Qantas will inject an extra $80 million into improving customer care with the additional funding targeted towards better resourcing call centres, adding more frequent flyer seats and upgrades to in-flight catering.
The move will be funded by the airline’s own profits and comes on top of $150 million already budgeted for similar initiatives.
In a market update on Monday, Qantas said the investment boost will aim towards addressing a number of “customer pain points”.
This includes improvements to training and resourcing call centres, a review of longstanding policies for fairness, as well as more support when operational issues arrive.
The airline also intends to increase in the number of seats that can be redeemed with Frequent Flyer points and upgrade the quality of in-flight menus.
“Qantas is also working to accelerate some initiatives already underway, such as the re-platforming of the Qantas app,” the airline said.
“More detail on these actions will be shared in coming weeks.”
The national carrier also noted a $200 million increase in fuel costs flagged for the first half of 2024 financial year.
That could bring the total bill to $2.8 billion after hedging but Qantas has maintained it would absorb the price increases.
Qantas and Jetstar are also expected to see a boost to international capacity by 12 percentage points, with new aircraft deliveries and wet-leasing arrangements to add almost 50 extra flights a week.
This will be aided by the recommencement of Qantas’ Sydney to Shanghai services, the introduction of two new routes, Brisbane to Tokyo and Brisbane to Honiara, as well as a new Jetstar service from Brisbane to Tokyo.
(SKY NEWS)
