Melbourne -Sydney Flight Cancellation Statistics

[Renato1]

Interesting article on cancellations on the Melbourne-Sydney route. I was unaware the rate was so high with all the carriers.

Qantas cancelling flights as it seeks to improve loadings

Regards,
Renato

 

[CJS]

My first post. Joined out of frustration. Qantas cancelling Melb/Syd seems to have become a practice since Oct last year. I've been cancelled 9 times since then. 4 in the last 6 weeks. Very frustrating coordinating transport/meeting changes. Weather I can understand but these are not connected to weather just filling seats.

 

[Lynda2475]

Weather events aside (and there have been a lot in the last 6 months), i usually find that SYD-MEL, Qantas will often cancel the :15 or :45 flights if bookings are low and move you onto the :00 or :30 for that hour. There are flights every 15 mins from 6am til 9am, so I find it I get moved ahead/back by 15 mins it doesnt make a lot of different as I always leave some buffer in my meeting schedule.

The :15 and :45 past the hour flights often have cheaper seats, so I book knowing I'll more likely get moved.

My main grip is sometimes they send the cancellation sms st midnight so you dont find out until you wake up at 4am by which time the best seats are gone. But I usually fly on the 6am, 6:15 or 6:30,

 

[Renato1]

My first post. Joined out of frustration. Qantas cancelling Melb/Syd seems to have become a practice since Oct last year. I've been cancelled 9 times since then. 4 in the last 6 weeks. Very frustrating coordinating transport/meeting changes. Weather I can understand but these are not connected to weather just filling seats.

Ouch. That's pretty amazing - and annoying.
Regards,
Renato

 

[deka2]

Also happened to me. I go to Melbourne once a month. The annoying thing is the timing.of the cancellation.

Late last year I received a text on my phone when I was in the taxi n the way the the airport.

Ended up on a flight an hour after the original one, seated in the middle up the back.

 

[CJS]

Weather events aside (and there have been a lot in the last 6 months), i usually find that SYD-MEL, Qantas will often cancel the :15 or :45 flights if bookings are low and move you onto the :00 or :30 for that hour. There are flights every 15 mins from 6am til 9am, so I find it I get moved ahead/back by 15 mins it doesnt make a lot of different as I always leave some buffer in my meeting schedule.

The :15 and :45 past the hour flights often have cheaper seats, so I book knowing I'll more likely get moved.

My main grip is sometimes they send the cancellation sms st midnight so you dont find out until you wake up at 4am by which time the best seats are gone.

Weather events aside (and there have been a lot in the last 6 months), i usually find that SYD-MEL, Qantas will often cancel the :15 or :45 flights if bookings are low and move you onto the :00 or :30 for that hour. There are flights every 15 mins from 6am til 9am, so I find it I get moved ahead/back by 15 mins it doesnt make a lot of different as I always leave some buffer in my meeting schedule.

The :15 and :45 past the hour flights often have cheaper seats, so I book knowing I'll more likely get moved.

My main grip is sometimes they send the cancellation sms st midnight so you dont find out until you wake up at 4am by which time the best seats are gone.

Only most of my flights were on the hour or half hour early morning/mid afternoon and 20:00. You also lose your seat allocation. Which only adds to the frustration of being delayed. But there I got it off my chest !

 

[ozfflyer]

back in the days of Ansett, there used to be flights scheduled BNE/SYD at 6am, 6.30am, 7am, 7.30am.

Qantas had exactly the same timings. Often on quieter days of the week, like Tuesday, instead of each operating 4 flights 6am-7.30am, Ansett would operate 2 & Qantas 2 & presume pax would be either offered the a flight time 1/2 hour either side or if they insisted, on the opposition. Apparently it all, equalled out in the long run,

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

As above just fly on the :00 or :30. I travel most weeks in each direction on the 5pm 452 and 453 and only ever 1 cancellation recently.

I think its reasonable for QF to cancel if issues like today or weather or just light loads arise given the cost of operation and the frequency they offer.

 

[RooFlyer]

Only most of my flights were on the hour or half hour early morning/mid afternoon and 20:00. You also lose your seat allocation. Which only adds to the frustration of being delayed. But there I got it off my chest !

Welcome to AFF - pity it had to be on such a coughpy issue. Hope you can get some usefulness out of the site.

 

[JohnK]

Not just SYD-MEL. Same happens on SYD-BNE and has affected me quite a few times. Quite a few flights are cancelled in the leadup to the day and then I've had a few cancelled on my way out to the airport. Yes some cancellations are weather related but others appear to be improving loadings.

P.S. This is not good practice to do to your customers.

 

[Mattg]

Playing devil's advocate here... if there are Boeing 737 flights scheduled at 7.15am and another at 7.30am, but both flights only have 60 seats sold, is it not much better for the environment (and Qantas shareholders) to just fly everyone at 7.30am?

I do understand the frustrations around losing seat selections, etc.

 

[tdimdad]

It sometimes feels amazing if an evening flight actually is on and also leaves on time. My standard line these days is "I'll let you know when I'm likely to be there".

 

[JohnK]

Playing devil's advocate here... if there are Boeing 737 flights scheduled at 7.15am and another at 7.30am, but both flights only have 60 seats sold, is it not much better for the environment (and Qantas shareholders) to just fly everyone at 7.30am?

I do understand the frustrations around losing seat selections, etc.

It's ok in those situations but when they have a 7:00pm flight, an 8:30pm flight and a 10:00pm flight and cancel the 8:30pm flight when you get to the airport it creates potential problems.

It's not just seat selection. The BNE airtrain finishes up at 10:00pm so now you need taxi/Uber out of the airport with a minimum of $20 spend. And if you arrive close to midnight and going the wrong way you might need a taxi all the way home.

I've lost count of the number of times this has happened to me in the past 11 years and yes it does happen to me more often than most. It is frustrating. It makes planning very difficult.

 

[CJS]

Only most of my flights were on the hour or half hour early morning/mid afternoon and 20:00. You also lose your seat allocation. Which only adds to the frustration of being delayed. But there I got it off my chest !

Cracked the double numbers this morning. 8:30am flight cancelled. Now 10 QANTAS flights cancelled and 5 changed since October. Advised mechanical problem when I rang FF Platinum for info. Asked for, but didn't get allocated a seat. Auto system stuck me up the back in the middle. I'm lifetime Gold and Platinum now for 8 years. Does this happen on Virgin ?

 

[JohnK]

The 6:00pm SYD-BNE cancelled Sunday. Received text at 2:00pm and shortly thereafter moved to the 5:30pm flight. Interesting the 5:30pm flight had quite a few spare seats.

I noticed the 4:30pm SYD-BNE also cancelled.

If only I wasn't so cynical.

 

[Haplo]

I think given SYD/MEL is so saturated it probably make sense from environment point of view to consolidate flight.

Lets put it this way, if your regular 15 minutes morning peak bus is cancelled and you have to take the next one, would you chuck a massive stink about it or accept it is just the way of life.

 

[CJS]

Yeah I get that. There a million more important things. However QANTAS have just cancelled my flight tomorrow. Number 11 now ! Am I on some sort of record here ? It's like 1 in 3 flights now. Do Virgin cancel as much ...or as often ?

 

[Berlin]

Happens to me all the time: MEL-SYD, MEL-BNE, SYD-BNE and I've been told Canberra too (though I personally hardly ever fly this route). Obviously load management and highly annoying to customers, especially if you've carefully selected your preferred seat weeks ahead or you have a connection (I often connect to Auckland via Melbourne or Brissy so I know only too well ).

 

[CJS]

My last post on this topic ( honest ). QF490 Melb/Syd - 20:00 Cancelled @ 18:00. Moved to 20:30. Had to rebook seating, rebook pick up . My 12th cancellation in 6mths. 10th this year. All due to load. I accept weather and other out of Q control interuptions. All I want is: to be sure what I book and pay for I receive and set and forget.

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

I think you've had some pretty bad luck there. This evening the 6pm and 7pm MEL-SYD are showing as cancelled which should be the safe ones.

Virgin put guidance out today and blamed lower rev on softer domestic conditions so I think both airlines are tightly managing domestic yield atm.