Qantas – mostly good with planes – email, not so much
Dr Mumbo sincerely hopes Qantas is better at maintaining the electronics on board its aircraft than it is at configuring its mailing system.
A bizarre glitch means that whenever somebody sends a message to the Qantas media email address, it is relayed by the Qantas server to every one of the hundreds of journalists around the world on the list.
The most recent example came to light yesterday when Market Watch’s Virginia Harrison’s note to #external_media_list@qantas.com.au asking to be added to the list went out to everyone.
Among those on the list was the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Bangkok. Getting the wrong end of the stick, the director of communications cheerfully promised to add Virginia to her own mailing list. And of course, her message was duly sent to all of the journalists.
Which in turn triggered a request from AAP’s Peter Veness pleading to be left out of it. Which also went to everyone on the list.
And from that point the messages came thick on fast, with the SMH’s Scott Rochford pointing out the similarity to AMP’s similarly out of control journo email chain.
Happily, by this morning, the conversation had taken a more cheerful turn with journos from Dubai to South Africa sending greetings.
They also liked it in Hungary, with journo Udvari Szabolcs emailing: “At the snowy Budapest, we are enjoying this early morning flame, so, please MORE!”
And the Brisbane Courier-Mail’s tablet edition editor Neale Maynard adding: “Keep me on the list! More fun than checking in at Air Borat!”
And there was even an entrepreneurial tone, with the Hong Kong Shipping Gazette offering to swap subscriptions with the Wall Street Journal.
At the time of writing, the final word rested with News Magazine’s Sally Feldman who pleaded:
“Could everyone just delete the CC lines on their emails.This whole thing is sooooo 1998.”
1.15pm update: Sally no longer has the final word. Perhaps that goes to Star FM’s Josh Withers who adds:
“Dear sirs and madams, I’m looking to exchange external media lists for my brother who is a Nigerian prince. He will exchange thousands of Zimbabwian dollars for any external media list.”
Sadly though, the usually rapid response Qantas media team appear to be out to lunch. Taking metaphor to Warp Factor Ten, Alex Zaharov-Reutt adds:
“I’d have thought Qantas would have done something about this by now but planes with exploding engines are probably higher on the list of priorities.
“Meanwhile, the engine driving Qantas’ credibility with journalists is crashing and burning and the pilots over at Qantas don’t seem to be getting the engine warning lights that each subsequent message like this one is sending to the cockpit.”
Keep me on the list! More fun than checking in at Air Borat!
Neale Maynard
Tablet Edition Editor
The Courier-Mail,
41 Campbell St,
Bowen Hills,
Queensland,
4006
Ph 07 3666 6120
Mobile 0401 146 484
On 17/02/2011, at 6:31 PM, Udvari Szabolcs <sz.udvari@hvg.hu> wrote:
At the snowy Budapest, we are enjoying this early morning flame, so, please MORE!
no doubt more corporate lives will be lost as a consequence of this email exchange than due to recent in-flight issues … to be continued?
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Are you serious, Qantas’ media team is rapid response? They’re ok on extremely routine things like ‘are you increasing your excess baggage fees’ but when the shit hits the fan with one of their planes in an emergency, they simply don’t answer the phone or return calls, in my experience.
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Ahahaha! That Alex Zaharov-Reutt who offers those juvenile comments would be the same third-rate blogger who infamously jumped the queue at an Apple store to buy the first iPad, running out the media line (for press to covert the ‘event’) into the store ahead of customers who’d been lined up since the day before (http://www.news.com.au/technol.....5872393569).
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