Qantas is hitting out at this year’s “Shonky Awards” after being named one of the worst brands in Australia.

Consumer group Choice says the airline failed to give people a fair deal on its flight credits scheme, lost luggage, call wait times and cancelled services.

Choice claimed the airline had the worst rate of on-time domestic arrivals of any Australian airline in July,

 Choice editorial director Margaret Rafferty told Jim Wilson they have had more complaints about Qantas than any other brand in 2022.

“We continue to hear from unhappy Qantas customers who have had bad experiences and been left disappointed.”

Press PLAY to hear the full interview below

Photo: Getty

A Qantas spokesperson has responded to the awards with the below statement.

• “These awards are clearly out of date and the data Choice is using is itself a bit shonky.
• “We had several months of poor performance earlier in the year, but it’s improved significantly since August and we’re back to our pre-COVID level of service.
• “We’ve been very transparent with our performance figures, both good and bad, but Choice is using figures that are just wrong.
• “We’ve beaten Virgin for on-time flights eight out of the past 12 months, and in some months that’s been by a significant margin.
• “Our call wait times are less than half what Choice is claiming.
• “Our customers have redeemed more than $1 billion in COVID-related flight credits. The conditions for these are the same or better than they were pre-COVID and we’re actively encouraging our customers to use them.
• “No one is disputing the fact we had issues earlier this year, and we apologised for that, but it’s disappointing that Choice failed to acknowledge the impact that COVID and border closures have had on the entire aviation industry.”