[VijayEswaran]

My wife and I are business owners and frequent fliers and only fly first class or business class. We rarely fly Qantas but we are currently in Australia visiting Sydney, where we have a home and we had to fly to Melbourne on December 18. As always, our assistant booked us on Business Class on QF224 from Sydney to Melbourne.

We got to the Sydney airport and attempted to check in. We found out that another flight on the same route had been cancelled and Qantas was going to move the passengers from the cancelled flight into our flight. We were not given any warnings or messages about this. That’s when things took a turn.

To our shock and dismay the check-in staff informed us very rudely that we were being downgraded to economy class as the flight was now full! This is not just unreasonable but also illegal. We booked and paid for business class seats and our flight QF 224 was not the cancelled flight. Qantas is contractually obligated to provide us the service and seats we have paid for. There is absolutely no reason for us to be downgraded since this was our originally booked flight.

We fly around the world regularly and have top tier status on several airlines. Never have we ever encountered such blatant discrimination or rude behaviour as we did that day by the check-in staff of Qantas at Sydney airport. They were unhelpful and dismissive of our very valid concerns.

We understand that flight issues are part of the vicissitudes of flying, but the exceedingly arrogant, discourteous and unacceptable attitude of the check-in staff is wholly untenable as much as unbefitting an airline of the status of Australia’s flag carrier.

After much back and forth and our insistence on being given what we paid for, grudgingly the check-in staff “found” one available business class seat, but one passenger would have to fly economy class. There was no attempt to rectify the situation, or apologise for the mistake. They continued to display an overbearing and contemptuous attitude throughout this process. Since we had committed to an engagement in Melbourne we had no choice but to fly that day.

The entire incident is distasteful, unacceptable and quite abhorrent in nature. If an airline of Qantas’ status is unable to treat its passengers and guests with simple basic courtesy, it speaks volumes as to the nature of the business and airline itself.