Just lodged my first case with the ACA

[Legoman]

After suffering a QF flight cancellation (for "operational reasons" meaning they didn't reach the required load factor threshold for profitability), then rescheduling to another destination in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, then birdstrike on landing and being stranded in a city further away from my intended destination overnight, I have decided the lodge my first case with the ACA. I never even knew the ACA existed until google pointed me there. Wondering if it's a worthless and pointless organisation designed just to provide somewhere for jacked off customers a place to air their grievances, but which has no actual, real power to compel an airline to act ethically, I decided to see if anyone in here has actually had any success with the ACA. I did not expect to find an entire thread dedicated to the ACA.

After my cancellation, reschedule, birdstrike, no food, no catering, 24hr delay experience. I duly submitted all my expense receipts for the taxis and meals that had to be purchased as a direct result of Qantas' decision to change the flight route for no other reason than a gamble to try and make an unprofitable flight break even. A gamble that no doubt backfired spectacularly when they hit a bird on landing. Anyway, I submitted my receipts and then waited the required 7 days for them to think about a response. That came and went of course with no reply. So did the 8th day and the 9th and then 10th. I followed up of course and then I got a claim form to fill in, which I duly did. Nothing from Qantas Customer Care. No response at all despite follow ups every single day. 7 days later and still nothing from QCC.

Case opened with ACA. Correspondence trail pared back to a manageable 34 pages of PDF and QCC advised the issue has been handed over to the ACA with a case number for a mediation resolution due to Qantas stonewalling. I wait to see if the ACA have any effect whatsoever. I won't be holding my breath. They don't answer their phones and don't provide any e-mail addresses to contact them, so from that respect they seem almost as bad as the companies they claim to be the customer advocates for.

 

[juddles]

After suffering a QF flight cancellation (for "operational reasons" meaning they didn't reach the required load factor threshold for profitability), then rescheduling to another destination in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, then birdstrike on landing and being stranded in a city further away from my intended destination overnight, I have decided the lodge my first case with the ACA. I never even knew the ACA existed until google pointed me there. Wondering if it's a worthless and pointless organisation designed just to provide somewhere for jacked off customers a place to air their grievances, but which has no actual, real power to compel an airline to act ethically, I decided to see if anyone in here has actually had any success with the ACA. I did not expect to find an entire thread dedicated to the ACA.

After my cancellation, reschedule, birdstrike, no food, no catering, 24hr delay experience. I duly submitted all my expense receipts for the taxis and meals that had to be purchased as a direct result of Qantas' decision to change the flight route for no other reason than a gamble to try and make an unprofitable flight break even. A gamble that no doubt backfired spectacularly when they hit a bird on landing. Anyway, I submitted my receipts and then waited the required 7 days for them to think about a response. That came and went of course with no reply. So did the 8th day and the 9th and then 10th. I followed up of course and then I got a claim form to fill in, which I duly did. Nothing from Qantas Customer Care. No response at all despite follow ups every single day. 7 days later and still nothing from QCC.

Case opened with ACA. Correspondence trail pared back to a manageable 34 pages of PDF and QCC advised the issue has been handed over to the ACA with a case number for a mediation resolution due to Qantas stonewalling. I wait to see if the ACA have any effect whatsoever. I won't be holding my breath. They don't answer their phones and don't provide any e-mail addresses to contact them, so from that respect they seem almost as bad as the companies they claim to be the customer advocates for.

Legoman, can you actually explain the whole situation, the actual event, without assumptions and judgement.

What actually happened?

 

[juddles]

...... QCC advised the issue has been handed over to the ACA with a case number for a mediation resolution due to Qantas stonewalling......

sorry, do I understand this correctly?? Qantas Customer Care advised you that the case has been handed over due to Qantas stonewalling? That is unbeleivable!!

 

[Legoman]

What actually happened?

I was booked on QF2653 from ZNE to PER. With 4 hours notice I got an SMS advice that Qantas had cancelled the flight for 'operational reasons' which was subsequently found out to mean the plane didn't have enough passengers to meet the load factor required to not be loss making for the airline. To try and make the threshold load factor required for profitability, Qantas then severely inconvenienced all the booked passengers by redirecting the flight in the opposite direction taking them further away from their ultimate expected destination to PHE instead of PER. Because of the late flight rescheduling, the plane had negligible catering on board even though it was taking place right on dinner time. Upon landing at PHE, the plane struck birds and was critically disabled. All passengers who were supposed to now be in PER were now stranded overnight in PHE with no prospect of being rebooked on another flight as QF2653 was the last scheduled flight on May 30.
After approximately 2 hours of waiting around for ground staff to organise something, still with no food or drink provided and the checked baggage held back from being returned to passengers, we were finally told a hotel had been booked that had meals available. We were instructed to organise our own taxis from the airport rank and to keep the receipts for reimbursement by Qantas through submission via their website. On arrival at the hotel we were swiftly informed there was no food or drink available. The restaurant and bar were closed and all catering staff had left for the evening. There was no room service and no products in the room bar fridges. It was now 10pm.
I along with five other affected passengers organised more taxis to take us to a venue that was still serving meals. All receipts were kept in line with the Qantas ground staff instructions.
Upon eventual arrival back in Perth nearly 24hrs after the expected arrival, I set about submitting the receipts to Qantas. It turned out that not even Qantas Customer Care staff know where to submit receipts for reimbursement for an incident of this nature because such a section on their website doesn't exist. Regardless of that, I eventually was able to submit the receipts by attachment to a reply e-mail from one of their customer staff sent for the purpose.
Fully 10 days after submitting these receipts and attempting to follow up the claim on numerous occasions, I got a form to fill out from Dale of Qantas Customer Care. No surnames or direct contact details of course because no Australian company actually wants their customers to be able to contact the same person twice to follow up a complaint.
The amount of compensation they were willing to pay was less than the amount claimed and less than the sum of the receipts submitted, but there was no explanation for this beyond the generic 'as a gesture of goodwill' statement designed to placate angry customers without admitting any blame or accepting any responsibility. I corrected the amount of reimbursement owing, completed all details on the form and submitted it back to them 1.5hrs after receipt on the same day 12 June at 1pm WST for processing.

Since the 12 June at 1pm WST when I submitted the completed reimbursement claim form, I have heard nothing from Qantas Customer Care at all. This is despite following it up and checking the nominated bank account for received funds every single day since. Qantas are now stonewalling the issue presumably in the hope that I give up and just go away like I would expect most of their less determined sheeple customers do.

sorry, do I understand this correctly?? Qantas Customer Care advised you that the case has been handed over due to Qantas stonewalling? That is unbeleivable!!

No. I have advised Qantas that the issue has been referred to the ACA (by me) as a result of their stonewalling and refusal to respond to anything I send them. They can deal with the enforced mediation process conducted by ACA if that's a thing they even do. I will wait and see. They seem to take at least 3 weeks to do anything judging by the time scale I was given on submission of my case.

 

[juddles]

I was booked on QF2653 from ZNE to PER. With 4 hours notice I got an SMS advice that Qantas had cancelled the flight for 'operational reasons' which was subsequently found out to mean the plane didn't have enough passengers to meet the load factor required to not be loss making for the airline. ,,,,.

I have no doubt you suffrred, something. But where do you get this from??

 

[juddles]

In the interest of understanding the overall problem, how much did you claim for your trip to get a feed?

 

[serfty]

Look at the stickers here and my post.

Patience is key.

 

[UP4014]

What is your source for the flight being cancelled due to low passenger numbers?

I ask because you may need to divulge that as you've raised it. Also because I've flown a QF 380 from lax to Sydney with less than 50 people and it still flew.

So if you make the accusation be prepared to have the evidence questioned.

 

[juddles]

I read from the original post two major things: (1) the OP decided that qantas cancelled a flight due to some notion that they do this when pax numbers are insufficient. Sorry, but this is "pub-talk". (2) It appears that the OP and a few fellow travellers (who no doubt came to the (1) conclusion), went on a second trip, to seek refreshment. And now they are hitting Qantas with the bill.

Am I right?

 

[Legoman]

I have no doubt you suffrred, something. But where do you get this from??

From the Network Aviation ground staff baggage check in girls who were all gathered around the one baggage drop weigh-in counter at Newman airport I asked when checking in my bag who were all gossiping as they tend to do. I flat out asked them what the reason for the diversion was and they instantly became very obfuscatory & unsure of what they were allowed to say. When I openly put it to them that it was purely for the reason of picking up more passengers to make the flight worthwhile for cost reasons, they gave me the wink and the nod that confirmed that was true and then told me there were only 26 passengers on the flight. This is not uncommon and a virtual open secret over here among FIFO workers. FIFO flights don't count for customer service by the airlines. FIFO pax are the scum beneath the bottom of the barrel. The airlines treat them like absolute dirt. They can and do whatever they want to stuff around the flight schedules for predominantly FIFO flights if they can see a chance of making $1 more by cancelling the flight last minute and rescheduling it somewhere else.

In the interest of understanding the overall problem, how much did you claim for your trip to get a feed?

Hedland is the most expensive cost of living place in Australia by some margin. The flag fall for a taxi in Hedland is basically $20. As soon as you pull away from the kerb, the meter is already up to $20. The cheapest possible taxi ride from anywhere to anywhere else in Hedland you wouldn't be willing to walk would be $25. A very cheap local Australian brew tap beer in Hedland is $12.60.
For the getting of food/drink that Qantas didn't provide, I paid a total of $65.95. That included food, drinks and one taxi ride. The outgoing taxi was paid for by another passenger. We shared a maxicab with as many other passengers as we could so as to limit the number of indivual claims to be made for reimbursement as any sensible citizen would do. We just wanted food to be able to sleep comfortably ina place we were never supposed to be sent to in the first place. We were not looking to punish Qantas by making the exercise as expensive for them as possible by booking every cab in town individually to take one passenger each.

 

[juddles]

Can't you hit up your employer for all this??

 

[Isochronous]

ACA actually will reply and you will have an email contact - they try hard but they have no teeth to force QF to do anything. All they can do is persuade.

Be prepared to go to the WA small claims tribunal if need be.

 

[UP4014]

I think unless You have a name of the person who indicated via a wink and nod there were not enough passengers that information won't stand up.

You comments on how FIFO passengers are treated shows to at least that emotion is going to get in the way.

Keep it unemotional and you should get your reimbursement.

Delays happen, FIFO workers also sometimes give them self a poor name for behaviour. Somethings we have to get over.

 

[Legoman]

What is your source for the flight being cancelled due to low passenger numbers? I ask because you may need to divulge that as you've raised it. Also because I've flown a QF 380 from lax to Sydney with less than 50 people and it still flew. So if you make the accusation be prepared to have the evidence questioned.

Getting out my phone and recording the conversations with the Network Aviation staff at the airport would've had them clam up so tight as to not get any information out of them at all, so your suggestion of getting "evidence" as proof is ridiculous. You're comparing an international flight with a regional FIFO flight that's not even operated by genuine Qantas staff, but instead operated by Network Aviation using 20y.o. F100 aircraft that are so clapped out as to be at least 10 years beyond their use-by date.

I read from the original post two major things: (1) the OP decided that qantas cancelled a flight due to some notion that they do this when pax numbers are insufficient. Sorry, but this is "pub-talk". (2) It appears that the OP and a few fellow travellers (who no doubt came to the (1) conclusion), went on a second trip, to seek refreshment. And now they are hitting Qantas with the bill.

Am I right?

You've twisted the facts to suit your own version you want portrayed to make me look like a whinging scam artist, but yes, that's essentially correct. What you got wrong was that I did not decide this is what Qantas did, it's what I suspected and was then confirmed to me by the Network Aviation staff at the boarding airport when openly questioned about it. Secondly, the flight went from being a scheduled 1.5hr direct service at 7pm with a meal service to a scheduled 2-sector 3.5hr flight at 7pm with no meal service beyond a rip-open packet of rice snacks. Thirdly, the vast majority of passengers getting on board with me in Newman had no idea the flight had been cancelled and rescheduled at all. There were no terminal announcements at all and no notification via signage or displays to the effect in the terminal before boarding. In fact, in subsequent discussions with my fellow passengers, the vast majority had no idea they were going to Hedland until the captain announced on approach to hitting the bird that we were about to land in Hedland as we were advised in the airport announcements prior to boarding. We weren't told this at all, and this caused some pretty ugly confronting scenes at the coughpit door when we were told to get off as the captain copped an ear-bashing of not very nice language from several passengers who had no idea they were coming to Hedland who now had family waiting to collect them from Perth Airport.

This lack of advice was confirmed to me by my own family who said the Qantas website had no information listed about flight QF2653 heading to Hedland at all. They were following the drama via my messages from my phone and clearly couldn't understand what I was telling them because everything they could see from the flight tracking information provided on websites was that the plane I was on was about to land in Perth when I was telling them it had hit a bird on landing in Hedland half an hour earlier. This was the cause of much anger in the terminal when passengers queuing up to get rebooked on the next morning replacement flights starting getting phone calls from family members who had driven out to Perth airport to pick them up.

It was further confirmed to me when I didn't get any points awarded for my unintended flight from Newman to Hedland. When I submitted the claim with copies of my boarding passes (digital+paper versions), baggage receipts and even the baggage tags as well, which I kept anticipating a sh!tfight with Qantas, I was simply told by the Manila staff investigating my claim that no such flight as QF2653 existed and that therefore I couldn't have taken it. They appear to have wiped all record of the doomed flight from ever having happened. Still today, I have two denied points claims for a flight that officially according to Qantas records never happened. After arguing the toss though, they have made a manual points "adjustment" for 1200 points which is the ZNE-PHE leg that only exists now in the twilight zone.

I was one of the last off the plane and witnessed the scene watching the very sheepish and uncomfortable faces of the plane staff apologising who had clearly been dropped in it massively by a very late scheduling change that was forced upon them and not communicated to the vast majority of passengers. I was one of the few it seemed to actually have registered for SMS updates. Most had received no warning at all. It was a monumental mishandling of a very dodgy gamble to try and make an unprofitable flight break even by picking up extra passengers in Hedland on the way through at the expense of the passengers including me from Newman. A gamble that didn't pay off for Qantas at all when they hit birds and then had to pay for everyone's last minute accommodation in the most expensive town in Australia, taxi fares, food, drink and an airplane inspection/repair as well.

I strongly suspect the plane needed repairing as well, because when being rebooked on the next morning roster of flights out of Hedland back to Perth, the 0840 flight was the one that was scheduled for reusing the QF2653 F100 plane from the night before. I made it my business to find this out to ensure I didn't get that particular aircraft again. Sure enough, when waiting in line to check my bag onto my 0910 flight, the announcement was made that flight 0840 had been cancelled yet again and all passengers booked on that flight were being hurriedly rebooked on both the 0810 flight before (those that were there early enough to do so) and my 0910 flight afterwards as well. So it would seem the birdstrike plane was staying in Hedland to have some more blood and feathers washed off.

 

[Daver6]

What difference does the reason for the cancelled flight make here? None in my opinion to the claim.

If dinner included alcoholic beverages, I don't think that is a reasonable thing to claim. Everything else, fair enough. QF should cough up.

As someone else mentioned, wouldn't your employer cover your expenses?

 

[Legoman]

ACA actually will reply and you will have an email contact - they try hard but they have no teeth to force QF to do anything. All they can do is persuade. Be prepared to go to the WA small claims tribunal if need be.

I was afraid this might be the case so thanks for the info. I won't be going to any claims court for this. My total out of pocket expenses are not enough to justify doing that. I will have to chalk it up to experience and never, ever again offer to pay for things for others (shared taxi rides) to streamline and make things easier in difficult situations for all concerned. No good deed ever goes unpunished as the saying goes and being the good samaritan never earns you any friends or even a passing thank you as it turned out from the other passengers I offered my cab to share. You're far better off being the selfish prick who penny-pinches everything and wants to calculate exactly what portion of everything they ate at the table when the restaurant bill comes around. Sure everyone will hate you and you'll have no friends, but at least you won't get ripped off.

I think unless You have a name of the person who indicated via a wink and nod there were not enough passengers that information won't stand up.

You've clearly never been on one of these WA Network Aviation regional flights have you? These are not REX flights in regional NSW. These are way less sophisticated and more feral than anything REX serves up. The check-in girl who did my bag had full sleeve tattoos up both arms and visible piercings where piercings have no right to be. These flights are in no way, shape or form comparable to anything you might recognise as the product of a large international carrier operating under the name Qantas. Trying to record someone's name for use as evidence in a future claim would not be seen as an innocent action to not be questioned by the staff who man these regional WA airports. You just wouldn't do it. Not if you value your teeth remaining in your head.

 

[mannej]

Calling someone feral due to tattoos and piercings is where you lose credibility sorry. If this is the tone you are taking with QF, I am not honestly surprised that they are making it hard for you.

 

[Legoman]

What difference does the reason for the cancelled flight make here?

Technically, none. But it does serve to illustrate just how aggressively Qantas can be expected to defend the claim. Put yourself in Qantas' shoes. They were operating a flight they were contracturally obliged to, but that was clearly going to be extremely marginal on a cost justifcation basis with only 28 passengers on a what… 100 seat plane? Is a F100 100 seat? I really don't know, but that sounds about right for a 3-isle-2 seat aircraft of that size. They were clearly penny pinching to try and make the flight at least pay for itself and break even. They cancelled and redirected it, they forewent catering knowing that FIFO workers would be the majority of passengers and they don't matter. They were pulling all the luxuries out of the flight and willing to operate it on a shoestring with no regard for customer inconvenience to limit their losses as much as possible without incurring all the negative publicity and possible social media backlash a full-on last minute cancellation would have risked.

Now in that pre-existing known environment, they then hit a bird as well. Now, a very risky gamble has just gone south in almost the biggest possible way short of a crash with full aircraft asset loss. Now a very borderline cost justifiable flight is incurring engineering inspection, possible repair costs at a remote regional airport away from the normal maintenance facilities. They are up for accommodation costs, ground staff and passenger reimbursements, extra re-booking ground staff fees for the backlog of passengers now created plus, plus plus… I'm sure there are a truckload of extra fees I haven't even thought of. I'm sure the regional airport didn't hold back on their hardstanding fees for the crippled aircraft to sit there overnight too. These airports are run as commercial undertakings. They are not sympathetic to airline operators who accidentally hit birds on landing. That's an unfortunate, and yet incredibly fortunate occurance for them to cash in on!

In that environment, how willingly would you be to refund the expenses of a passenger who has incurred costs as a result of the gamble you decided to play that didn't come off in the most comprehensive way? If you were making $20,000 profit on that full flight, you would be much more willing to give $150 of that money back to the annoyed passenger to make them go away and not risk the ACA claim. But if you were already losing $20,000 as a result of that flight, I'll bet that the passenger with a $150 claim can go right to the back of the queue of service providers submitting invoices for everything else.

If dinner included alcoholic beverages, I don't think that is a reasonable thing to claim. Everything else, fair enough. QF should cough up.

And how are you going to tell whether the bevvies were alcoholic or not from the unitemised 'til receipt which is the best you're going to get from anyone at 10pm in a place like Hedland! I can assure you from personal experience there is only one place in Hedland that still sells food that isn't from either a vending machine or the junk food isles of a 24hr roadhouse shop at 10pm on a Wednesday night and it's the PIer Hotel. Yes, the Pier Hotel sells alcoholic beverages. Why on Earth should Qantas not be liable for drinks of this kind when they went out of their way to not provide even water on their flight even though they managed to scrape together some left over packets of rice snacks from the corners of the galley trolleys left over from the day's earlier flights for the 28 passengers? And yes, that's an accurate description of what actually happened. I was told so by the hostie who was virtually sitting on my lap in the exit row seats where she was assigned to be to tell me about how to operate the door to evacuate. We were in such close proximity, it woukd have been very weird indeed to not make conversation.

As someone else mentioned, wouldn't your employer cover your expenses?

My employer at this point was no longer my employer. I was on site for a short term contract role which as it happened, ended assoon as the job was completed successfully. In fact, right as I was still standing on the machine I was working on I was told they had no more pipeline of work after this job for me to continue on with. That's how it goes right now on these WA mine jobs. You have a job one day and not the next and you don't find out about it until the end of your shift.

 

[Daver6]

And how are you going to tell whether the bevvies were alcoholic or not from the unitemised 'til receipt which is the best you're going to get from anyone at 10pm in a place like Hedland! I can assure you from personal experience there is only one place in Hedland that still sells food that isn't from either a vending machine or the junk food isles of a 24hr roadhouse shop at 10pm on a Wednesday night and it's the PIer Hotel. Yes, the Pier Hotel sells alcoholic beverages. Why on Earth should Qantas not be liable for drinks of this kind when they went out of their way to not provide even water on their flight even though they managed to scrape together some left over packets of rice snacks from the corners of the galley trolleys left over from the day's earlier flights for the 28 passengers? And yes, that's an accurate description of what actually happened. I was told so by the hostie who was virtually sitting on my lap in the exit row seats where she was assigned to be to tell me about how to operate the door to evacuate. We were in such close proximity, it woukd have been very weird indeed to not make conversation.

No wonder they wouldn't payout what you're asking. You're receipt isn't itemised. It could be for anything. It is up to YOU to get an itemised receipt. That is YOUR responsibility and legal right from the premises. Qantas are fully within the rights to not cough up if you can't provide itemised receipts.

 

[Legoman]

Calling someone feral due to tattoos and piercings is where you lose credibility sorry. If this is the tone you are taking with QF

Obviously it's not. From my perfectly lucid descriptions of what has happened, and my membership, willingness and ability to post it in this forum, it is obvious I am not incapable of perfectly logical and rational argument. I am clearly not the stereotypical bogan WA mine FIFO worker with a black V8 Holden ute towing a jetski with a blue heeler dog in the back that you're imagining. I know how to address my communications to fit with the audience they're intended for.