A traveler’s photo of a seriously damaged armrest on a Qantas plane seat has shocked Australians – with one even calling it an ‘electrical hazard’.
The woman, who traveled from Melbourne to Brisbane this weekend, was surprised to find the armrest of her chair falling apart, with the control unit hanging from the hinge, including exposed electrical wires.
Strong reactions online prompted the traveler to shed more light on what happened.
‘This actually had no impact on me at all; I was just surprised to see it in that state,” she explained.
Photos from the flight show the damaged seat armrest and the mounted controls dangling from it
‘The lady who was assigned the seat (another stranger) didn’t seem too concerned.
“The flight attendant was shocked when she noticed it during food service and said she would let the maintenance people know.”
She shared photos of the ordeal on social media, with many Australians saying it was a danger and not a good look for the national airline, which recently lost its top spot as Australia’s most trusted travel brand.
“It looks absolutely horrible and it’s making me a bit worried,” said one.
“Absolute disgrace,” said another, while a third called it an “electrical hazard.”
Others, however, were more sympathetic to the airline.
“It would take some clown pulling with a lot of force to do that. No matter how well planes are maintained, you can’t deal with idiots doing things like that,” one man said.
A second added: ‘Things break and need maintenance. I do not see the problem.’
It’s another blow for Qantas, which recently lost its top spot as Australia’s most trusted travel brand. The photo shows grounded Qantas aircraft
Another added: ‘So if this had happened on the previous flight and now needs to be resolved, would you have preferred if they had resolved it and the flight had been delayed a few hours?
‘I assume this will be recorded on a list of jobs to be done.
“Wouldn’t it be better to do this overnight, so as not to cause delays or upset customers trying to reach their destinations?”
In a statement, Qantas said: ‘Keeping the interior up to date and ensuring everything works for our customers is a key focus for our engineering team.
‘We recently started servicing the interior of our cabins, which has reduced the number of faults by 20 percent in recent months.
‘We are also recruiting more engineers to support this important work.’
The damaged armrest was reported to a Qantas flight attendant, who promised to report the problem to maintenance staff (stock image)