Australians Love Complaining About Their Airlines, But Is It Justified?
Australians love to whinge about their airlines. But compared to America and Europe, by many metrics, we have it pretty good.
With the lost baggage, queues and flight cancellations piling up in Australia right now, it’s been an easy time to feel filthy with Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin Australia; Rex – whichever airline has screwed you over.
But despite the current crunch, when you compare our airlines to the overseas alternatives, in many ways we have it better (especially when you take into account our population size). How so? Let’s start with comfort. When it comes to average seat size, Australia is miles ahead of America.
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Though we’ve got a couple of cramped airlines like Jetstar and Rex, which have standard economy seat pitches of 76.2cm (as opposed to Virgin Australia and Qantas’ standard pitches of about 78-79cm), we’re still, on the whole, doing better than they are across the pond.
United Airlines’ standard seat pitch, on a Boeing 737-700, for instance, is 76.2cm (the same as Jetstar). But in the US, which is a bigger country, with a greater population, the aviation industry is more competitive. For this reason, there are a fair few airlines which are equally (or more) cramped than United.
Introducing: Allegiant Air. Though Allegiant Air has the same standard pitch of United (76.2cm), its seats do not recline. Then there’s Spirit, with its industry-low 71.12cm pitch, and Frontier, which is almost as skimpy as Spirit. Sun Country, too, which is in the process of transitioning into an ultra low cost carrier, is quite short on legroom, offering just 73.66cm of pitch on its 737-800 aircraft.
Another issue airlines in America suffer from is unruly passengers. Now, that’s not to say Australia has no issues on this front, but when it comes to passengers punching staff, being creepy on their phones, using the overhead bins to do pull ups and flight attendants being trained to kick your ass, well, these are definitely the kind of headlines you associate with America and Europe more so than Australia.
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Finally, when it comes to pricing, though we don’t have as many of the outrageously cheap flights you find overseas, we still have a pretty good variety. If you’re after something like an Australian RyanAir or Spirit equivalent, you would opt for Jetstar. If you’re after something a bit nicer, you’ve got Qantas or Virgin Australia.
We also used to have (in many people’s view), the best domestic business class in the world (before experts started warning the days of “international style services on domestic flights” were numbered, thanks to the pandemic).
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As Rico Merkert, USYD Professor of Transport and Supply Chain Management told DMARGE back in 2020, speaking about Virgin Australia’s world-leading domestic business class: “The new CEO of Virgin will position to airline closer to the LCC business model and passengers (say business) will be able to add extra services to their seat a la carte and will be expected to pay for those add-ons.”
Although trends like the Americanisation of business class have some Aussies concerned, we still have a way to go yet before we sink to America and Europe’s standards, prices, and levels of airport chaos (yes, we know Sydney Airport hasn’t been great recently, but we’d argue worse scenes have been seen overseas). Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, we’ll leave up to you to decide.
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The post Australians Love Complaining About Their Airlines, But Is It Justified? appeared first on DMARGE.
