Qantas has downgraded a 78-year-old Vietnamese veteran from business class to economy class to give his fully paid seat to an employee.
Stephen Jones, who served in a combat unit in Vietnam, was returning with his wife to Adelaide from a holiday in New Zealand when he was called into the Qantas office during a stopover in Melbourne on Sunday.
“We were sitting in the business lounge having coffee and I got an intercom call asking Stephen Roy Jones to come up to the office,” Mr Jones told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
“The Qantas employee said, ‘I have bad news for you, you have been bumped.
“It was not recorded at first. I wasn’t really sure what “bogner” meant.
A Vietnam veteran told a Melbourne radio station he was kicked out of Qantas business class so the airline could give up his seat to an employee (file image)
“She said, ‘I need to reissue your economy class ticket, we have a technician flying to Adelaide and his contract says he has to travel business class.
Mr Jones said the Qantas employee was seated next to his wife on the flight to Adelaide, but they did not speak.
“He wasn’t looking at her,” Mr Jones said.
Upon his return to Adelaide, Mr Jones wrote a letter of complaint.
Qantas responded by saying that as a ‘goodwill gesture’ they were offering Mr Jones 5,000 airline points.
“I was a little facetious,” Mr. Jones said.
“I said thank you for your very generous offer but I don’t think I can accept it.
“I would be hypocritical because I don’t think anything will change unless there are consequences or costs to Qantas when they upset their customers.”
After Mr Jones’ case was mentioned on 3AW, he received a call from Qantas ‘customer services’, with the airline promising to refund half of his business class fare for the Melbourne-Adelaide flight.
The airline also wrote to 3AW and explained that it was a pilot, not a technician, who got the seat paid for by Mr Jones.
“As part of their corporate agreement, pilots who travel to another city and then operate flights must be provided with a business class seat,” Qantas said.
As the business cabin was full on the flight to Adelaide, this meant Mr Jones had to be downgraded to economy class.
“We have apologized to the customer and explained why the downgrade has occurred,” Qantas said.
Stephen Jones, 78, a decommissioned Qantas passenger, served in one of Australia’s front line units in the Vietnam War (file footage)
“When this happens, we issue a partial refund. »
Mr Jones confirmed that the man sitting next to his wife was in uniform.
“I fully understand that pilots have the right to rest comfortably in order to be able to fly home,” Mr Jones said.
“It was just a little unsettling at the time and it made me a little irritable.”
Lawyer Justin Lawrence told 3AW that Qantas can downgrade passengers because their conditions of carriage allow it.
“It happens so often that they have a term for it,” Mr Lawrence said.
“They call it involuntary downgrading: when they oversell business class or first class tickets, they will have to kick someone out and they will do it almost immediately before the flight.
“It’s just standard operating procedure from an airline perspective – not just Qantas, they all do it.”
“Any time we buy a seat and think about buying a seat in that particular class, there’s no guarantee that when that plane takes off, you’ll be seated in that class.”
A lawyer said that due to the conditions of carriage of a typical airline ticket, any passenger may be downgraded at the airline’s discretion.
He said airlines usually don’t let their customers know until 20-30 minutes before a flight that they’ve made a “discretionary decision” to downgrade them.
However, he had some advice for those who didn’t want to accept this.
“Don’t do this step,” Mr. Lawrence said.
He advised passengers to say they were “waiting” until they could board the next business or first class flight.
“As soon as you take that (downgraded) step, your compensation claim is reduced to almost zero,” Mr Lawrence said.
Qantas has been contacted for comment.
