Opinion
What should Qantas do next? We ask the PR crisis experts
In the 1988 film Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman’s character famously points out that Qantas has never had a crash.
And while that remains true for the airline’s planes, the same can’t be said for its brand. What we’ve witnessed over the past few months has all the hallmarks of a disaster, with beleaguered CEO Alan Joyce pulling out of the wreckage yesterday, and handing the keys to Vanessa Hudson.
She has a mighty rebuilding job ahead of her.
According to the June 2023 Roy Morgan Risk Monitor survey, which measures levels of trust and distrust of Australian brands, Qantas is the country’s most distrusted airline. Of the thousand-plus brands the survey covers, across 26 industries, Qantas is the 13th most distrusted brand in the country.
One year earlier, Qantas was the sixth most-trusted brand overall, behind Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, ALDI, and Kmart.
“Qantas’ refusal to pay back any of the $2.7 billion in COVID government handouts – even after announcing an annual profit of $2.5 billion and the class action by hundreds of thousands of customers fuelled by the airline’s unwillingness to refund $2 billion in cancelled flights, are all having an impact on distrust,” Roy Morgan’s report summarised.
Keep in mind, this national heat check was taken in June, before the recent scandals around selling already-cancelled flights, the airline’s status as beneficiary of the government’s decision to block Qatar flights that could have resulted in lower fares for travellers, and Joyce’s Senate grilling over high airfares after Qantas banked a record profit.
Put simply, things are a mess. We asked two of the country’s top PR crisis management experts what Qantas needs to do to repair its image.
Peter Wilkinson, chair of Wilkinson Butler
Joyce going ASAP is good.
While I’ll miss Joe Aston’s eviscerations, Qantas won’t. Joyce should have gone earlier.
The fix isn’t words, it’s actions. Qantas’ issues are operational. I suspect the problems are rooted in the pandemic and an ill-prepared Qantas board, including Joyce. They weren’t nimble or clever enough, or had too much hubris, to anticipate what was coming. They were not crisis-fit.
The corporate affairs people too, share blame. If they were crisis-fit they would have been anticipating what was coming.
Remember, this was a slowly evolving crisis, so there was plenty of time for considered forecasting, and multiple rehearsals. My gut-feel is they were behaving tactically on daily issues, not strategically looking ahead, which is a common mistake in a drawn-out crisis.
Potential weaknesses could have been anticipated – there is really no good excuse for, for instance, booking cancelled flights, or allowing Albo’s son in the chairman’s lounge.
However, Qantas customers are well-educated and savvy. Once the issues are fixed, the reputation repair will be relatively quick.
Benjamin Haslem, director, media and public affairs, at ICON Reputation
Rebuilding trust takes time: Qantas must consistently deliver on its promises, maintain transparency, and demonstrate a commitment to improving the customer experience over the long term.
Vanessa Hudson starting in the role today should be positioned as a new broom, cleaning the place up, and returning Qantas to what it was in the past – a world class airline, with great customer service and an unparalleled safety record.
Qantas can use the end of the Joyce and Covid era as the chance for a reset. But it must deliver – all the PR and brand management in the world won’t help if your product doesn’t match up.
The airline has apologised for selling tickets for cancelled flights and for letting its standards fall. It’s a promising start, but Ms Hudson now needs to come out and apologise in person – she needs to own it.
She needs to show empathy and understanding for the public’s concerns and frustrations.
She needs to do a swag of media appearances — 7:30, breakfast TV and radio, Radio National breakfast, AM, A Current Affair — to let the public get to know her.
A targeted social media strategy should also be implemented to complement the traditional media campaign.
Make tangible commitments to listen and act – set measurable targets around flight cancellations; call centre wait times; numbers of frequent flyer seats.
Qantas did the right thing, in scrapping the expiry date on unredeemed Qantas credits.
It should look at other sweeteners but needs to avoid being seen to be trying and buy back the public’s support – do simple things like increase flights to regional areas; increase call centre staff; upgrade online booking systems; make it easier to redeem frequent flyer points – it’s all about improving the customer’s experience.
Nathan Jolly is the Deputy Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
Linkedin
QF has been a steadily cost-cutting disgrace for a decade at least, having to become embarrassed to get simple service etc, I feel for the staff on-board and at check-in. Hiding behind the curtains. Declaration: FF member since early 90’s and Gold Class etc [attaining Platinum increasingly pushed out of reach], yes annoyed is evident. Many I speak to agree. The formally pleasant experience of “our national carrier” is now not so. Like banks, Telstra and the like the domination of one-to-two in business categories needs to be over. Proper open competition; think the USA example of Bell to Baby Bells in telephony, similarly across Europe and soon. Australia needs to grow up and expand to real competitive capitalist driven demands.
User ID not verified.
Just bring back Jon Travolta plz.
User ID not verified.
The problems are much, much greater than the ones that are being discussed at the moment – as any frequent flyer would attest. Never mind one, like me, that dedicated almost 50 hours trying to get a problem caused by Qantas resolved.
To really get trust back I would be the first Australian airline to introduce a compensation system as we see in other countries. Yes expensive, but a big, bold move that would generate more media coverage and more good will then any advertising campaign or media interviews would do. And if they would be the first, they can start with what is affordable. Certainly would force a culture change too!
User ID not verified.
Take a look at how the domestic predecessor Australian Airlines was marketed after the 1989 Pilot Strike when Ansett was the leader in the corporate market and deregulation was about to happen. Ads (were they by Mojo?) with a bright appealing show tune (If you could see us now), staff smiling and joking with each other (they actually liked working there back then), customers enjoying the atmosphere… compare to today where they just promote the Qantas brand (and maybe the super premium international cabins) but never the experience of most passengers or with a sense of fun. Go back to being down to earth, rather than aloof (as has developed since the collapse of Ansett even before Joyce).
But this of course needs to be accompanied by real changes in the field. No one other than the elites and maybe officially sanctioned ‘influencers’ (not even average paying biz passengers) feel like Qantas values their custom. It’s not hard or expensive to surprise and delight your customers even if they’re just in economy between Sydney and Brisbane. Even though your yield management system says they’re not a valuable customer, they still talk and vote.
User ID not verified.
What a great idea. But do corporates think of big things like that anymore? Spend money to make money over the long term by enhancing reputation? I get the sense like most big companies (invariably run by former big firm accountants or if you’re lucky management consultants) everything is based on numbers on a spreadsheet. If you’re a high yield corporate customer you might be respected and they’ll fix your cancelled flight. If you’re not, well… you help offset our fixed costs and that’s it. Where else will you go if you need to see mum in Perth – “Virgin Blue” on their smaller 737 with no “meal”?
User ID not verified.