Qantas increases international connection time to address luggage issues

Australia’s largest airline will increase the waiting time between domestic to international connecting flights by 30 minutes in an effort to mitigate the number of people arriving at their destination without their luggage.

From August 21, Qantas travellers at Australian airports will only be provided outbound international flight options with 90-minute connection times, up from 60 minutes, to accommodate for domestic delays.

Those with existing bookings who will be affected by the change will be notified of the new policy by the airline and moved to an earlier flight.

It’s the first move of a broader attempt to fix baggage handling issues at the national carrier, where the mishandled baggage rate has jumped to nine in every 1000 passengers.

The group’s executives have been meeting daily to improve the airline’s sluggish performance and are considering expanding the policy to inbound international to domestic flights as well as domestic connecting flights.

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Qantas Group chief executive Alan Joyce said that, while there were a lot of good reasons why the operational performance of the airline had not been up to standard, the group was taking “additional steps”, shaped by feedback from frontline teams who have borne the brunt of customer dissatisfaction.

“Bringing our operations back to pre-COVID standard and maintaining our focus on safety is our absolute priority,” the executive said.

Qantas has been crippled by the number of staff falling ill due to COVID-19 and the flu. Sick leave is tracking about 50 per cent higher than usual.