There is this very old adage which says "The Customer Is Always Right". It is worth remembering that even if the customer is an objective idiot, even if they think that there are three planets in the solar system, and even if they believe that the earth is a flat disc, that they are the ones who pay the invoices that you sent out and they are the ones who buy your products and services. This adage is so old that on Roman public toilets which people had to pay to use, some of them bear the legend "Pecunia Non Olet" which loosely translated means "Money does not stink."
Of course it makes sense that customers' money does not stink. Money is possibly the most fungible thing in the world because one dollar is exactly interchangeable with every other dollar and once the customers' dollars become your dollars, they are then exchanged by you for your dinner.
For this reason, I really do not understand Qantas' CEO Alan Joyce's comments about passengers, who are his customers and by virtue of having paid for their passage in advance, have already in effect put dinner on his table.
https://australianaviation.com.au/2022/04/now-alan-joyce-blames-not-match-fit-passengers-for-queues/
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has risked the ire of frustrated passengers by blaming “not match fit” travellers for the long queues forming at airports on Friday.
“I went through the airports on Wednesday and people forget they need to take out their laptops, they have to take out their aerosols … so that is taking longer to get through the queue,” he said in comments reported by the Sydney Morning Herald. He added COVID close-contact rules were causing “high level of absenteeism” of up to 18 per cent.
It follows Sydney Airport chief executive Geoff Culbert similarly highlighting “inexperienced passengers” for the travel chaos seen around the country.
- Australian Aviation, 8th Apr 2022
Probably the only people who are frequent flyers are those people who travel on the coin of their workplace. Those people to some degree are already pampered and have access to better systems of ingress, progress, and egress through the airport. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce wouldn't want to insult those people because they have the power to tell their corporate benefactors who then have the power to withdraw their custom.
Who exactly are "inexperienced passengers"? Given that the vast majority of us out here in the real world, don't travel by air all that often, given that the regulations in a world of constant change which has included terrorism and pandemic have also changed, and given that airports themselves are complex places with complex systems, does it really behoove the CEO of an airline to insult the people who put the dinner on his table? Remember, because one dollar is exactly interchangeable with every other dollar, then that means that as a customer, we have the power to vote for what we will purchase and if we are treated badly or insulted, then collectively that leads to you not having any more dinner.
Mr Joyce obviously likes having dinner and so, within the day he was already trying to undo his messaging.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has walked back his criticism of passengers for contributing to the mass delays at Sydney Airport, amid a critical shortage of security screening staff during one of the busiest ever Easter school holiday periods.
Thousands of people were trapped in long queues at the airport on Friday, as domestic travellers headed interstate for the school holidays and to the Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne.
- Sydney Morning Herald, 8th Apr 2022
Well, well, well. There's a thing. If you are processing the passage of 300 people and their baggage at a time, then that is going to take time. At one person per minute, processing the passage of 300 people and their baggage will take five working hours. If something takes that long, you might want to think about employing more people to get the work done faster.
What this says is that one Friday last week, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce was effectively trying to blame his customers for understaffing. Are we to take it that if you can’t blame the workers, blame the customers instead? If the CEO of an airline thinks that it is appropriate to insult the people who put the dinner on his table, then those of us out here in the real world, the scum class who own our dollars, can just as easily vote with our dollars and give them to someone else.
I really think that corporate people, having achieved some level of power, become so removed from the front of house of their own business, that they no longer see their customers as anything other than a life support system for a bank account. As a customer out here in the real world who has virtually zero loyalty to most companies, then treating me like that, will instantly lead to me walking out of the door and taking my money somewhere else.
I also think that corporate people in management, having achieved some level of power, become so removed from the front of house of their own business, that they no longer see their employees as anything other than a life support system for their bank account. Employees demand things like wages and safe working conditions and we have more than ample evidence from history that corporate people in management will pay their employees literally nothing if they can get away with it, own people as chattel if they can get away with it, and even lock their employees in a burning building to save on insurance costs if they can get away with it.
In principle, that's more or less what Qantas CEO Alan Joyce tried to do. Employees demand things like wages and safe working conditions and Qantas just wasn't prepared to pay.
Qantas workers who lost their jobs due to outsourcing have been told they will not be able to get their roles back after the Federal Court ruled in one of the largest reinstatement cases ever heard.
In July, the Federal Court found in favour of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) against Qantas in a landmark case challenging the outsourcing of about 2,000 ground crew jobs by the airline.
While Qantas has said it will be appealing that decision, this week the court held remedy hearings to determine if workers who want their jobs back will be able to get them.
- ABC News, 17th Dec 2021.
The key point of this Federal Court case is that although the Federal Court ruled against Qantas over the outsourcing of about 2,000 ground crew jobs by the airline, it didn't make any remedial orders on the airline to reinstate the workers.
If should have always been expected that the Transport Workers Union would appeal the decision and as far as I am aware, the Federal Court has not heard the case for reinstatement; much less decided whether or not the workers are owed compensation.
Forgive my ignorance here but at one person per minute, processing the passage of 300 people and their baggage will take five hours. If you as the CEO of an airline have deliberately chosen to outsource the workforce and then presumably paid less for the provision of the labour that those people do, then simple economics says that you're going to get less labour provided.
If Qantas CEO Alan Joyce shouldn't blame the customers because they are the ones who out the dinner on his table and he can’t blame the workers because of a critical shortage of security screening staff and they weren't there, then who should he have blamed?
Himself.
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