Super Punchout on Super Nintendo until you get to the guy who’s unbeatable, and then go back to watching movies again.

QANTAS have copied the Singapore system piece by piece, right down to the design of the controller/phone pad. Of course, it has been through a modification in functionality I like to call “QANTASIFICATION”, which, for those of you lacking Yobbo’s 2003 abridged dictionary of the English language, means something like “Taking something that was really good and making it as shit as possible with a minimum of effort” or words to that effect.

The first thing QANTAS did with the TV system was take out all the cool retro Super Nintendo games, and replace them with their own “in-house” games, which were apparently coded by a flight engineer in FORTRAN from the centrefold of a 1978 issue of “Australian Personal Computer”. Titles available on QANTAS include the Christmas blockbuster “Find the matching picture memory game” and the always popular “We tried to copy Tetris but failed where Indonesian street merchants regularly succeed”.

The other clever innovation QANTAS worked into the system was particularly interesting. Instead of just having 18 channels to choose from like boring old Singapore, QANTAS decided on the 12/6 system. The 12/6 system is just like having 18 channels except that 6 of them are only available to Business Class Passengers! That’s right, all 20 of them up there.

Because of their inability to create value for money for business class passengers through the regular channels like, I don’t know, FRIENDLY SERVICE or perhaps ACTUALLY SUPPLYING DRINKS rather than just pretending to serve them but in reality trying every trick in the book to get people to sit still and stop fidgeting, QANTAS have had to resort to using the old management trick of “Perceived Equity” to get the retards who spend $3000 on a flight to keep ponying up the pineapples. *breath*

What I mean by this is that QANTAS have restricted access to the 6 extra channels in economy for the express purpose of making Business Class passengers feel better. It doesn’t cost them anything to pipe the 6 other channels through every TV setup in the plane. They just won’t let the plebs watch them because they have nothing to offer their *real* customers except that warm fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing you are superior to the unwashed filth at the back of the plane.

Frivilous as this may sound, it prevented me from watching a film I really wanted to see (”28 Days Later”) for no particular reason, which pissed me off. AFI winner “Japanese Story” was also restricted to the toffs-only network, which didn’t worry nearly as much when I found out that it featured a scrawny Japanese MAN rather than dozens of nubile Japanese GIRLS, so stuff it.

The real pisser though, was yet to come. After having planned my viewing program in advance while waiting for the Village People to go through their oh-so-unnecessary safety demonstration, (look fellas, If the plane crashes I don’t fucking care how the oxygen mask goes on. Also, I’ll volunteer to carve you fuckers up first if we’re stuck in the Himalayas and out of food.) I had decided on “American Pie 3″ followed by a random TV program, then the Steven Curry/Vince Colisomo vehicle “Takeaway”. This was the best I could do without accidentally learning anything, so I was fairly happy.

By my calculations that viewing would take around 3 hours and 45 minutes. (Take-away is pretty short, which is why I picked it). Allowing some time for ascending and descending, I thought it would probably fit in to a 4.5 hour flight.

Unfortunately for me, I had at that point forgotten I was flying on QANTAS, until I was brought back to cold reality. As the Entertainment units were switched on, the purser announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, before we start our entertainment system, please feel welcome to watch the news and weather updates from Australia.” Huh?

The thing is, there was already a bloody news channel on one of the 12 channels, on which you could watch the news repeated 5 times on the way to fucking Singapore if you wanted. I don’t watch the news at the best of times, let alone News from 2 days ago pre-recorded in a QANTAS studio featuring some guy who can’t get a gig on real TV.

QANTAS: The whole fucking *point* of having 12 available channels is that people can watch whatever the hell they want while cramped into your little fucking sardine can of a plane. *Forcing* people to watch the news defeats the whole fucking purpose of your new entertainment system. A 10 year old child could understand this. Why can’t you?

In any case, the news (which I didn’t care about) and the accompanied Singapore tourism info (look how clean our streets are yay!) took about 45 minutes, meaning that I only got to watch the first of my scheduled movies, and the first half hour of the 2nd, before they turned it off for landing. Thanks a lot you cocksuckers.

(By the way, American Pie 3 is a pretty poor end to the “Trilogy”. They were obviously unable to re-sign Mena Suvari and Tara Reid, and Chris Klein doesn’t feature either. On the plus side though, the producers have obviously realised that Stiffler (Sean William Scott) was the key to the success of the first 2 movies, so the 3rd is more or less all about Stiffler, even though it’s not his wedding.)

This all happened on the outbound flight from Perth to Singapore, and along with some of the obligatory rudeness from the service staff, contributed to what is sadly the best flight I’ve ever had on a QANTAS plane in my life. Sad, but true nonetheless. It was on the way home that things *really* got interesting.

I arrived at Changi Airport a good 2.5 hours before my flight home, and went upstairs to get a feed before the flight, as I was pretty hungry and wouldn’t be getting an airline meal for at least 4 hours. (Assuming it was edible at all, which is a pretty hefty assumption.) The food was surprisingly good for an Airport. Got myself a good, old-fashioned steak and chips for SD$9, which is about AUD$7.50. That shits all over anything you’d get at an Australian airport, but Singapore food is surprisingly cheap compared to any other developed country I’ve visited.

With still about 100 minutes to go until the flight was scheduled to leave, I went to the check-in counter to begin boarding. For some reason, there was a security check before the check-in counter, and it was for passengers only. With nothing else to do before I left, I said goodbye to my girlfriend and consigned myself to an hour or so in the Airport bar before I took off.

HAHAHAHA! This is QANTAS, Remember?

I lined up in one of the 10 or so lengthy queues for economy check-ins, even though there were at least 7 Qantas business class check-in counters, none of which has a single person checking in. “Lengthy” isn’t really accurate: There were only 4 or 5 people in front of me, but they all had a lot of luggage. The girl working at the line I picked was awfully slow. The first 3 couples took about 10 minutes each to check in for some reason, so it was half an hour before I got anywhere near my turn, and that’s when things went awfully pear-shaped.

The couple in front of me were a problem for some reason. A german bloke, about 50 or so, and his 35-ish Indonesian wife. I think you can work out the drill. I was thinking they might struggle at Immigration when they got to Perth, but hey, that’s none of my business. Unfortunately, QANTAS were quite adamant that it was *their* business, and seemingly went to every effort to keep them off the plane.

When the woman gave her passport to the check-in girl, she stared at it blankly for about 5 minutes, then slowly rose to her feet and walked off. I was next in line at this stage, and quite anxious to get checked in so I could go to the pub. Anyway, this stupid woman walked around the entire bloody airport showing the passport to all the other QANTAS staff, none of whom were immigration officials of any kind as far as I can tell. She then sat down and started to talk with another woman who was checking people in at a counter across the concourse.

I leant over and started trying to work out what was going on. The Indonesian woman said that both her husband and herself were permanent residents in Australia, and she didn’t know what the hell was going on. She shrugged and waited patiently.

I was running out of patience fairly quickly as about 20 minutes had passed since the couple first got to the counter. Nobody had turned up to replace the disappearing check in worker or to instruct the 20 people in the line to move to a different counter.

I started to bang the counter and yell “SHOP!” in my best mock-playful tone. (Which is the tone you use when you are pretending to be kidding around but really aren’t). Nobody took any notice, and myself and the rest of the line just stood and watched while people who arrived at the check in counter an HOUR before us were checked in through the other lines.

Another 10 minutes passed and I was fucking fed up. I started randomly yelling at people behind the counter to come and sort the situation out. I’d been standing in line for over an hour and was getting a bit leg-weary. About 5 minutes of shouting later, an important-looking man in a suit came over and said to the couple “I’m sorry, we are still working out the problem with your visa, can you please step aside while we check in the other customers in the line?”.

Jesus.

2 Questions, QANTAS:

1.) Why the fuck do you care about their visas? As much as you’d like to believe you are, you are not a branch of the Australian government. They have a valid passport, for fuck’s sake process them and give the power trip away.

2.) WHY THE FUCK DID IT TAKE 40 MINUTES TO MOVE THEM ASIDE AND PROCESS THE REST OF THE PEOPLE IN THE LINE?

I got to the counter and requested an emergency exit seat. (Seats in the row with the emergency exit have a bit more legroom, which is quite handy when you are 6′4″ like me). Once upon, Airlines used to keep these seats open and offer them to tall passengers who couldn’t otherwise fit into an economy class seat. Not any more. At least, not at QANTAS. I was duly informed that sorry, they are all allocated already, if you had checked in earlier you might have got lucky.

I strongly considered throwing my duty free bottle of bourbon at her fucking head, but then I remembered that I would need it when I got home.

She gave me an aisle seat. The thinking here is that you can stretch your legs into the aisle if you are cramped for space. It’s a fine theory, but unfortunately all that happens is that the asshole flight attendants simply ram the trolley into your legs to get you to move out of the way. (Ever hear the words “Excuse me sir, can you move your legs?”?) I’m waiting for the day that someone gets a broken leg from this and sues QANTAS for every last bloody cent they have. Please god, answer my prayers.

After waiting in line for about 70 minutes, I was finally checked in. With only about 15 minutes to go until boarding time, I no longer had time for a beer, and took a quick detour to the smoking room to load up on nicotine for the flight. There I found a couple of English lads who seemed keen for a chat, and I let them in on the secret - that QANTAS is the worst airline in the world, and whatever you do, don’t fly with them if you can ever avoid it.

They were quite surprised, as QANTAS for some reason has a reputation as a GOOD airline. Where that comes from I have no idea at all. They’ve been shit as far back as I can remember. Even Garuda is better. In any case, I made a couple of converts. No need to pay me for the service Singapore - I’ll settle for the address of the hotel where the Singapore girls stay in Perth. E-mail me!
I got on the plane and noticed that the emergency exit seats were full of people who came in at significantly less than 6 foot. I found my seat and was a little disappointed to find that they had neglected to seat me next to a hot babe. Fortunately, I got the next best thing: An English tourist with a Manchester United tattoo on his forearm who looked like he liked a drink. Maybe this flight wouldn’t be a total write-off after all!

With dismay I took in my surroundings and realised that our homeward plane was a 767 Longreach. The new, you-beaut entertainment system is only currently installed on 747-400s run by QANTAS. It’s back to shitty old 1 movie at the screen right up the front that nobody behind the 8th row can see. As I was in the 20th row or so, I was going to have to crane my head to see anything if the movie was worth watching. IF.

QANTAS doesn’t bother serving drinks to anyone before the meal nowadays. Not even in business class. Let me just tell you that if I ever did win Lotto and decide to waste my winnings by flying business class, I’d be screaming bloody murder if they didn’t start offering me drinks as soon as we were in the air. The super-sweet steward did offer us a bottle of water before take off. This guy was an outlier, he was the only flight crew member I saw smile during the entire flight. Nevertheless, I rejected his offer of water and said that I would prefer to wait for a real drink. He gave me a knowing wink.

That was the last we saw of any of the flight crew for the next hour. The movie began and I was not surprised to find that it was an encore showing of “Takeaway”, which was the film I saw the first half hour of due to QANTAS’ insistence on keeping us all informed of current events on the flight from Perth. Strangely enough, they didn’t bother with the news this time. I have come to the conclusion that they assume anybody stupid enough to fly from Changi airport on a QANTAS plane rather than a Singapore one is probably too stupid to appreciate the news. I would have to concur.

In any case, about half way through the movie (Which was about where I got to the first time), it was time to serve dinner. This meant, of course, that the stewards stood in front of the TV for the entire time. If anyone knows how it all turns out for Little Trev and Smooth Tony, the plucky Fish and Chip vendors, feel free to let me know, because I couldn’t see anything behind the 200kg weightlifter who somehow decided that his future lie in the skies as a QANTAS flight attendant.

Along with our dinner, which was a disgusting choice of orange cheese-substitute flavoured pasta or Salmon-something-or-other, I finally convinced the steward to give me a drink. I got a 150ml glass of Jim Beam and Coke, which is all of about 4 mouthfuls. My seatmate Tony got himself a can of Fosters. (He’s foreign. It’s not his fault.)

We were finished in pretty quick time and agreed that another drink was in order. We pressed the seatside button and began the long wait for service. Our drinks came reasonably quickly the first time (About 5 minutes), but the steward was visibly annoyed at having to actually to actually come to our seat to ask us what we wanted. Typically the drinks are brought around twice on the flight. Once with dinner and again about an hour and half later. If you don’t ask, you will only be offered 2 alcoholic drinks on a 5 hour flight. This is called “service” in the QANTAS manual, apparently.

The next round, about half an hour later, was more problematic. I pressed the button again, turning on my light. About 10 minutes later a steward walked past, looked at me, looked at the light, reached down to my console, turned the light off, and walked away. What the fuck? I promptly turned the light back on again. 5 minutes later he came back, looking extremely pissed off. “Can I help you with something?” escaped through his gritted teeth, whereupon I duly informed him that, yes, we would both like another drink. I wanted a Beam + Coke and Tony a Fosters.

By this stage I was getting a bit ahead of Tony due to disparity in the sizes of our drinks. Beer comes in 375ml cans, as I’m sure we are all aware, but the glasses they give you mixed drinks in are quite tiny. Of course, it’s much cheaper for them to mix duty-free spirits themselves rather than buy actual cans of Jim Beam and Coke or other pre-mixed cans, so they are really just cheap bastards trying to save money, and I don’t feel guilty in the slightest for requesting drinks one after the other if they insist of serving them in such tiny amounts. Would it really be that fucking hard to pack some larger plastic cups?

Anyway, I needed a wedge, and it was becoming pretty crowded in the aisle. The stewards weren’t even bothering to look at the lights any more, So I wandered up to the bar to get one from the source. They were sitting there, seemingly bored, chatting amongst themselves. I stood there for a few minutes before one of them worked out that I wasn’t just lost. Drink #5 was acquired with little more than a disgusted glance.

About half an hour out of Perth, Tony and myself were back on level footing, and thought we may as well get one more since we were having a good time chatting about the relative benefits of living in Australia vs England, the best red light districts in Asia and such things. Buzzer was pressed and a rather confused looking steward appeared.

“YES?”

“G’day, I’ll have a Jim Beam and Coke and he’d like a Fosters please. Thanks.”

The guy just wandered off, seemingly at a loss at what to do. We realised what the gig was when the big-time HEAD STEWARD came and sidled up to us.

“Sirs, are you driving home tonight?”.

What the fucking shit fuck?

Seriously, at this stage I really wanted to tell this fuckwit exactly what I thought of his question and his fucking attitude, but that sort of thing is illegal now. Talking to a steward in a raised voice is known as “Air Rage” nowadays, and likely to get you restrained and/or arrested after landing. With no other option but to eat shit and play the game, we answered his ludicrous question in the negative.

Does anyone EVER drive home from the Airport? It costs about $100 a day to park your car there. If you have that sort of money, you can probably afford a cab.

We were subsequently informed that, very well, we could have 1 more drink each, but after that we are CLOSING THE BAR.

Thank you, kind sir, thank you very much for understanding. We are sorry to cause so much trouble. Can we have our drinks now, please?

Cut off after 5 drinks by QANTAS. In the seats nearby, other passengers looked on in bewilderment. We hadn’t so much as made a sound during the entire flight that was above a whisper, and the portly Irish bloke across the aisle said he’d been keeping count with us and had only 1 drink less. In any case, the anti-QANTAS rhetoric that Tony had politely listened to earlier in the flight was revealed to all and sundry to be the unchallengable and plain truth.

The attitude of staff who work for QANTAS airways is consistent and predictable. This isn’t an unfortunate incident of catching some flight attendants on a bad day. There aren’t many shorter and less stressful international flights than Singapore-Perth. This sort of attitude is what I’ve experienced on QANTAS every single time I have flown with them in the last 10 years.

A strange sidenote is that many Asian passengers feel that QANTAS staff are racist in their treatment of Asian passengers. A common theme among many flight reports is that they seemed to be unfriendly towards them. I’ve got news for you guys:

They aren’t racist, they treat everyone like shit.

The only people QANTAS will treat with respect are business class passengers and baby boomers: That is, people who are likely to kick up a fuss if you treat them like shit. Everyone else they treat with utter disdain and an attitude that screams “You plebs should be eternally grateful that we even LET you on the PLANE! How dare you ask for service. Who am I, your mother?”

QANTAS doesn’t deserve to exist. I have all my fingers and toes crossed that Virgin sends the fuckers broke. Australia is counting on you, Mr Branson.

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