Completely fogged off

[Moody]

Had a day trip to Canberra today, but knowing the weather challenges that can encounter I booked a later flight than normal. When I got to the Sydney QC I was unsurprised to see the earlier jet was delayed wheras my turbo-prop was on time. This proved to be a false endorsement.

There was an annoncement about fog and my boarding time slipped by half an hour. I approached the service des to see if I could swap onto the now boarding jet, but was told it was full and they were about to call flight anyway. The person beside me seemed to have jagged the jet but I assume that was status-based and they did call my flight 5 minutes later so no big loss. I went down to gate 17 to find a scrum of people and a complete lack of boarding. The only activity in the next 15 minutes was the off-loading of an earlier flight that had been turned around and sent back to Sydney.


Back to the lounge for another juice and looking at the screens showed that the previous turbo-prop was now boarding again. I was about to ask if there were any seats when they made an announcement to the same effect. You bewdy! I joined the queue of people hoping to get on the earlier flight but there was confusion when I handed over the boarding pass and the seats that had previously been available were now locked out again. They siad that they would be boarding my flight imminently anyway, and like a sucker I believed them.

Back to the bar for some toast and a quite long wait before my flight was finally called. Gate 17 was still a zoo and they were still boarding the previous flight because there was one no-show. Go without him was the communal opinion and he got some dirty looks when he unapologetically sauntered in 5 minutes later. After another internimable (?) delay they finallly boarded my flight but then spent another 25 minutes on the tarmac doing sweet FA.

The flight was uneventual and I landed around 11:45, which was 75 minutes after my colleague from Melbourne. "Must have just been lifting as you arrived?" I said. No - it was a beautiful clear day at 10:30.

So it puzzles me how Qantas can be so pathetically disorganised when they had hundreds of people and plenty of planes and no fog for 2 hours.

Anyway - we salvaged what we could out of the day and then headed back to the airport for our respective flights. These at least were on time but when I presented my boarding pass (printed that morning) at the gate there was a final twist. It gave a bleep which I assumed was because it was an exit-row seat. No - it was a rejection and I was directed to the service desk. The desk-jockey frowned when I gave him the BP and said "You have been completely cancelled - reservation, ticket, the lot!" And the flight was full....

For the second time in a week I found myself a long way from home with no ticket to ride, but this time it ost definitely was not my fault. The DJ was fortunately on my side and presented me with a boarding pass and said "I've sent the bill to Sydney because they created this mess."

He almost but not quite saved the day for Qantas who could do a whole lot better.

 

[ozmille]

For the second time in a week I found myself a long way from home with no ticket to ride, but this time it ost definitely was not my fault. The DJ was fortunately on my side and presented me with a boarding pass and said "I've sent the bill to Sydney because they created this mess."

He almost but not quite saved the day for Qantas who could do a whole lot better.

Did you still make your flight?

 

[markis10]

So it puzzles me how Qantas can be so pathetically disorganised when they had hundreds of people and plenty of planes and no fog for 2 hours.

Disorganised because they took two hours to get you to Canberra after the fog lifted, I don't think so! It's not like the airport and airline can stop moving the rest of the world and roll out the red carpet for you, fact is your flight is now an unexpected movement that needs to fit in the holes that other movements have made that are running to allotted slots. The bigger picture is rarely obvious to those focused on their own issues, which is often the case with many delayed pax.

It's probable their great organization was the reason only a few flights might have been affected, when the roll on effects could have been far more significant. if your rattled enough why not do something constructive and lobby your MP to lift the artificial hourly cap on movements at Sydney so when the s##t hits the fan, there is more capacity to recover the situation.

 

[Moody]

Disorganised because they took two hours to get you to Canberra after the fog lifted, I don't think so! It's not like the airport and airline can stop moving the rest of the world and roll out the red carpet for you, fact is your flight is now an unexpected movement that needs to fit in the holes that other movements have made that are running to allotted slots. The bigger picture is rarely obvious to those focused on their own issues, which is often the case with many delayed pax.

It's probable their great organization was the reason only a few flights might have been affected, when the roll on effects could have been far more significant. if your rattled enough why not do something constructive and lobby your MP to lift the artificial hourly cap on movements at Sydney so when the s##t hits the fan, there is more capacity to recover the situation.

My colleague from Melbourne had a different experience from Melbourne. Virgin made an announcement that the wouldn't be boarding until they knew they could land at Canberra, duly boarded when they could, and landed in a sunny Canberra at 10:30. Now Sydney may be more problematic due to slots, but I can't believe that caps on movement impact the 10am to 12pm period. Hardly peak hour even after a few flights to Canberra bank up.

No - the problem seemed to be organising to get pax on planes once delays have been encountered, and today rates a fail in my mind.

 

[Hvr]

When I saw the fog this morning I wondered which of my AFF colleagues would be delayed.

The fog was actually quite intermittent with some areas fogbound and others in glorious sunlight.

You know you're a Canberran when you only book the first flight out of a morning because you cn be fairly sure it will take off regardless of the fog situation. And you fly up the night before in case of fog.

 

[harvyk]

When I saw the fog this morning I wondered which of my AFF colleagues would be delayed.

Yeah driving into Fyshwick this morning I was wondering the same thing, but it seemed to be clearing out there at 9am, so I don't know what it was like at the airport itself.

You know you're a Canberran when you only book the first flight out of a morning because you cn be fairly sure it will take off regardless of the fog situation. And you fly up the night before in case of fog.

Yeah, I usually get the first flight out in the morning...

As for the OP, well I would imagine QF hated having planes sitting around ready to go in SYD \ MEL \ BNE \ ADL as much as you hated it... Because a good number of the jets fly to CBR but then fly onto somewhere else so having the airport out of commission makes their life difficult.

 

[markis10]

My colleague from Melbourne had a different experience from Melbourne. Virgin made an announcement that the wouldn't be boarding until they knew they could land at Canberra, duly boarded when they could, and landed in a sunny Canberra at 10:30. Now Sydney may be more problematic due to slots, but I can't believe that caps on movement impact the 10am to 12pm period. Hardly peak hour even after a few flights to Canberra bank up.

No - the problem seemed to be organising to get pax on planes once delays have been encountered, and today rates a fail in my mind.

Neither you or I can say with any authority what the problem was, put simply we dont have the big picture. Sydney's movements are not too variable, they are capped at 80 per hour in total, thats 40 landings and 40 take offs all being equal, and it may come as a surprise to you but today the highest movements for the airport were between 9 and 11 AM today for the morning if you care to check webtrak, very much PEAK despite what you allege.



Today may be a fail in your mind, IMHO failing to do something constructive about it is also a fail.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Anyway - we salvaged what we could out of the day and then headed back to the airport for our respective flights. These at least were on time but when I presented my boarding pass (printed that morning) at the gate there was a final twist. It gave a bleep which I assumed was because it was an exit-row seat. No - it was a rejection and I was directed to the service desk. The desk-jockey frowned when I gave him the BP and said "You have been completely cancelled - reservation, ticket, the lot!" And the flight was full....

For the second time in a week I found myself a long way from home with no ticket to ride, but this time it ost definitely was not my fault. The DJ was fortunately on my side and presented me with a boarding pass and said "I've sent the bill to Sydney because they created this mess."

He almost but not quite saved the day for Qantas who could do a whole lot better.

I have heard of people having their return flight cancelled in the instance where they are doing a same day return & have checked in for both forward and return flights, then at some point after checking in, if their outbound flight is cancelled or changed it automatically cancels the return flight despite the pax already holding a boarding pass. When the pax is cancelled off the flight the seat allocation they were holding becomes avaiable again so ultimately reassigned to another pax on that flight.

I don't know whether that scenario is just a system anomaly or it's actually designed to do that but it has the potential to cause grief to many passengers.

It would be interesting to hear if that has happened to anyone else recently & whether or not they had checked in for their return flight.

 

[Gremlin]

I have heard of people having their return flight cancelled in the instance where they are doing a same day return & have checked in for both forward and return flights, then at some point after checking in, if their outbound flight is cancelled or changed it automatically cancels the return flight despite the pax already holding a boarding pass. When the pax is cancelled off the flight the seat allocation they were holding becomes avaiable again so ultimately reassigned to another pax on that flight.

I don't know whether that scenario is just a system anomaly or it's actually designed to do that but it has the potential to cause grief to many passengers.

It would be interesting to hear if that has happened to anyone else recently & whether or not they had checked in for their return flight.

Yes, this is the bit of the story I found most fascinating and probably the bit that the OP has the most reason to be upset about.