A handwritten note scribbled on the front of an in-flight magazine on a Qantas flight has been called out for being racist, with the husband of a former Indigenous senator and Olympian seeing it on his flight.
Scott Appleton, the husband of Nova Peris, was travelling from Alice Springs to Darwin on Tuesday when an elderly woman sitting beside him reportedly saw the message in the console in front of her. The message was a derogatory slur against Indigenous Australians and was believed to be in response to Qantas’s acknowledgement of country which is announced during every landing.
Peris shared an image of the message online and said, “Here’s to hoping Qantas tell their cleaning contractors to remove Qantas books from planes with racist messages written on them.”
Aussies called out the note for being “disgusting” and “shameful”.
“In a country that says it’s not racist, this is what our First Nations members have to tolerate,” one man wrote.
Has Qantas stopped listening to their customers?
Why does Qantas need to welcome everyone to country and why is it consistently voiced on landings when all Australians are already welcome to their country and we are one nation?
One would have thought that listening to all passengers (something they have lacked recently under their previous CEO) would highlight the one size fits all mentality of Qantas does not always work. Many will recall Qantas support for the Voice which failed at referendum.
Time to start reading the room Qantas