Australia's national airline Qantas Airways (QUBSF) -) has a long way to go toward rebuilding customer trust.
After a local consumer protection group filed a lawsuit accusing it of selling tickets for more than 8,000 flights it never intended to run during the pandemic, longstanding chief executive Alan Joyce ended his 15-year career by going into early retirement after failing to control growing customer resentment exacerbated by rising airfare prices that the airline justified by inflation while continuing to report record profits.
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While then-CFO Vanessa Hudson had already been tapped to take the lead from Joyce when he went into retirement in November, the scandal over the canceled flight propelled her into early leadership and responsibility of steering the beleaguered airline out of multiple concurrent scandals over workers laid off during the pandemic as well as the $21.4 million Joyce received in his last year as CEO.
'We have let you down in many ways,' new Qantas CEO tells customers
"I know that we have let you down in many ways," Hudson said in the airline's newest apology video published on Sept. 21. "For that, I am sorry. We haven't delivered the way we should have and we've often been hard to deal with."
Hudson said that the airline remains "determined to fix" the lack of transparency that led the airline to its current low opinion among Australians and to "improve the experience for you and support our people better."
Specific commitments named in the video include increasing the number of staff at Qantas call centers, adding more seats for its frequent flyers and reviewing its customer policies to ensure fairness. She also said that flight attendants and other frontline staff will now have more authority to make decisions in the moment "when things don't go to plan."
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'I ask for your patience,' new CEO pleads in video
Hudson said that specifics around targets and plans will be more available in the coming weeks. All this comes at a time when the Australian Senate is conducting an inquiry into the country's airline industry and shareholders are keeping a close eye on how Qantas addresses multiple concerns. In the month since Joyce stepped down, Qantas stock fell by nearly 15%.
"We want to get back to the national carrier that Australians can be proud of [and] that's known for going above beyond," Hudson said. "[...] This is going to take time and I ask for your patience."
Qantas has leaned heavily into the contrite mood of the apology video (in the latest one, Hudson looks sad and serious as she stands in front of a large window opening into a park) as a way of communicating with passengers and trying to quell their anger — although Joyce's Aug. 31 apology video message promising affected customers a full refund for canceled flights with Qantas and travel vouchers for those with budget offshoot JetStar did little in that regard, as he stepped down a few days later.
Much of customers' dissatisfaction and distrust came out in the comments of the new video.
"Please don't forget that loyalty isn't limited to corporate accounts with deep pockets," one commenter wrote in one of the most upvoted comments. "Real loyalty is found in the people who choose to spend their own money to fly Qantas."
"Qantas has been too busy playing politics instead of concentrating on their core business," wrote another commenter.
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