Rebuilding brand altitude: How Qantas’ customer experience overhaul is winning back travellers and boosting the bottom line

News Plus 3 Mar 2025 - 7 min read

Rebuilding brand altitude: How Qantas’ customer experience overhaul is winning back travellers and boosting the bottom line

By Andrew Birmingham - Martech | Ecom |CX Editor

CEO Vanessa Hudson and CFO Rob Marcolina: They CX bets are paying off but it's a long haul back to the top of brand rankings

Tags: Qantas customer experience Customer engagement

Qantas Group has lifted the Net Promoter Score of its flagship Qantas brand by 13 per cent, while Jetstar has improved by 9 per cent, but the improvement hasn’t come cheap. A 20 per cent rise in technology costs underpinned upgrades across customer experience, supply chain and fleet readiness. The airline’s latest investor deck highlights a surge in 'Other Expenses', largely driven by increased IT investment. CEO Vanessa Hudson says the dual-brand approach is paying dividends at a time when consumers remain cost-conscious. Meanwhile, CFO Rob Marcolina says tech and digital investments are delivering incremental earnings while improving both customer experience and sustainability. But with brand perception still recovering from the turbulence of the Alan Joyce era, Qantas has little choice but to double down on digital, mobile-first, and operational enhancements to rebuild trust and maintain momentum.

What you need to know

Qantas Group reported a 13 per cent increase in Net Promoter Score for Qantas while Jetstar's NPS rose 9 per cent, indicating CEO Vanessa Hudson's investments in CX are working. The airline is also seeing some improvements in brand strength, but it has a long way to go to recapture top spot, which is last held in the Brand Finance rankings in 2019.
The airline's technology costs rose by 20 per cent, linked to those investments in customer experience, along with supply chain and fleet readiness improvements.
Qantas achieved a pre-tax profit of $1.39 billion for the first half of fiscal year 2025, an 11 per cent increase from the previous year.
Hudson emphasised ongoing investments for customer satisfaction and rebuilding trust. One is in addressing operational challenges that could impact customer satisfaction, such as cancellations and on-time performance.
Recent consumer data shows a rise in travel intentions, with 79 per cent of individuals planning to travel, up from 72 per cent in January 2023.
The airline is enhancing also customer experience through various measures, including cabin refurbishments, upgraded lounges, and improved digital capabilities.
In it latest half-yearly report, Jetstar is noted for its performance in the low-fare market, with one in three fares under $100.

Qantas Group Net Promoter Scores for its two marquee brands are on the rise after a tough five years. But it hasn't come cheaply, with a 20 per cent hike in technology costs underpinning the improvements in customer experience and supply chain. And there's more spending to come.

The ASX-listed airline's latest investor deck reveals a big increase in 'Other Expenses' including, "Increased technology and digital expense due to higher IT spend on customer experience, supply chain and fleet readiness projects".

In a call with analysts after its half-year results were released, Qantas CFO Rob Marcolina said new technology spending "is delivering incremental earnings for the business, a better experience for our customers and our people, and helping to progress our sustainability targets".

Those investments are set to continue during the year with "customer experience, mobile-first, and digital optimisation" flagged as areas of priority under what Qantas classified as data and digitisation.

Not that it likely had a choice. Under previous CEO Alan Joyce, the iconic Australian firm's brand perception underwent a serious reversal after the business mismanaged the reopening of the economy after the Covid pandemic, and Joyce blamed the customers for its travails.

Qantas Airways last week profit before tax of $1.39 billion for the first half of fiscal year 2025, a healthy 11 per cent increase from the previous year. In a company statement accompanying the results, Vanessa Hudson, CEO said, "We’re seeing progress from the investments we are making for our customers and people but we know there’s more work to do to consistently deliver in the moments that matter.

"This is a key part of rebuilding trust and continues to be our focus. Australians have always loved to travel and continue to prioritise it over other spending options. Looking forward, we continue to see intention to travel from leisure and corporate customers remaining high."

The latest consumer data appears to back her views. Fresh Zenith Imagine Panel this month revealed travel intentions are rising. According to Simon Schoen, National Head of Strategy and Planning at Zenith, total intention to travel has increased to 79 per cent, up from 72 per cent in January 2023, with those planning to travel interstate up from 5 per cent to 50 per cent.

"Intent to travel overseas is also up significantly from 35 per cent to 42 per cent. Intrastate travel is still popular, but intention has dropped from 49 per cent to 45 per cent over the same timeframe," said Schoen.

However, while the latest half-yearly results give Qantas a boost, the business is still grappling with a deeper challenge than the fluctuating cycles of consumer travel practices. As Mi-3 reported in late January, Qantas’ brand value has recovered significantly (+$1bn to $3.8bn) from the low water mark reached under Joyce, who oversaw several years of decline stemming from fallout over selling tickets for cancelled flights, accusations of price gouging and customer service fails. But Brand Finance MD, Mark Crowe, said there was “no doubt” the airline’s ability to influence government decisions on rival carrier allocations “has been negatively affected”.

Qantas can take some solace in the fact it has climbed 3 points from 17th to 14th in Australian brand valuations. But it's still outside the top 10, and a long way from the top spot it once occupied.

Investments in CX go far beyond simply digital enhancements. Qantas and Jetstar have spent the past 18 months rolling out a series of upgrades aimed at making travel more reliable, comfortable and seamless. For Qantas, that’s meant sinking more cash into new aircraft and cabin refurbishments, upgrading lounges in Adelaide and Broome, and tweaking its flight credit system to be more flexible. The airline has also integrated Apple’s ‘Share Item Location’ feature for AirTags, giving passengers a better way to keep tabs on their luggage.

Jetstar, meanwhile, has focused on the digital side, improving online check-in speeds and streamlining payments both on the ground and in the air.

We’re seeing progress from the investments we are making for our customers and people but we know there’s more work to do to consistently deliver in the moments that matter. This is a key part of rebuilding trust and continues to be our focus.

— Vanessa Hudson, CEO, Qantas

Material Risk

Poor customer experience is identified as a material risk in the 4D appendix accompanying the financial presentation.

"Operational challenges such as frequent cancellations, poor on-time performance [OTP], and mishandled baggage could negatively impact customer satisfaction and harm the Qantas Group's reputation," the filing stated.

Qantas also noted it is crucial for these issues to be addressed with regard to its brand strength and to ensure it can attract future customers.

"The Group continues to focus on improving its on-time performance and make significant investments to enhance the overall customer experience. Measures include maturing the Group boarding process, focusing on technological enablement in airport operations, and improving fleet health. Additionally, the Group is prioritising mechanisms to cover customer journey disruptions, including efficient and compassionate complaint resolution, managing delays and cancellations, offering proactive reimbursement, and addressing product and service quality issues."

Qantas has also announced it will spend more money on cabin refresh programs, including enhancements to its Wi-Fi capabilities, which were flagged a year ago, upgrading apps with baggage tracking features and live notification functionalities, refurbishing lounges, providing frontline service training, enhancing the Frequent Flyer rewards program, and upgrading digital capabilities and websites.

AI is likely to feature increasingly in Qantas's CX transformation.

While airline delays and rubbery chickens may be as predictable a travel experience as overly produced in-flight announcements, that predictability makes them ideal candidates for early AI use cases. Last year at SXSW, Scott Wilkinson, executive manager, digital and direct customer experience, identified three use cases for AI: Ticketing, enhanced customer agent capabilities and identified problems as they emerged and responding rapidly as initial areas of focus.

Dual brand strategy

In her remarks to investors, Hudson also highlighted the importance of the Group's dual-brand strategy.

"Our dual brand strategy enabled the group to continue to drive strong performance across all market segments, including business purpose, premium and low fare, leisure markets, and we can't talk about domestic without calling out the amazing performance of Jetstar," she said.

With a hat tip to ongoing consumer price pressures she said, Jetstar is "...allowing more Australians to travel for less, with approximately one in three Jetstar fares under $100 this half. We know how important this is with the ongoing cost of living pressures, with over 10 million customers choosing to fly Jetstar, half more than any time we've seen in our past."

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