Qantas to shut airport service desks, force customers onto self-service

Qantas will permanently close its service and sales desks at all airports and lounges, leaving passengers to deal with cancellations and last-minute booking changes themselves at self-service kiosks, online or through a call centre. The airline will maintain staffed check-in desks, but lost-baggage counter hours will be cut in favour of "self-serve recovery" and all other services will be self-managed as part of an overhaul one union says will make Qantas no better than Jetstar. Qantas told staff on Thursday the customer service changes would be made in the first half of 2021. They were part of its COVID-19 cost-cutting drive, and also reflected the pandemic changing how people wanted to travel. "More people are choosing to self-manage their bookings, check in and boarding processes," Qantas' executive manager of airports, Colin Hughes, said in a note sent to staff. "Their feedback, which is understandable in this environment, is that they prefer digital interactions over face to face contact." The Australian Services Union's assistant national secretary Emeline Gaske said about 100 workers would be sacked as a result. She predicted "chaos" during severe weather events or other major disruptions, and said the removal of customer service staff would be particularly hard for older passengers and people with disabilities. Qantas rejected the ASU's claim that customer service would suffer as a result of the changes, which it said were in response to customer feedback. "The main driver is an increasing shift towards people using our app to check in and manage their own bookings, particularly as we expand what the app can do," Qantas' executive manager of product and service, Phil Capps, said.<br/>