QANTAS WTF.
There is a bit of furore within the Australian music industry over Qantas’ new baggage policy, the contents and disadvantages of which are fairly succinctly articulated here.
I’ve never been afraid to write a letter of complaint (Hi Sydney Uni! Hi Woolworths! Hi Mum!) so today I am sending this letter to Qantas via here. I’m ccing in Simon Crean, the Federal Minister for The Arts.
Dear Qantas
I manage a three piece Sydney band who are currently enjoying popularity thanks to their relentless touring across the country for the past two years.
I have been made aware of the new changes to Qantas’ luggage policy, in particular, the restriction on the number of checked items and the new regulation stating that musical instruments are allowed onboard only at the discretion of the airline.
The band tour the country regularly and Qantas is our preferred airline. We regularly attract excess baggage fees, as you would expect. However all three members of the band and myself joined Qantas Club very recently in order to mitigate some of those fees with no warning that the regulations concerning baggage were about to change. By my calculation, this means that our excess baggage costs will be almost triple what they were prior to us joining Qantas Club.
I find it fairly hypocritical that Qantas purports to support music via the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards when the company then proceeds to make it as difficult as possible for Australian artists.
I note that there are exceptions that relate to sporting equipment and struggle to see why musical equipment should not fall within that category of exceptions but I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.
Yours faithfully, etc.
If this affects you, it would be great if you could write something in a similar vein. SPEAK PEOPLE.
