Roy Morgan’s domestic airline satisfaction survey has shown 83 percent of Qantas customers are either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied with the company’s full service, just trumping Virgin Blue. It wasn’t such good news for budget options, with the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ not enough for uncompromising travellers with Jetstar and Tiger, polling dreary 68 percent and 46 percent levels of satisfaction respectively. 

“Qantas has increased its lead over Virgin Blue in terms of domestic customer satisfaction levels,” explains Roy Morgan Research international director of tourism, travel & leisure, Jane Ianniello. “Both leisure and business customers are giving Qantas’ domestic service a higher satisfaction rating."

Ianniello cautions Qantas to not get too excited, however, because Virgin is coming after its prized asset: the working traveler.

“Despite its high satisfaction rating amongst the domestic business market, Qantas has nevertheless lost market share to Virgin Blue,” she says, “which has just launched its new brand Virgin Australia that targets the business customer.”

Qantas' customer satisfaction is one percent better than one year ago, with only minor deviation over the 12 months. Tiger (down 5%) and Regional Express (down 6%) experienced the most dramatic satisfaction rate declines.