It’s been revealed that Qantas is the most complained about airline in Australia, with complaints up nearly 70 per cent on the previous financial year.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission received 1740 complaints about Qantas, which is up 70% from last year. The data showed that there were three times the number of complaints about Qantas than the second most reported airline Jetstar.
In comparison to Qantas’s 70% rise, data showed that Jetstar received 33% fewer complaints than the previous year, while Virgin Airlines has 27% less.
According to the study, Qantas’s customer service problems, including lengthy wait times and subpar treatment, were the primary cause of grievance for customers. The report also highlighted that cancelled or delayed flights due to Covid-19 travel restrictions were the most commonly complained-about issue.
“Qantas needs to do more to adequately invest in its systems, processes and people to dramatically improve its customer contact services and customer dispute resolution,” the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report said.
“As Australia’s largest airline, and an airline that generally charges a premium to fly, consumers expect a better service.”
A Qantas spokesperson told NCA NewsWire that the airline has been working hard to improve their customer service issues.
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“We know there were times last year when we didn’t perform at our best,” he said.
“We apologised to customers and promised to fix it.
“And since then, thanks to hard work from people across our business, things have improved and we are getting Qantas back to its best.
“We’ve been the most on time of the major domestic airlines for five months in a row and our service levels across bags, cancellations and call centres are back to similar or better levels than pre-Covid.
“We’ve also made significant progress to speed up our refund processes and made it easier for customers to use their flight credits.
“Occasionally things will still fall short, as they did before Covid, but we’ll continue to work hard to keep improving our performance for our customers.”
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