• Qantas customers are complaining they have been struggling to contact the airline throughout December.
• With Australians heading away for the holidays, customers have experienced unexpected flight changes, delays and cancellations.
• Many say they’ve been forced to accept the changes or face the prospect of being put on hold for hours.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Australian travellers have been left frustrated as they attempt to fly around the country this Christmas, and their anger is squarely at the airlines.

Facing unexpected flight changes, delays and cancellations, customers trying to contact their carrier have been left on hold for hours as they try to get onto their airline.

Cate lives in Melbourne and was looking forward to visiting her family in Queensland for Christmas. Having booked $700 returns tickets in mid-November after the Sunshine State finally opened back up, Qantas contacted her out of the blue a month later.

“I got an email last week saying they had changed my flight back to Melbourne to later that night due to ‘coronavirus’ – although their site now says ‘extenuating circumstances’,” she told Business Insider Australia.

Cate finds the justification for the change unfathomable, with the exact reason unclear why she was pushed onto a late flight landing in the wee hours.

“It annoyed me because who wants to land after midnight, especially after New Year’s Day. So I tried calling to see if I could get on an earlier flight that day but got no answer,” she said.

The Qantas email warned of long wait times to speak to someone on the phone, and recommended she speak with a virtual assistant instead.

“Basically it just regurgitated the same stuff in the email. At which point, I just gave up and accepted the new flights,” she said.

While Qantas offered a voucher refund to spend on other flights, Cate said it wasn’t an option “because all flights cost a minimum of $100 more” than she’d already forked out. The one alternative she was offered involved a two-hour layover that would see her land almost at the same time.

The cold shoulder treatment

While flight changes happen – especially in disruptive times such as these – it is the lack of customer service and the inability to speak to a human has ignited a backlash against Qantas.

Cate says she spent up to three hours chasing her tail before surrendering to the airline’s changes.

“They seem to not want people to contact them which honestly just feels like ‘give me your money and accept what you are given’,” she said.

She’s not the only one in that boat.

Another passenger Georgina, told Business Insider Australia that they spent hours trying to speak to someone from the airline, but found it to be a complete dead end.

“I requested a call back so I didn’t have to stay on hold. Two hours later, I spoke to someone briefly and explained my situation. She said she would transfer me to someone else. I was put on hold for a further 30 minutes before being asked to rate the Qantas experience and afterward I was hung up on,” the 26-year-old said.

“I filled out a complaint about this on their website and am yet to hear anything back.”

Complaints flow as Australians stay stuck on hold

The experience appears to be shared by many flying at the end of the year, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Saylee told Business Insider Australia her Christmas Eve ticket from regional South Australia to Adelaide was changed to one she couldn’t catch due to work.

The flight she had bought initially, however, was still scheduled to go ahead.

“It was very frustrating when I checked their website I saw they were still selling tickets to my original flight,” she said.

Unable to change her flights online, and with no online chat available at the time, Saylee tried the Qantas call centre.

“On the first attempt the phone cut out after two hours spent on hold. The second time I got through after waiting more than three hours just so I could get back onto my original flight that took a few minutes to do.”

A cursory glance online shows the complaints are continuing to pile up.

Qantas’ Facebook and Twitter pages are filled with similar complaints, while others take to online forums with stories that echo the experience of the women interviewed.

Qantas blames travel restrictions, not job cuts

All of this before the most recent Sydney cluster further complicated travel plans.

Instead, many complaints were recorded during a period when outbreaks in Australia were minimal and during which most state borders have been open.

Despite that, repeated changes and cancellations have continued as airlines struggle to get back near their pre-pandemic capacity.

The complaints against Qantas, and budget subsidiary Jetstar, flow in the aftermath of the airlines’ downsizing and cutting up to 8,500 jobs.

Many passengers Business Insider Australia spoke with blamed their problems on job cuts, arguing more customer service staff are needed to deal with passengers.

Qantas chose not to respond to the question of understaffing but a spokesperson suggested that disruptions were a problem faced by all airlines and being caused by fewer domestic flights amid high demand.

“We know this has been a hugely challenging year for our customers and we’ve worked hard to minimise disruptions and delays in dealing with such an unprecedented situation,” they said.

“Now that domestic borders are open and we are adding extra flying we expect to see more stability in our schedule which will mean less disruption or changes to customers’ journeys.”

It acknowledged that long waits and clogged up phone lines were common, caused by customers worried about travel restrictions.

Just last month, the airline announced it would cut 100 workers from airport service desks next year, forcing more passengers to deal with the airline online or on the phone.

The reduced staff headcount at least will not help ease customer troubles.

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