Internal documents reveal collapse in Qantas brand, trust
Qantas has slumped behind arch-rival Virgin on all measures of brand trust, pride, “love”, value and transparency, damning confidential figures presented to senior managers show, revealing the extent of damage to the airline’s reputation this year.
The material, marked “prepared for internal discussion”, shows the proportion of consumers who would consider flying Qantas domestically has fallen so low that it is only two percentage points above that of its low-cost Jetstar subsidiary, and 19 points below that of Virgin.
The documents, dated October 12 and obtained by The Australian Financial Review, show the percentage of consumers who said they trusted Qantas had fallen from 70 per cent in August to just 49 per cent. In that time, consumers who trusted Virgin rose from 53 per cent to 59 per cent.
Qantas will hold its annual meeting of shareholders on Friday, and major investors, including the Future Fund, indicate they intend to vote against not only the company’s remuneration report but also the re-election of marketing executive Todd Sampson to the airline’s board.
Qantas has been the focus of customer animosity after a sharp increase in fares and a deterioration in on-time services since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alan Joyce resigned as the airline’s chief executive in September, two months early, after Qantas was accused by the competition regulator of misleading customers by cancelling flights and not telling them,
Mr Joyce’s successor, Vanessa Hudson, has repeatedly said she intends to repair the airline’s reputation. Qantas has abandoned plans to cancel flight credits accrued by customers during the pandemic, and will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars shoring up services.
Ben McGarry, a fund
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