As an Australian living overseas, my relationship with Qantas has always been exactly the one they want to sell. Not any more
still call Australia home, I like hearing accents from home when I board, I like having decent tea with breakfast. I like gluing my nose to the window for the view of Sydney that Clive James described so beautifully, “yachts racing on the crushed diamond water under a sky the texture of powdered sapphires”. In a more homesick moment, I hung a Qantas calendar in my office because it reminded me I’d get to go home.
The piece of paper had said our flight would leave at 11am and that we should check in at 9. At 9am, nobody from Qantas was to be seen. Airport staff tried to tell us to move our bags and when we brayed that this was exactly what we were trying to do, they made a few calls – “Qantas isn’t answering, we don’t know why”. What had been a Qantas desk yesterday was now Lufthsana. Perky recently showered people checked into their on-time flights. How we loathed them.
Minimal acts of decency have massive return when things go wrong – a blanket, a coffee run, someone clearly assigned to help families with kids. A plan for sharing information, someone who turns up when they said they will. Instead, it was another five hours before Qantas told us we’d be delayed another eight.