Qantas mayday alert, flight turnbacks put safety reputation under spotlight

Qantas Airways, the airline whose stellar safety record was made famous by Hollywood, is back in the spotlight after a flurry of mechanical malfunctions. The Australian airline has been hit by a spate of in-flight issues since the middle of last week, starting with a mayday alert and engine shutdown on a plane from Auckland to Sydney. At least four aircraft have since turned around because of problems with wing flaps, warning indicator lights or fumes in the cabin. The planes all landed safely. The series of incidents is particularly wounding for an airline that has built — and touted — a reputation for safety. Qantas has never suffered a fatal jet accident, a benchmark that entered popular culture when Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1988 movie Rainman insisted it was the only airline he would fly. More than three decades later, a key question is whether Qantas has lost its safety edge after repeated cost cuts and job losses under CEO Alan Joyce, or has simply been unlucky in the past week.Either way, the recent problems have put Australia’s largest airline under scrutiny again, months after it appeared to have resolved an embarrassing run of cancellations, delays and baggage losses. Joyce, who has forged a reputation for shredding expenses to deliver bumper profits during his 14 years in charge, is once more being blamed on social media for the airline’s woes. He’s become such a lightning rod for online vitriol these days that a single cockpit warning light or a smoky oven in the cabin can end up reigniting calls for his resignation. “There’s that cynicism that customers have every time something like this happens — are they spending enough on maintenance?” said Natalie McKenna, a lecturer in strategic communication at La Trobe University in Melbourne. “There is absolutely reputational damage. I think customers are starting to turn away from Qantas.” <br/>