Australian airline under big client cloud

Thailand News.Net
Wednesday 17th September, 2008

Australia’s major airline, Qantas, has had to assure its corporate clients that the airline is safe.

In an effort to ease growing concerns among some of its big customers that its safety and maintenance standards have been slipping, Qantas's corporate customers have received a briefing by the head of safety for Qantas, Captain Geoff Sartori.

Losing corporate customers would be of great concern to Qantas, which holds most of the multibillion-dollar corporate travel market.

While Qantas has declined to say if the meetings were linked to the airlines’ recent mid-air mishaps, it is believed large companies raised concerns about the airline's safety procedures.

Worries over safety procedures first surfaced in July, when a 747 flying to Melbourne had to make an emergency landing in Manila after an exploding oxygen tank blew a hole in the plane's fuselage.

Qantas was forced to ground several of its 737s due to shoddy paperwork, and this month the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said that it had uncovered signs of emerging problems within Qantas.

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