After Qantas lost her luggage for a week and then charged her $380 in excess baggage fees for the return flight, the woman has vowed never to travel with the airline again.
On July 2, Corrine Olsen and her husband Peter took a flight from Sydney to Bali’s Denpasar Airport.
The airport officials eventually gave them $60, a set of pajamas, and one toothbrush after they waited three hours for a bag containing toiletries and other necessities to arrive.
The pair waited for the package to come over the following few days, but they claim the online monitoring system was broken and there was no phone number to call.
Five days before their flight back to Sydney was scheduled to depart, their bag finally arrived after they had spent a week in Bali.
The couple had since replaced their lost items, but on July 14, when they went to check in for their return flight, they were informed that they would have to pay $380 for 11 kg of extra baggage.
They made an effort to explain their predicament, but a Qantas staffer responded, “Either you pay or you stay.”
Mrs. Olsen, who was stunned, has now vowed never to travel with the airline once more.
She asked the Daily Telegraph, “Why should I have to pay for additional baggage when they misplaced the luggage?”
I was quite dissatisfied on numerous levels. I believe that Qantas is in trouble.
I’ll never, ever go on a trip with them again.
Although Qantas promised to pay the Olsens back, it also asserted that the price would have been repaid if they had brought up the matter after they were back in Australia, which Mrs. Olsen said she doubts.
‘We accept that these passengers shouldn’t have to pay excess luggage in these circumstances, and we have issued a refund for the additional charges,’ a Qantas spokeswoman said.
The airline has been approached by Daily Mail Australia for additional feedback.
It follows claims made by a worker at an external firm Qantas hired to replace Australian employees that the national airline loses “one in 10” bags of luggage.
The corporation vigorously opposes the assertion.
In late 2020, it was determined that the airline illegally fired approximately 2,000 baggage handlers, cleaners, and ground employees before contracting out those positions to foreign companies like Swissport.
The “Spirit of Australia” was sued by the Transport Workers Union.
The Swiss company has since been obliged to turn to labor agencies, some of which are not aviation-specific, to manage personnel shortages for Qantas and Jetstar flights.
This choice has infuriated the company’s staff, who claim they are undertrained and that up to 10% of all luggage is being lost.
An unidentified Swissport employee told The Guardian, “I would advise everyone to not check luggage when flying with Qantas right now, or even better if you can prevent it, don’t travel Qantas at all.”
The employee reported that 25% of the present personnel came from labor hire organizations, many of whom had never previously worked in an aviation environment.
They contend that thousands of items are misplaced, incorrectly labeled, and transported to the wrong carousels, and that the workers are less motivated, working more sloppily, and doing a worse job.
The Swissport employee stated, “These days, roughly 10 barrows every day just don’t make it on.”
According to the employee, hired laborers have been improperly scanning bags, which can lead to incorrect weight distribution for aircraft and a lack of capacity to determine where luggage is placed.
Bags aren’t making it onto flights with passengers, they claimed, because they have been dropping transfer bags on arrival carousels.
The employee’s account was vigorously refuted by a Qantas spokesman.
“The Guardian’s article was entirely false.
It is untrue to state that one in ten suitcases had been handled improperly.
“Our teams are working hard to get this figure down further,” says a spokesperson for Qantas.
“Over the past four weeks, the network-wide rate of mishandled baggage has been around 1%.”