The Chaser Report - We're criticising Qantas until they let us into the Chairman's Lounge

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

The Chaser has been pretty critical of Qantas since the earliest days of our newspaper – and recently we sold lots of highly satirical QANTARSE merchandise. The recent settlement Qantas has made with the ACCC in response to its recent practice of selling tickets on flights it had already cancelled is certainly worthy of considerable scepticism from Australia's premier corporate critics, Charles and Dom.Alternatively, we'd be very happy to brainstorm ways in which the airline could fix its image problems – over champagne in the Chairman's Lounge. Your move, Qantas! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, there's some very big news for those lucky Qantas customers who bought tickets, and remember the detail here, on flights that had already been cancelled. Yes. So they'd already decided, no, we're not going to fly that. We don't need to fly that one.

But let's sell some tickets on it anyway. Yes. They reached the settlement with the A-R-T-C. for $120 million. Oh, great. So that means that $120 million is going back to all the people who were wronged. Is that it? Yes, that's right.

They're getting... What, $5.50 each. I'll tell you what they're actually getting in a second. So they are getting something for their incredible inconvenience. For domestic passengers, $225 in national ticket holders, $450. What I don't know is if they got their money refunded at all in the first place. I'm assuming that they did at some point. Kwanis went, yeah, we can't actually charge you for a flight.

We had no intention of flying. I'm not sure. The extraordinary thing about this whole saga was, so it wasn't like a small thing. It wasn't like 58,000 tickets that they sold, you know, fraudulently, just completely and utterly fraudulently, tickets that didn't exist. It was 58,000 flights worth of tickets. It was a fucking fuck ton. They even had a 58,000 flights in recent years?

Well, it was, you know, it went on for months and months and months. That's amazing. And what it was, I don't know whether you remember, but remember Virgin went bankrupt, right? Yes, that's right. And so Virgin was on the nose, and Qantas saw it as an opportunity to just flood the market with flights and get market shared.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. So what they did is they just pretended to have flights. And, you know, in fairness to Qantas, what is the one thing when you're booking a ticket to a flight and you find the exact right time to go to the exact right place that you want? Isn't that a good feeling? It's a great feeling. You feel so good about Qantas. What Qantas was doing was it was giving that feeling to customers.

Now, obviously, that feeling was then, you know, later on they admitted that it was cancelled or whatever. But I think people discount the sort of. of metaphysical well-being that Qantas was putting into the world by acting completely fraudulently. And these were times, too, let's not forget these were times when we were all suffering. We had COVID, we just really wanted to travel. We just wanted to fly anywhere. People were boarding flights to nowhere. Do you remember this happened during COVID?

Yes. I think Qantas ran flights that just went up and down. Went around in a loop and came down again. So this is 86,597 customers who they did this to. And the total number of flights was they were more than 8,000 flights but also another 10,000 flights where they didn't promptly notify the customers

that they were cancelled. So it was like a little bit of a delay. But the 8,000 ones were the ones where they had already cancelled the flight at the point of purchase. That is an amazingly audacious thing to do. Either that or it just reflects completely shithouse IT systems,

which is also quite possible. But I remember, so when it first started coming to light, right? And I think partly because the A double C must have been just flooded with complaints, right? I don't know whether you remember, but the first response by Qantas was to

double down on it and claim that actually what people were buying when they buy a Qantas ticket is not a ticket to a flight. They buy a bundle of rights. Remember that? Remember they said, no, you're not buying a

ticket. But when you buy a ticket that says Sydney to Melbourne at 10.30 a.m. You're buying a hypothesis. You're buying a sort of set of rights that allows you to access the Qantas network, you know, at some point in the future. You're buying a 1030? An IOU.

Yeah, but let's not do what every other major Western country does, which is actually have a set of rules around actually having to do those flights. Let's just treat Qantas, the way Qantas is. always been treated, which is as a special case that doesn't have to follow consumer protection. So Charles, with that bundle of rights, could you turn up to the airport, go to a, let's say you remember the Qantas Club?

Yeah. Could you go to the Qantas Club just to enjoy some meals, maybe work out of there, have a shower? Yeah. I bet you fucking couldn't. No, you couldn't. Absolutely not. And one of the points that the Herald opinion article on this from Elizabeth Knight actually

said was the good thing about this for Qantas, they've actually said. they've actually saved a lot of money and they've saved having to make their bundle of rights argument in court which would not be a disaster. Oh yes. Oh yes, of course. So this was actually them getting out of it pretty sweetly

really, wasn't it? Yeah, because you can imagine the bundle of rights Connors would have had in the courtroom to turn up and give evidence and all the senior executives would have had to swear an oath to tell the truth. But what's really interesting to me is why doesn't the government

actually implement laws like they have in Europe, where if you cancel a flight, the airline gets penalised and everyone just automatically gets a whole lot of money. Well, they're just telling this in the States. Joe Biden has just, and it announced this with great fanfare, automatic cash payment if a flight is cancelled. Could it be, and I'm just spitballing here, Dom, I'm not laying any allegations or throwing them around.

Could it be that every single politician gets invited into the chairman's lounge. It's the most cushy club. It's basically a secret club for powerful people. No, it is not. We've talked about this. You're quite wrong. It's a bundle of rights.

It's a bundle of rights to go into the chundit. To go through a secret door and have French champagne and a hobnob with other extremely wealthy, well-heeled, elite people and not have the hoi-poly, the ordinary people troubling you. And that Albo and Jim Chalmers and all the people making the decisions. Peter Dutton, everyone. Even the Greens are members, some of them, up there? Yeah, I think that's right.

You know, I think actually Max Chandler-Mather is not because he refused, as I mean. That's so like him. I know. Max, you could live in the Qantas Club. It could be your house. You could have squatters rights. That's a good bundle of rights. So you're saying Qantas is bribing all the MPs to make the decision with the chairman's lounge.

Yes. And I would say that it's... literally the cheapest bribe in the world. It shows you how pathetic how politicians are. Like, they should have some self-respect. Because how much would the Chairman's Lounge actually cost to run each year? I don't know. 30 or 40, or 40.

Oh, no, actually, it would be like 30 or 40 million per lounge, wouldn't it? Because, you know, Barnaby Joyce would be a member. There's booze. And the free booze would just fucking cost a fortune. It would cost an awful. Yeah. That's true. So, but, you know, like, it's not a huge amount of money

to actually get complete political protection from all sides of politics. how they could save money on that, Charles? What? Just put a maze made out of planter boxes on the way in. He's got to try and sort of weave your way past all. And it's just so tempted you to take a nap. But they're probably, no, they're probably, like, because Chairman's Land is not about excluding Barnaby Joyce.

It's about meeting every whim of the decision makers of the rich and powerful. And it's not just politicians. It's like captains of industry. It's CEOs and. Yeah, Vice-Chancellors, presumably all this is real. And Virgin do it too. So the politician's argument as well, we take it from the other side as well.

The lounge. Have you ever been into the virgin equivalent of the Chairman's Land? Of course not. I got in there once. I haven't been in the Qantas equivalent of the Chairman's Lounge. I went in the Virgin one. Completely empty. Oh, wow.

But that's good. They probably heard Max Chandler, Matt, that was coming. And markedly less... Was it a good argument? Luxuries. Yes, it was a... Oh, okay, let's freeze them out of the market. So this could be why the regulation hasn't happened here.

Yeah. But can I say, I think that this also relates to the failure of Bonzer. Oh, yes, our sponsor. We've talked about Bonza before, but they collapsed last week. The check hasn't cleared. You know that they just said to all their staff, sorry, we just can't pay you this month. No. And the union said they should come first.

And I think the administrators even said, yeah, we know, but there's not. any money. Any money. Yeah. So you're first in a queue to get your share of zero dollars. The mistake Bonsa made was that they didn't have the Bonsor lounge. Yeah. The government would have protected them.

They would have swept in. That would have just been planter boxes because it was based in Queensland. That's right. It would have been Barnaby Joyce and Bob Catter. Yeah. Yeah, you could have done it very cheap. Bundy rum. Some tins of 4X.

Yeah, yeah, 4X. Just think if they'd had the Bonser Lounge, the government would have bought shares in it also and it would have been deemed. an essential asset that couldn't be allowed to fail. Yes. Well, because it's funny, since that episode, I've talked to a lot of people who are quite devastated by the collapse of Bonza because apparently, if you live in central Queensland,

it was this amazing service for a while where they couldn't quite believe it. Like, you could go from Mackay or Gladstone or whatever for like 50 bucks and get to Melbourne for 50 bucks. And it was like, this, how is this possibly sustainable? Well, the answer is it obviously wasn't. Yeah, how did you find anyone who lived in Central Queensland who actually valued Bonza? Was there like some sort of...

Were you doing a convention of... I'm a man of the people, Dom. Were you drinking with Bruce Loban? It's Toowoomba. We've talked about that. Yeah, because Toowoomba... That was another... Yeah, that was great, yes.

The Chaser Report. News a few days after it happens. So, all right, so the thing is, Charles, it's egregious, it's outrageous. Yeah. Quantis. Look, it's... I mean, it is real. for these people after a long time, I suppose, but

they could have paid so much more, they could have done more, and they could have fixed the system. And I'm going to keep going on about this, Charles. I'm not going to let this rest. No. This is absolutely outraged, so I'm sick of Qantas doing this. Yeah. Unless they feel like giving us...

Unless, yeah, we're going to be a thorn in quantiters aside. That's right. We're going to talk about this every day on the podcast. Until we get Chairman's Land admission. We shouldn't say that out loud. Just to check. Yeah. Just to check how bad it is.

Yes. And to make sure, because our theory, our theory is, it's a complete scam. Yes. And if we're in there, we just see ministers drinking with Qantas Xex. Quondas, this is a challenge to you. Prove us wrong. Yeah, prove us wrong.

By giving us Chairman's lounge access. It might be like the Virgin Loungeers. You say when no one's there. Yeah. And there's just crickets chirping. It could just be nothing. It could be a nothing burger. But how will we know?

We won't know. We won't know. But it also suggests, Charles, there is a market. There's a market out there for a new lounge for a lounge. for a lounge that's not for politicians. In fact, I would like there to be a lounge. You were absolutely guaranteed not to have any captains of industry.

Oh, yeah. No politicians, no Barnaby Joyce. You'll just have ordinary people who keep to themselves. Lounge la revolution. You know, where we can... Where we can talk about overthrowing the captains of industry. That's right, and becoming captains of industry ourselves. Yeah, yeah.

That's great. I love it. And look, maybe what we just need to do is just cordon off a little bit of... You know the really shitty old terminals where you sleep on the floor? They're just a water cooler or something? The Tiger Airways. Yeah.

Well, free purpose, a section of that terminal. Yeah. You know the low-cost carrier terminal? Yeah, yeah. Because there's no lounges in there. We've had the first lounge in the low-cost carrier lounge. A terminal. I remember this is true.

The Tiger Airways, you know, that terminal. Yeah. Was it Avalon or wherever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went through there a couple of times. it didn't even have power points. No, well, you need power points. So, you know, you'd be waiting for hours

because it was inevitably late and, you know, cancelled. And you'd be sitting there and you go, I can't even charge my phone or anything. To call my partner to sound running late. Because the thing about Tiger, the problem with Tiger would be that presumably what they did back in the day on canceling their flights is rebook you on another Tiger flight, which is just the last thing you would have wanted to.

Which is the opposite of getting someone. That's right. Yeah. It's basically the waiting for Godot Airline. It's like Air Godot. Yeah, yeah. It never comes. But the other trick that Tiger always used to play, which is there was no online check-in,

or at least initially, there was no online check-in, remember. And so you had to line up, and they'd said, I'll get there 45 minutes beforehand. No, no, I think Check-Out actually closed 45 minutes beforehand. Yeah, that's right. You had to get there, like, three hours beforehand because the queue was so long because they didn't have a system. And if you didn't get to the front of the queue in time, which was really long, because they didn't employ any staff, you just didn't get on the flight.

Like, that was it? It was over. Wasn't that a better outcome than staying... Yeah, for it to be cancelled? So, anyway, no, so... But I think the other thing is, there's been a series of things in the last week or two where the government has sort of announced

some sort of solution to a problem. And it literally is just a band-aid. Like, it's like the HECDET thing, which is great. You know, like... It's something. It's something. Or the drastic violence escape, a $5,000 fee, which it's better than not having $5,000, but the government's offering

$5,000 payment to women looking to get out of violent relationships, which, I mean, sounds okay, but let's not get too deeply into that issue, but at this point, but it's been slammed as woefully inadequate by many, and you've also got to apply for it and there's a whole process. Yeah, yeah, and presumably, you know, you apply for it and then what, they send you some paperwork in the mail or like how do you know what's the yeah where's the urgency anyway the point being yeah the government is sort of we're trying to talk about the right thing it's kind of like Charles if you turn up to a rally for a cause that you believe in but then I'm asking if they

know you the prime minister it's kind of like that vibe yeah yeah typical um so look quantis you're in the right areas I guess what you really need is you need to get in first with the critics yes this is the thing we can help with we've been criticising quantis for the entire history of the chaser, which is nearly, we're a couple of days away from our 25th anniversary, Charles. Yes. This whole time we're making fun of Qantas. We know Qantas's flaws better than anybody, including clearly Qantas.

Yes. And so therefore, we demand urgent talks in the Chairman's Lounge to resolve our differences. To resolve our differences. To tell you where you fall short. We won't hold back. No. And if you're late, you're going to be cancelled. Yes.

In the 2024 sense. Yes. But as troubling as this is, as difficult as it is, and as bad as Kwanis' reputation has become, as far as they've fallen, Charles. Yes. There is always one thing that when you remember about it, you realize that Kwanis is actually a pretty good value proposition and we shouldn't be too critical. I am.

And it's something that they themselves are created. It's Jet Star. Yes. One jet star flight is all you need to say, Kwanis, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please let me back in. It'll be right. Everything's all right.

Don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. You really are. The spirit of Australia. That's what they've done. That's what they did. They threatened to put all the politicians on Jet Star and suddenly... They probably just threatened the head of the A-T-C with having to fly Jet Star for the rest of her life.

Surely the head of the A-R-R-Truc is not in the chairman's lounge. Really? It's a good place for a meeting. It's a good place for negotiations. Fuck. What if she is? Fuck! Take a guess.

She is, isn't she? As of September 2020. Oh, fuck her. Fuck, fuck everything. Five of the seven commissioners. Fuck everything. No, fuck that. Five of the seven eight triple C commissioners for members of the chairman's lounge.

God, I hate Australia. Fuck off. I'm going to catch a flight somewhere else. Do you think I could get a good booking on Quarters? Bals, you only hate this because you're not a member. Let's be honest. Our gears from Roe, we're part of the Iconicless network. And we were not joking about the chairman's last.

That's fucked. Podcast at chaser.com.com. And we won't notice any more things like this ever again.