Does Qantas domestic scheduling have issues?

[Platy]

Including you, Platy? (viz. would like to hear your experiences...)

Actually, Anat0l, I do have choice! I book all of my own travel (being a small business owner and postgraduate student). And I have exercised it on occasions. I quick scan of my posting history will reveal many frustrations with the flying roo, which normally relate to a perception of poor management and woefully declining product and service standards (bear in mind I mostly fly domestic), but that said I have a prevailing appreciation of most QF coal face staff, one of the main reason I haven't become a regular on Virgin Blue.

I have given extensive feedback to QF (good and bad) in surveys, interviews, chats with management, etc, but the reality is that the dolalr is driving the airline beyond any capacity to listen to actual customers (most managers I have come across in QF actively do anything to avoid customer contact!!!).

I am reasonably close to Life Time Gold (maybe one more really good overseas trip!) so feel it worth keeping my main travel with QF until I reach that milestone and then can fly without concern about keeping status and choose the airline on the day. That said, the decline in value of the QF FF scheme in the last 7 years is diabolical IMHO.

Now I have often posted a wish to see Virgin join Star Alliance and then we can enjoy some real competition on the FF front!

If there was some serious competition (no disrespect to DJ, Dave, but you guys ain't there yet!) perhaps QF would be forced into a little more customer focus....(can you imagine first/business check ins being left unmanned in the days of competition with AN?).

 

[Dave Noble]

Irrelevant point. I have to check in my luggage. I live in a 1-bedroom studio in a hotel building. There are no adequate facilities, or time, for me to do washing, hanging up and ironing. I bring all my clothes with me when I go to BNE on Sunday and I bring back them back with me home to SYD on Friday.

You have the ability to work around the problem if you desire. It is unlikely that QF will magically fix all their problems overnight so either work a way around it or grow to love it

Why book flexible tickets? If there are delays it is likely to affect most flights and there is no guarantee that the flight I am on does not get cancelled anyway. I don't get a chance to get to the airport early all the time so Qantas should allow me the luxury to swap to an earlier flight ocassionally as they have continually stuffed me around more times than I care to remember.

In order to have flexibillity. Work out the luggage issue and then with a flexible ticket can head straight through security and try n get on the next flight leaving rather than have to wait for that which is booked. If flights are being delayed then it seems a logical approach

If the problems are occurring regularly then work a way around it

Dave

 

[Evan]

I used to fly MEL-SYD-MEL often, and due to the cost of fares on friday night and the issues i found it easier just to return saturday morning, but i had no family etc to worry about being home for in a hurry.
E

 

[JohnK]

I used to fly MEL-SYD-MEL often, and due to the cost of fares on friday night and the issues i found it easier just to return saturday morning, but i had no family etc to worry about being home for in a hurry.

I would do that as well but I am just trying to maximise the amount of time I have in SYD.

I am no longer the new employee so I can get away a little earlier on the Friday. A couple of weeks ago I booked all my flights through to the end of March and they are all 5:15pm and 5:45pm departures on Friday afternoon. Even if they are delayed slightly should still see me in Sydney around ~9:00pm at the latest.

And when I am ready to book the next lot of flights through to end of June I may be able to leave BNE some weeks on a Thursday night and work from home on Fridays or even work 9-10 hours Monday-Thursday and have Friday off....

 

[crazydave98]

There is only one other option and at the moment that is not a feasible option.

I can understand why Virgin Blue may not be your preferred carrier but what makes it infeasible?

 

[JohnK]

I can understand why Virgin Blue may not be your preferred carrier but what makes it infeasible?

There are a number of factors to consider.

• Much easier to reach top status on QF, ie requires less spend
• With status comes greater baggage allowances, lounge access, priority checkin
• More generous FF point earning, eg QF minimum 1,000 point guarantee
• Greater network of partners to earn FF points, eg not just from credit cards but from car hire, hotels etc
• More choice of carriers in redeeming flights and more importantly in all of this is the ability to construct a RTW award with FF points earned
• Meals and beverages on some flights, sure not a big deal but if I feel like a beer then I do not have to pay an extra $6/beer in flight
• Member of an alliance, very important to be part of a global alliance as I do not fly enough to split my domestic and overseas flying to separate carriers/alliances although with my weekly commute SYD-BNE getting me close to Platinum again I now have the chance of being able to book other carriers on my trips to SE Asia

There are other less important factors and no need to go into each one of these in detail. I will support Virgin where possible but for now I am stuck with QF until a better alternative appears, which may be never....

 

[Actualise]

This thread has branched far and wide, but I promised to get back on this question of whether I got points of the turned back QF665.

I can confirm that if you get turned back even halfway or more, you aren't going to get any FF credits, miles or status.

You get full points on the flight you are transferred to - in my case a supplementary fright 8401 on Sat.

Cheers,
Andrew.

 

[Flashback]

Didn't work for me. I was rebooked on the 5:05am departure the following morning and only received SCs and points for the rebooked flight. So I guess it really is a case of YMMV.

Definitely YMMV. I was recently on a PER-PER with a flight duration of just over 1 hour, then rebooked onto a flight that left 6 hours later. I only received SC for the latter flight.

 

[Flashback]

I have to admit BNE D QF is a joke, only possibly exceeded by PER D QF.

There's a PER D QF? :shock:

 

[anat0l]

There's a PER D QF? :shock:

I can't remember the terminal numbers. It's the Qantas part of PER Domestic terminal.

 

[Flashback]

I can't remember the terminal numbers. It's the Qantas part of PER Domestic terminal.

I don't remember ever seeing a D lounge..... there's a normal QP, and a CL (of which I've been in both).

 

[Mal]

I don't remember ever seeing a D lounge..... there's a normal QP, and a CL (of which I've been in both).

I think Anat0l means "domestic" by use of "D" rather than "Business".

 

[tuapekastar]

I don't remember ever seeing a D lounge..... there's a normal QP, and a CL (of which I've been in both).

I suspect the D may have been intended denote Domestic?

Edit: And now I see Mal's post!

 

[anat0l]

Spot on Mal and tuapekastar.

When I say BNE D QF, I mean the Qantas section of the Brisbane Domestic terminal. (We don't have terminal numbers here in BNE; we just say 'domestic' or 'international', or rather Terminal D and Terminal I).

Hopefully you weren't also reading QF as QP by mistake...

To translate what I was trying to say, BNE domestic terminal (QF side anyway, can't really vouch for JQ and DJ) is IMHO one of the worst capital city airports in AU, although to be really fair, no airport can do bad for everything after the security checkpoint (i.e. how does one complain about gates etc.), so the points of comparison really only are traffic management, check-in experience and security checkpoint.

Every airport has traffic issues (except for perhaps HBA, ADL and CBR), but BNE check-in is hopeless many times; the bag drop line just gets horrendous and calling people through is commonplace (with the resulting chaos).

However, I will vouch that PER domestic (QF) is worse. Not only does check-in get chockers (and often stampedes into the QuickCheck space as well as out the side door), but the security checkpoints are always full as well and quite slow. At least they have an additional machine at PER (when I flew in 2007, there were only 2 securiy machines), but it still does little to ease congestion.

I will give, though, that the view from the PER D QP is great - of course it's better if you can get a good seat (but nothing compared to SYD T3).

Anyway, that's quite enough O/T.

 

[JohnK]

Was there an emergency landing in SYD airport yesterday afternoon/evening, Thursday, that caused wholesale scheduling issues once again? I cannot confirm the source but this is the excuse given for most delayed flights out of BNE.

Just as an example QF549 landed 52 minutes late, QF551 was cancelled, QF553 landed 76 minutes late, QF555 landed 27 minutes late, QF557 landed 44 minutes late and QF 559 landed on time only 7 minutes late. I think there are load issues and QF is cancelling flights to attempt to save money. I cannot confirm or deny whether someone very close to me was 27 minutes late again. But only 27 minutes late this time. Maybe QF is improving after all....

 

[NM]

Was there an emergency landing in SYD airport yesterday afternoon/evening, Thursday, that caused wholesale scheduling issues once again?

If there was, it obviously did not involve Qantas or it would have been all over the media within the hour.

Sounds like you need to write a book titled "1001 excuses for a delayed flight" . You seem to have been spun many reasons in recent times.

 

[oz_mark]

If there was, it obviously did not involve Qantas or it would have been all over the media within the hour.

Sounds like you need to write a book titled "1001 excuses for a delayed flight" . You seem to have been spun many reasons in recent times.

Maybe it was the plane with the pungent odour landing.

 

[JohnK]

Sounds like you need to write a book titled "1001 excuses for a delayed flight" . You seem to have been spun many reasons in recent times.

I thought I heard all the excuses but QF seems to find a new excuse every week. This was another chaoitic night, and just happens to be a Thursday night this time not a Friday night, surprise surprise, and this excuse was announced over the PA for benefit of all passengers. QF has serious problems and we have people who could not care less and actually support them, as if being part of the marketing team, quoting textbook answers.

 

[straitman]

JohnK,

Can you please ensure you post all your flight bookings ahead of time so we know when not to book :?:

 

[JohnK]

Can you please ensure you post all your flight bookings ahead of time so we know when not to book :?:

Bill, all my bookings for the next few months are in the meeting thread. I would take it a little further to the point where people do not travel on the same day as me and definitely stay away from the airport I am flying from on a particular day. I feel sorry for what docjames had to endure last Friday at BNE airport.