Last week The Mole told you how great the Qantas service was from Sydney to Mumbai

One of the biggest challenges in this very fickle world of travel, tourism and hospitality is continually maintaining consistency, with every time you eat, sleep or fly, presenting a new challenge for the provider to convince you how good they are compared to the competition and for you to remain their best advertisement, telling all your friends how good they are – saving them millions in marketing money and not only that simply delivering you great service which is what you pay for!

The challenge is as big in the highly competitive world of aviation as it is anywhere in this amazing business and while product is critical, so often it comes down to the personalities serving you on the day, to deliver on all the brand expectations you have of that product.

You will have read last week about The Mole’s experience in QF123 from Sydney to Mumbai and The Mole repeats again the flight, service, food and in particular the crew were all superb.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the crew on the return journey between Mumbai and Sydney and to be fair what The Mole is about to tell you is not true of all the crew, but only some.

This is where this very sad and frustrating inconsistency comes in and all Geoff Dixon and his management team’s excellent and very hard work to improve crew and product standards all falls in a heap, when some members of the crew fail to deliver.

The really strange thing about all this is that the quality of service and potential damage to the brand can be as fickle as the seat you sit in, irrespective of what section you are in!

The Mole was sitting in and in case anyone is checking, seat 27D on QF124 on 6 Dec, in what became a prime example of how the brand and everything it represents can be trashed at a stroke.

The service was very poor, brusque and unsmiling and any requests made, if met or responded to at all, were dealt with brusquely and without comment or smile. 

On the other side of the aisle an older male flight attendant (I am sorry I did not get his name – I think it was Andy?) was totally different, dealing with all requests in a happy smiling and committed manner – he wanted to be there and loved his job!

Unfortunately, this cannot be said for his colleagues Vic, Prudence and Joyce, who were all a very different story indeed and this was after a long break in Mumbai!  Interestingly, I am also told that this route is manned by domestic crews not international crews.

In any case, having said that, the lack of service on this flight was at the end of the day pretty well all pervading, with dinner service taking more than three hours, with big gaps between any service at all.  When Prudence was asked by The mole what the choice of meal was, she said it was vegetarian or non vegetarian and that she did not know what it was!

It also seemed rather strange that both choices were Indian food and while having one of the choices as India would be fine, shouldn’t the other be a Western dish of some description, as after a week of only Indian food, which is great, even a Qantas in flight dinner of an innocuous grilled chicken and mashed potatoes would have been very welcome!

Only one drinks run was made with the meal and requests for additional drinks met with a sigh, as if you were being a nuisance!  To save this happening, when asked if it was possible to have two small bottles of wine, with dinner, this request was met with a curt, we are only allowed to give you one. 

The issue is not with the rules as if they are fine, but the issue is with the way it was said – it is not what you say, but the way that you say it!  Interestingly, having consumed the first bottle of wine with the first part of dinner, a bell push to secure another one was never met and in fact a flight attendant had to be grabbed as he hurtled by and he delivered the wine as he hurtled past again, with no comment whatsoever and it was actually the wrong wine, hey but they didn’t care!

The dinner trays were left uncollected for well over an hour after everyone around me had finished eating, without the appearance of a single flight attendant in all this time!

The lauded Qantas snack for during the night pack very strangely handed out immediately after the dinner trays were collected and even more interesting was the nice little pack of Australian cookies, described as “Fresh baked Australian Cookies” even with an Aussie flag on the pack – have a look at the back of the pack though and you will see that these “Aussie Cookies” are made in Chennai, India!

During the whole flight there was only one water service and that was one small plastic glass of water – how different on other carriers, where they either give you a bottle of water or make continuous water runs.

Also a flight attendant coming down the aisle collecting bits and pieces in a binbag is also not very conducive to Qantas quality service

It was not only The Mole that experienced this very lack lustre service, as the person sitting next to The Mole on the other aisle, commented that they thought the service very poor indeed and very inconsistent, with very few flight attendant call buttons answered, many lights left alight for very long periods and ignored by the odd flight attendant who did appear, virtually sprinting through the cabin to do something else as if they did not want to be caught!

She did say though that the older male flight attendant mentioned above had been very and nice, totally different to the others, generously providing her with some ice for some medication she had to keep cool.

We were also woken from deep sleep by the cabin lights being changed from virtually pitch back to brilliant light with no nice gentle announcement that breakfast was going to be served and prior to landing that “cattle” mentality came out again with Vic marching down the aisle waving his arms in the air as if he was marshalling an aircraft and shouting “set backs upright”, “seat backs upright” repeatedly!

Now having said that clearly this is not the case on all Qantas flights but the sad part is that the behaviour of a few ruins the reputation of all the others.

The arrival into Sydney in mid afternoon is amazing though and highly recommended, with The Mole off the aircraft, through Immigration/Customs, bag collected and in the car in a little more that 20 minutes!

So, overall, a highly recommended and very convenient way to get to and from India from Sydney, but the service while excellent between Sydney and Mumbai was pretty dire on the way back – good luck Qantas getting this message across to the few that are letting down your excellent brand!

We may be cattle, but we do not deserve being treated as such or being reminded that we actually are cattle!

Report by The Mole who was flying Qantas on a paid ticket!