Tuppence Watt is feeling “exceptionally frustrated”.
She was meant to travel to London for a holiday with her husband and mother in 2020 – a trip that wasn’t meant to be.
Since then Ms Watt has been sitting on a $4,000 Virgin Australia flight credit she hasn’t been able to use and can’t for the foreseeable future.
Virgin Australia is only flying to two overseas destinations at the moment: Fiji and Bali – places Ms Watt and her family are not interested in travelling to.
Ms Watt is happy to wait until the airline resumes flights to other destinations, but there is a problem: the $4,000 credit expires in July and there has been “zero information” from the airline about it.
“We are understanding of the issues the airline has faced due to COVID – I’m a nurse so I definitely understand the struggles of the pandemic,” Gold Coast-based Ms Watt told SBS News.
“However, there is no excuse for the lack of communication and care the airline has shown.
Tuppence Watt (right) with mother Davina Hanson and husband Benjamin Watt at Disneyland in Paris before the pandemic. Source: Supplied
“They need to either offer a refund or extend the credits until people can use them for the same flight paths they had originally booked,” she said.
Ms Watt is not alone. Hundreds of Australians eager to travel overseas are not able to do so due to steep airfares, “infuriating” customer service, limited destinations and – often – last-minute flight changes or cancellations.
High airfares
According to Dean Long – CEO of The Australian Federation of Travel Agents – leisure travel hasn’t really bounced back yet and the VFR (visiting friends and relatives) market is currently the biggest driver of international travel.
“The VFR sector is effectively underpinning the tourism industry today, along with a bit of business travel, but leisure travel is really some six months off,” he said.
While Virgin Australia is not operating on any VFR-heavy routes yet, Qantas has resumed flights to several VFR-focused destinations, including Singapore, London and Los Angeles.
According to data received from Webjet, while average return economy airfares between Sydney and Singapore have gone down by 19 per cent, it’s a different story for the other two sectors.
The average return economy airfare between Sydney and London has gone up by 30 per cent, while for the Sydney-LA sector it’s increased by 32 per cent.
Average ticket price. Source: Webjet
Qantas has also resumed flights to VFR destinations such as Auckland, Bangkok, Dallas, Johannesburg and Vancouver, but there was not enough booking volume for these destinations for January 2022 on Webjet.com.au to provide an accurate comparison.
High aviation fuel prices and a lack of low-cost carriers servicing international sectors are the key factors behind these price hikes, Mr Long said, adding it’s a temporary glitch, not the new normal.
“There will be a higher price point in the market for the foreseeable future, but that will change as demand picks up by Australia and international travellers," he said.
“At least for the next 12 months there will be a higher price point than what it was in 2019. And then as we move 2023 and 2024, those pricing structures will be comparable to where they were pre-pandemic."
Speaking on Channel 9 on Monday, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce highlighted a range of bargains available at the moment.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. Source: AAP
“You could get to Fiji for less than $300, you could get to Singapore for less than $500. And we have airfares to LA for less than $1,000 … so you’re going to see good airfares to get our people and our aircraft back in the air,” he said.
“Shameful” customer service
Lynley Casey booked Qantas flights to Dallas so she and her US-born husband could visit his family in America and had some pre-travel questions.
“I called four times, waited for hours on end, just to be disconnected on all those occasions,” Ms Casey, who lives in northern NSW, told SBS News.
In the absence of phone-based customer care, Ms Casey contacted Qantas using Facebook Messenger – a service the airline offers.
She’s been waiting for Qantas to reply to her messages for 32 days now.
“It’s really infuriating and frustrating,” she said.
Ms Casey’s case is not unique. User posts on the airline’s Facebook page are replete with comments about the customer service, with users labelling it “shameful”, “non-existent” and “ridiculous”.
A Qantas spokesperson highlighted the reasons for the delay in a statement to SBS News.
“The current Omicron situation has driven a huge spike in calls from customers, which has meant our customers have been experiencing longer wait times, which we sincerely apologise for," the spokesperson said.
“We’ve trained hundreds of new agents and continue to hire and train more so we can reduce wait times as much as possible."
Last-minute changes and cancellations
LATAM Airlines cancelled flights from Sydney and Auckland to Chile for the month of March “due to operational needs”, according to a statement posted on the airline’s website on Friday.
The move left hundreds of travellers confused and angry.
Foreign airlines and countries are constantly changing their travel policies and priorities, and that may have a knock-on effect on Australian travellers, Mr Long said.
Often factors that lead to disrupted travel are beyond the control of Australian airlines or governments.
“The disruption currently occurring within the aviation networks is a direct result of governments around the world having draconian border policies,” Mr Long said.
“The continuing lockdown approach by governments in New Zealand and some Asian and European countries is making it impossible for people to move through transit route hubs like Thailand, Hong Kong and Dubai,” he said.
Swarup Thite’s recent return trip from India to Sydney is a textbook example of that.
“I booked a Mumbai to Sydney flight, via Bangkok. When I booked that flight, Thailand had plans to open up to international tourism,” Mr Thite said.
But due to the Omicron variant, those plans were shelved.
As a result Mr Thite had to book a different flight with long stopovers in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Singapore.
“The Mumbai to Sydney flight usually takes about 20 hours with a stopover. This one took two-and-a-half days,” he said.
According to Mr Long, it could take anywhere between six to 12 months for foreign countries and airlines to find a stable rhythm as far as international travel is concerned.
Credit dramas
UK-born Liv Wilson paid $2,000 for a Sydney-London return flight with Qantas she was meant to take in March 2020.
“And we all know what happened in March 2020,” Sydney-based Ms Wilson told SBS News.
Ms Wilson received a credit for those flights, but by the time she wanted to rebook the same flights in May 2021 for a Christmas holiday to see her family in the UK, the price of the flights had gone up by $2,000.
“I had to essentially pay the same amount on top [of the credit] because the prices had gone up so much,” she said.
But even paying an exorbitant price things didn’t work out for Ms Wilson.
“They cancelled my flights in December with no explanation and told me my $4,000 will be converted into credits,” she said.
When Ms Wilson went on the Qantas website to rebook, there was no record of that credit.
Ms Wilson has since figured out a new plan of action. She managed to reach Qantas via phone. Her flights have been cancelled, she’s been promised a full refund and she’s booked new flights with Singapore Airlines.
“If we cancel the flight, people have complete flexibility, including a cash refund or rebooking any type of fare to the value of their credit,” the Qantas spokesperson said.
“The message for customers is that we offer a lot more flexibility with booking than pre-COVID, but we still have some rules in place. We’re completely transparent about that and other major airlines have a similar approach."
While Ms Wilson is looking forward to her trip to London, not everyone has been so lucky.
Scores of Virgin Australia customers, such as Gold Coast-based Ms Watt, who bought tickets to destinations like London – places the airline doesn’t fly to anymore – are panicking.
“There’s also been zero information provided on when – if ever – they will begin these same long-haul flights we paid for,” she said.
SBS News has contacted Virgin Australia for a comment.
