Case Study: Qantas Airlines: A customer’s perceptions

[Source: Lovelock, C., Patterson, P. & Walker, R. (2004) Services Marketing: An Asia-Pacific and Australian Perspective, (3rd Ed.), Pearson Prentice-Hall, Sydney, pp 494-495.]

Background
The experiences of a middle-aged, business traveller returning from one of many overseas trips with Qantas in recent years is detailed below. This time he is returning from Los Angeles to Sydney after being away for 10 days on a business trip. The following case relates to his experiences on the flight returning from the United States, recorded immediately after the fight.

The Flight from Los Angeles to Sydney
Approximately two hours flying time out of Sydney, the captain of the Qantas flight (QF12) informed the passengers (half of whom happened to be American tourists coming to Australia for a visit) that we would be delayed two hours because of bad weather in Sydney and there was a possibility that we may even have to fly on to Brisbane if we couldn’t land in Sydney. About one hour out of Sydney, we were informed the flight would be going direct to Brisbane. Upon arriving in Brisbane and letting off some passengers, we put up with a 90-minute delay before starting off to Sydney. The Qantas Boeing aircraft then circled Sydney Airport for some 45 minutes, until the captain informed us that weather conditions would not permit a visual landing – Qantas pilots are not permitted by law to do an instrument landing. We were told that we would have to fly on to Melbourne, which we promptly did.
All passengers disembarked at Melbourne’s International Airport and were told to stay in the transit lounge where we would be looked after. Nobody was told how to get to the transit lounge – there was no Qantas employee in sight to direct 300 very tired passengers to where this transit lounge, which we were supposed to be herded into, was located! Of course, by this time everybody was tired after a 15-hour flight across the Pacific plus a one-hour detour to Brisbane, another one hour to Sydney, another 45 minutes circling Sydney and another one-hour trip to Melbourne. We had already spent something like 18-20 hours in the air, so you can imagine how I felt – pretty tired, pretty annoyed, pretty stressed out. Upon arrival at the transit lounge at Melbourne’s International Airport, the situation was explained to us by what appeared to be a relatively junior and somewhat inexperienced female employee of Qantas. It was explained that Qantas at this point were not sure when they could get us to Sydney due to bad weather conditions that were beyond their control. By this time some of the passengers, particularly the American passengers, were getting quite annoyed, because they had connecting flights or some other arrangements in Sydney, or had people waiting for them. Consequently, some of the passengers were getting a bit edgy.
The passengers were then informed that they would be given a $7 food coupon, which they could use in the cafeteria, some 50 metres away, to buy food or drink to the value not exceeding $7.
So, I went to the cafeteria with my $7 coupon and to my annoyance found that a $7 coupon in an international airport lounge is lucky to buy you one cup of coffee (where they probably charge you extra for the sugar!). Having ordered a small sandwich and a cup of coffee, I found that it came to $8.50. Not having any Australian money on me I said, “what do I do?” The woman serving said, “you will just have to pay”, so then I exploded – I went from a passive to a very aggressive state in an instant. I told her I had no intention of paying and that the passenger before me had only in fact spent $5 or their $7 coupon, therefore the organisation (that is, the cafeteria) was ripping people off and making a profit. She wasn’t happy about that, and about me getting aggressive, so she got aggressive, so I got aggressive and told her, “you can do what you like”, and walked off with my sandwich and cup of