12/12 Cancellations

[travelislife]

Got to the airport for our 5pm service travelling home from SYD-MEL today…flight is cancelled and rescheduled out on a flight at 6:30am tomorrow morning, Tuesday. Travelling with wife and 2yo and 4yo. 1.5hrs drive from Northern Beaches where we were staying with family for the weekend. Currently in customer service line to see if Virgin will stump for a hotel. My NAB Platinum travel insurance pretty much useless with a total $120 limit for the 4 of us. Fun.

 

[travelislife]

Well nearly 3 hours in the car, and 3 hours of futile time wasted at the airport, it’s going to be an early 4am start tomorrow. Fun continues.

 

[jrfsp]

Both SYD and MEL are a mess with weather today. Multiple cancellations / diversions.

 

[clifford]

Long wait times on the phone today for a Plat (me). Makes sense now.

 

[Saab34]

Well nearly 3 hours in the car, and 3 hours of futile time wasted at the airport, it’s going to be an early 4am start tomorrow. Fun continues.

Did they offer you hotel compo?

 

[wannabeinvestmentbanker]

Ouch! I gave VA a go this week and luckily was booked on the 4.30 which actually ran but delayed 2 hrs

Severe ATC restrictions with the bad weather. SYD was one runway and MEL has been periodically closed throughout the day.

 

[travelislife]

Did they offer you hotel compo?

No. Hotel would have been ideal with the early start tomorrow. When I asked for one they said we don’t have to give you anything (not even a food voucher) when it is a weather delay. I felt bad for the couple of backpackers in front of us who had been on planes for 20+ hours who were stranded trying to connect to Cairns. Hopefully their travel insurance covered a hotel for them.

 

[travelislife]

Our flight out of Mel to Syd on Thursday was delayed 2 hours as well. So not a great weekend for us travel wise! All these delays are exacerbated when travelling with kids too. We are very selective on the flight times we pick for it all to go as smoothly as possible. That goes completely out the window when the delays start.

 

[JohnK]

At which point did policy change on offering accommodation on weather delays?

Both Qantas and Virgin used to offer accommodation on any delay when I was commuting a few years ago.

Keep increasing executive salaries and continue to offer less and less to the customer. How about another bonus at Christmas for executive team?

 

[travelislife]

Well made it home with 2 pretty cranky kids after the 4am wake up this morning! Flight out of Syd was delayed about 40 minutes as well unfortunately. A lot of multiple apologies from the flight crew for yesterday and today. Flight obviously chockers. Not a spare seat.

 

[UP4014]

After a flight last week I'm wondering if sometimes it's a stretch to blame the weather.

Travelling with a colleague Melbourne back to Sydney Friday night last week. He prefers Virgin and I QF. Off we went to each of the respective lounges with flights scheduled to depart within half an hour of each other.

His flight was delayed with lounge announcement blaming bad weather in Sydney, QF flights departing as normal and no delays on the board.

 

[Katie]

I was in SYD yesterday (Mon 12/12) after arriving on QF12, transferring to QF516 (was meant to be 512, but we missed that connection).

QF12 landed 30-45 mins late due to clouds and storm activity around. We got through immigration, baggage pretty quickly, and were at domestic transfer around 10am, missing QF52 boarding. On the bus from Int to Dom terminals, we saw two clear lightning flashes; a storm was coming from the south.
Arrive into the domestic terminal to hear an announcement that the airport had closed during the storm activity (i.e. all tarmac operations, arrivals and departures had been halted). There were luggage carts sitting with bags next to aircraft that presumably got drenched.

QF516 ended up taking off at about 12:15, instead of 11:05.

Yesterday, there was definitely serious weather in Sydney that would have affected most flights/operations from 10am onwards.

 

[JohnK]

Yesterday, there was definitely serious weather in Sydney that would have affected most flights/operations from 10am onwards.

And with limited schedules would these delays flow on to today?

 

[Katie]

And with limited schedules would these delays flow on to today?

I'm not sure, it would depend somewhat if all aircraft and crews were able to be where they should be at the end of last night?

I was mostly commenting that my experience yesterday with SYD is that weather most definitely caused delays, which would have continued to affect flights for the rest of the day.

 

[travelislife]

I was in SYD yesterday (Mon 12/12) after arriving on QF12, transferring to QF516 (was meant to be 512, but we missed that connection).

QF12 landed 30-45 mins late due to clouds and storm activity around. We got through immigration, baggage pretty quickly, and were at domestic transfer around 10am, missing QF52 boarding. On the bus from Int to Dom terminals, we saw two clear lightning flashes; a storm was coming from the south.
Arrive into the domestic terminal to hear an announcement that the airport had closed during the storm activity (i.e. all tarmac operations, arrivals and departures had been halted). There were luggage carts sitting with bags next to aircraft that presumably got drenched.

QF516 ended up taking off at about 12:15, instead of 11:05.

Yesterday, there was definitely serious weather in Sydney that would have affected most flights/operations from 10am onwards.

There was a storm yes. Lasted one hour. All done by about 1pm. Then clear skies for rest of the day (but still windy). But that was enough to blow the whole system up for the rest of the day.

I’m no expert and will leave that to the experienced people, but that they couldn’t get MEL-SYD turn arounds up and going again did look very frustrating for a lot of people.

 

[jrfsp]

There was a storm yes. Lasted one hour. All done by about 1pm. Then clear skies for rest of the day (but still windy). But that was enough to blow the whole system up for the rest of the day.

I’m no expert and will leave that to the experienced people, but that they couldn’t get MEL-SYD turn arounds up and going again did look very frustrating for a lot of people.

SYD was down to one runway for a good part of the day so even though it re-opens, domestic flights need to be cancelled to reduce flow

 

[odysseus]

After a flight last week I'm wondering if sometimes it's a stretch to blame the weather.

Travelling with a colleague Melbourne back to Sydney Friday night last week. He prefers Virgin and I QF. Off we went to each of the respective lounges with flights scheduled to depart within half an hour of each other.

His flight was delayed with lounge announcement blaming bad weather in Sydney, QF flights departing as normal and no delays on the board.

Two things I'd say to that.

1) QF has a larger fleet so has somewhat greater/flexibility to recover in some cases
2) Individual flights as being compared here need to look at the aircraft route history for that day. Your colleague's flight may have e.g. flown PER-ADL-BNE-SYD-MEL in the course of the day (or other unaffected ports), whereas the VA flight may have been dedicated to MEL-SYD rtns so caught up from the beginning of the day and suffering flow on effects.

Thus, I wouldn't say it's a stretch that the weather is fault, but individual flights you may see different impacts.

 

[UP4014]

Two things I'd say to that.

1) QF has a larger fleet so has somewhat greater/flexibility to recover in some cases
2) Individual flights as being compared here need to look at the aircraft route history for that day. Your colleague's flight may have e.g. flown PER-ADL-BNE-SYD-MEL in the course of the day (or other unaffected ports), whereas the VA flight may have been dedicated to MEL-SYD rtns so caught up from the beginning of the day and suffering flow on effects.

Thus, I wouldn't say it's a stretch that the weather is fault, but individual flights you may see different impacts.

Ah yes good point, so the announcement may have been more accurate if they said the delay was caused by bad weather from 5 hours ago.

 

[Saab34]

Have a look at NTL for Northern Beaches also. When the weather smashes the Sydney Basin generally NTL avoids the worst with little in the way around air traffic/runway delays . I have family in Gosford and don't even bother with Mascot anymore.

 

[travelislife]

Not sure I agree with that for the Northern Beaches. Minimum 2 hour drive from Newport to Newcastle. But yes can see how could make sense from Gosford.