Qantas continuing to sell tickets for flights that won’t take off, pilots claim

Despite a regulatory probe that could see Qantas fined as much as $600 million for allegedly selling tickets on 8000 cancelled “ghost” flights in 2022, Qantas pilots claim the national carrier is continuing to sell tickets on flights it knows will not take off.

One of the company’s 787 long-haul aircraft is out of service. The plane was hit by a loader about 10 days ago (Qantas won’t say when exactly; in fact, it won’t say anything) and will not be back in service until at least September 10 because it needs a major repair, Qantas engineers told Crikey.

This means Qantas will continue to cancel international flights on routes that use 787s — Dallas, Los Angeles, London, New York, Johannesburg and Santiago — because it has no spare planes. This is largely because outgoing chief executive Alan Joyce has continually delayed the purchase of aircraft to reduce capital spending and improve the company’s bottom line.

The airline has already cancelled flights in and out of the United States in the past week: for example, QF18 from LAX-Sydney on Thursday night. More are expected to come this week, despite Qantas selling flights on all its 787 routes over the weekend on a schedule that it knows at least five days in advance. Meetings, family get-togethers and connecting flights will be missed, the airline won’t give its customers enough notice to change their plans, and profits will be banked. 

Despite the opprobrium it has faced over the past few weeks, and the outright disgust at casually issuing $10.8 million in shares to Joyce only 24 hours after being accused of what is essentially coordinated fraud, this is all very much business as usual for Qantas, a business singularly focused on the company’s balance sheet at the expense of its passengers’ convenience and comfort. 

Other Qantas flights will continue to be cancelled — as dozens were over the weekend in order to help maintain a lion’s share of domestic landing slots — as well as unavoidable cancellations due to years of running down its maintenance division. 

A quick glance at airline tracking site Flightaware showed that yesterday 12% of Qantas mainline flights were delayed, 12% of Jetstar flights and 9% of regional arm QantasLink were delayed. This puts the group only midway in global tables.

Engineers say that things are worse than ever; staff numbers are tight, and spare parts are like hen’s teeth — a problem that only gets worse as Qantas ageing domestic 737 fleet waits for renewal in coming years.

Joyce has, since the pandemic, continued to blame “supply chain” issues for the company’s struggle to keep its ever-ageing aircraft in the sky; similarly, he has recently blamed the ghost flight saga on airline “chaos”. He even cannily laid the ground for this excuse a year ago, seer that he is.

According to Qantas engineers, supply chain issues are “bullshit”: 

The broad overarching lack of aircraft spares is due to the idiots keeping the bare minimum stock levels. Then when we do need something it may need to come from places like Paris, London, Dubai, Seattle. Or we rob from one aircraft that is on the ground to make another serviceable. Our aircraft are working so hard that the amount of permissable unserviceabilities on all aircraft is at an all-time high.

Permissable unserviceabilities are manufacturers’ approved faults for an aircraft system part that is allowed to run unrepaired for a period of time. Crikey was told it might be a few days, or even a month or two.

“There was an A380 that nearly didn’t leave Sydney last week as it needed a new navigation light. It had been inoperative for almost four months —  which is the limit,” the engineer said by way of example. 

“How the Civil Aviation Safety Authority allows our aircraft to continue in operation amazes us all. It is such a stark contrast to how Qantas operated before Joyce. We are all waiting for Joyce to go. Maybe with all the heat he is copping right now it may be sooner rather than November, but I doubt it.” 

A pilot explained further: “Qantas doesn’t have enough engineers, it doesn’t have enough parts and they are flying the aircraft too much — it’s unsustainable. They always know they will have cancellations and delays because of this alone.”

Both Qantas pilots and engineers believed that the safety issue is as big a threat right now than at any time in the company’s history. And passengers will continue to be inconvenienced by being forced to fly at times without inflight entertainment systems, proper catering and premium cabin seats that don’t work properly. They claim there are not enough ground crew to fix problems at the gate. Pilots are not informed about major problems, such as broken inflight systems, until they get to the aircraft — despite the problem being known well in advance. 

Passengers are also often uninformed of cancellations until the last minute.

“They have to do what Qantas wants them to” in terms of being dumped onto another airline or rerouted to the least costly option the airline has come up with, one pilot said. “It’s all about giving the passengers no choice.”

And herein lies the mid- and longer-term existential problem for the country’s biggest airline. Both board and management have been all-in on Joyce’s insistence on running the airline like a private equity play. This is the oily-rag culture that Joyce has inculcated at Qantas.

Crikey hears that Joyce’s successor as CEO, Vanessa Hudson, is suddenly keen to show she is listening to staff and will meet pilots in the Mascot coffee shop early one morning this week. But the fact she appears never to have done this during her time at the company tells you everything you need to know about management’s attitudes to the people who make the company tick. 

Qantas desperately needs an outsider to come in and shake up the company. Yet this would of course require chairman Richard Goyder and his craven fellow directors to admit they had made a mistake. And this is not just Qantas but corporate Australia, so they won’t.

So for all the drama and hand-wringing over Qantas ghost flights, its contempt for customers and its obscene entitlement — a “natural market share of 70%” anyone? — business as usual will continue. 

That is unless the Albanese government pulls its collective head out of the Chairman’s Lounge, takes a good hard look and sets about the hard work of properly reforming the Australian airline sector and its effective monopolist. Perhaps today’s alarming political polls will give him the jolt that ethics and a commitment to more competition have not.

Have you been inconvenienced by Qantas? How did the Flying Kangaroo respond? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.