Dear Qantas

I fly a lot, mostly domestic, but recently I went international. I like our national carrier - I really do. I think generally they do a good job and get over analysed because people expect so much for so little these days. Two years ago when I flew to Europe, due to technical difficulties my Christmas Eve flight was cancelled, and Qantas handled it beautifully, having hotel rooms ready, moving me to the another more direct flight without any hassle and when I returned, offering me 20,000 extra points for the inconvenience. Well done!

Recently I flew to LA on the beautiful new A380 - a plane that defies gravity. It's clean, quiet (suffer to those people who dolled out cash on the noise cancelling headphones!) and despite being cozy in economy, a very nice plane to travel on. I even understand the cozy economy requirements - financially of course they need to make as much as possible, especially when due to a medical emergency on the way there, my A380 had to dump all its fuel and turn back to Sydney after only an hour or so (that's a LOT of fuel my friends!).

All that being said, I can not excuse the flight home. I was flying from LA into Sydney via Brisbane. We arrived nice and early to LAX and checked in with a surly American Airlines lady. She mentioned that the plane was completely full, in fact they'd oversold it, and I offered if they needed to switch to the Sydney flight. Let it be known, at no point did I mention/hint at/directly ask for an upgrade for the switch, I was actually just trying to be helpful and it would have saved me a few more hours on a plane. She very tersely told me that wasn't her department and I should talk to the ladies in the Qantas Club, which I'm member.

In the Qantas Club (which was actually the American Airlines lounge), the specific Qantas employee had decided that with two hours before the Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane flights departed, she'd take her break. Now, I don't begrudge a break, not at all, but wouldn't the peak inquiry time from your customers not be the best moment to go MIA? Anyway, she returned and once again, I offered to switch if they needed to get more people onto the Brisbane flight. Again, I was told in no uncertain terms that my offer wasn't required. Fine, I'll go with all the Brisbanites - no drama.

Until, I got on the plane that is. While the Sydney and Melbourne passengers hoped on the lovely new planes, poor Brisbane bound passengers, got on what has to be the oldest 747 Qantas have in their fleet. The seats were literally falling apart, as witnessed in my row by the fraying cloth and my table, which had its own weapon included. Seriously, if I'm going to spend an hour in security queues then don't tease me with a stabby weapon. The worst was my arm rest - the cover would constantly fall off, and while trying to sleep, I'd wake to find a nice jabbing in my arm - good times. Then of course, on a 14 hour flight, the entertainment system shut down - our entire row, could not watch any TV at all, which I'm sorry, on long haul flights is one of the only things to distract you from the long haulness of it. This was a common complaint from many people during the flight, the tiredness of the plane, the breaking equipment, the bathrooms that had definitely seen better days.

The staff were lovely and the food was food, but really Qantas, you can't expect people to fly on that broken down excuse for a plane for 14 hours, and not look at the interior and think 'if this is how the seats are cared for, wonder what the engine's like?' I'm all for dance flash mobs to celebrate the new 747 Sydney to the Perth leg, but maybe the flash mobs money could be redirected to maintenance and upkeep.