In the new Australia no one cares about quality. We only care about the cash. We’re not allowed to take pride in our work because we’re not about being the world’s best anymore. We’re just about satisfying faceless shareholders and miserly private equity firms.
Enter the debacle at Sydney Airport last Friday where hundreds of Jetstar passengers were left to sleep on footpaths when their flights were cancelled.
Here is an airline, like businesses in many other industries, which has shunned decency and service - and more importantly safety - just to save a dollar.
Nowhere is Australia’s world’s best practice better demonstrated than in our impeccable aviation safety record. Our national carrier, Qantas, has never had a fatal crash. Never.
Qantas is an airline that has a licensed aircraft engineer check your plane every time it lands and takes off. Guys with a minimum eight years training. These guys check for leaks, cracks, structural problems, birdstrike, and damage by baggage handlers and catering trucks. Jetstar doesn’t. They get pilots to do the job, which is a bit like getting a driver to fill in their own pink slip.
Until public opposition forced them to reverse it, Jetstar used to have an unallocated seating policy. They made passengers form an undignified scrum to get on board, pushing others out of the way to get the best seats.
On Qantas, patrons are offered meals, drinks, snacks and entertainment to make the flight more pleasant. On Jetstar they are hectored over and over to buy things.
At Qantas you can check in your baggage many hours before you fly, and if you have a few extra bags it’s no problem. At Jetstar you’re likely to be told you can’t check in early because of ‘security issues’ and directed to costly airport lockers. And it if you have extra baggage, wait to pay wads of cash for each extra kilo.
At Qantas if your late flight is cancelled they’ll get you a room in a hotel. At Jetstar you’ll be ignored.
At Jetstar the honcho, Alan Joyce, made his name at the ultimate penny pinching Irish airline, Ryanair. That airline was so tight the planes have no tray tables or blinds to save money. The man whose pay went up by 87 per cent last year to $2.66 million.
Oh, and at Jetstar don’t expect the staff to be in a good mood. Cabin staff get paid less than at Qantas. So do their pilots - they get substantially less.
Of all the complaints levelled against our carriers between 2004 and 2006 a massive 39 per cent were against Jetstar. Complaints Victorian Consumer Affairs found Jetstar had ‘shown reluctance to resolve’.
These complaints related to consumers’ ability to vary flight details, request refunds for late or cancelled flights, to obtain refunds for missed flights and the difficulty of contacting customer service centres.
And look at the small print and you’ll see that Qantas reserves the right to stick you on a Jetstar plane if they can’t get you there on one of their own.
I wish I could feel confident all of Jetstar’s dubious behaviour was to keep prices low. But I’m not.
I think Jetstar’s mission is all about intimidating unionised Qantas workers. It’s about slowly fazing out Qantas of some routes, and turning them over to Jetstar. It’s about saving the parent company money.
Qantas is not interested in being a world leader anymore. About having the proudest name and employees in the market. It’s all about making money – even if they have to set up another dodgy brand to do it.
If only this trend were only in aviation. But it’s not. Across industries, in power generation, in transport and a host of others we’re substituting service quality for profit quantity.
Pride of ownership with suicidal short term pragmatics.
Good solid jobs with a fair work/life balance with three-month contracts and AWA’s.
And when the private equity firms have made their bucks and have long since shifted their funds and moved onto new plunder - who will it be who really pays?
