I, like thousands of other people, was affected by the weekend decision by Alan Joyce to ground all Qantas flights. I only was informed of the situation when I had already arrived at the airport and started to make my way through security. When I was stopped and asked to go to the customer service desk as Qantas had an announcement to make. I didn’t think much of it, as there wasn’t a big queue. Though there was a very big queue of people wanting to check their bags in manually. I honestly just though it was put on hold for a while, as it occurred to me with the lack of any Qantas staff that there might be an emergency meeting.
Within about half an hour of me arriving, all Qantas staff had return back to deal with (by now) hundreds of customers wanting to know what was going on. Thankfully I was only the 10th person in the queue and made my way to a representative right away. I was immediately told of the situation, and also informed that there was arrangements for my accommodation for the night and my dinner and breakfast was already prepaid for at the hotel. Other than that, the Qantas rep had no idea what was going on, only that he was informed that all flights had been grounded till at least Monday. And even then he wasn’t aware what would happen next. At this point, I knew there was no point arguing with this guy, as I’m sure he was pretty shocked and confused like the rest of us. It’s moments like these that I am thankful that I have worked in the customer service industry for over 10 years, as I felt sorry for the guy who would have to deal with the angry customers which were waiting.
Now I was pretty lucky. It may not seem like it. But I was in Melbourne at the time, trying to get home to Sydney. It was a Saturday afternoon. But the main thing that was running through my mind was that I had to find a way to get home as I had work on Monday morning. I was just given free accommodation for the night, a free meal and free breakfast. Other people weren’t so lucky. Some had already checked in their bags and they had to wait to retrieve it from the plane. Others were heading off to Las Vegas for a big holiday when they were turned around. I went straight to my hotel room (which they let me right in, as they had already been informed of the situation) and knew that since all flights were most likely booked out, decided to catch the long train home the next day.
Now the thing that I find most interesting is that the unions were mostly asking that the crew of Jetstar have the same wages as the crew from Qantas, as well as fighting that the jobs of Qantas stay within Australia. So that includes everyone from the pilots to the ground crew. The way that the staff decided to protest was to walk off the job for an hour. Now this hour of protest isn’t randomly decided. It is organized a week advanced and basically Alan Joyce has the option of meeting what they are asking for, or they go on strike. For an hour. Yes this hour is costing Qantas a lot of money. But sometimes you need to take drastic action to get a result you want, or at least a compromise.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the unions, I’m merely explaining the process. I don’t know how much they get paid, but what I do know is that if the Jetstar crew want the same pay as the mother company who basically does the same flights as them, then why not get the same wages? Qantas response to all this? They cannot increase their wages, because then they won’t be able to give cheap flights. The way that I see it, these people who are asking for an increase in their wage run the company. They are the ones who are doing the nitty gritty work and fixing the planes when there is a problem. And you want to pay them less?
The even funnier thing about all of this? Alan Joyce says a big fat no to a wage increase for his staff, but a big fat yes to his own 75% wage increase! He now earns $5 Million dollars per year. How is this at all making any sense? One moment he is complaining about the unions asking for too much of a wage increase, even though Qantas made over a double in profit last year of $250 Million dollars. Even though they were quick to say that they lost $200 Million with Qantas International. And the way Alan Joyce decides to solve all of this? Ground all Qantas flights all over the world for the next 48 hours. That’ll stop them protesting... for an hour! Not a very clever move I think. As not only are Qantas informing all their passengers who had tickets they will receive a refund of their ticket, but also $350 per day for accommodation and expenses. I’m sure that’ll do nothing to the net profit.
Is it just me, or could this all have been avoided by a little thing I like to call COMMUNICATION. What happened to sitting in a boardroom, discussing with the unions with what was fair for the staff? You know actually speaking with the people from the unions instead of using the media to do all the communicating for them. I honestly think that this would solve a lot of the protesting if some people were open to a little compromise instead of shifting the blame from one person to the next. Maybe Qantas should try it next time instead of treating their customers and staff badly by not only grounding the fleet for 48 hours, but by also threatening to shut out any worker who had been protesting from when they come into work on Monday.
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