Downgraded from Business Class on Qantas due to "tech crew" [pilot] Travel Requirements

[TheInsider]

I want to make it clear that the contract of carriage is severly deficient and it is my strong opinion that if QANTAS downgrades a passanger due to EBA or Overbooking, they should refund the whole fare and give some extra compensation. (5000 points is a joke)

Are you implying that they should be given a full refund of the total fare paid (given a free flight) and then more compensation on top of this?
Even EU regulations aren't that generous.

 

[SOPOOR]

Are you implying that they should be given a full refund of the total fare paid (given a free flight) and then more compensation on top of this?
Even EU regulations aren't that generous.

I think that is extremely unlikely and over the top

But spare a thought to people like my parents who find it very difficult to do long haul in economy (bad back, old etc) and will not go to certain continents unless in business or above.

Imagine them paying for business and then being forced onto economy, the implications simply arent get them from A to B

 

[Pushka]

I think that is extremely unlikely and over the top

But spare a thought to people like my parents who find it very difficult to do long haul in economy (bad back, old etc) and will not go to certain continents unless in business or above.

Imagine them paying for business and then being forced onto economy, the implications simply arent get them from A to B

Then like us, not fly Qantas international. I'm thinking other airlines, Qatar, Emirates, SQ and so on would not do this.

 

[SOPOOR]

Then like us, not fly Qantas international. I'm thinking other airlines, Qatar, Emirates, SQ and so on would not do this.

I dont know the ins and outs of all the behaviours of other airlines, however even my parents who dont even remotely follow aviation news think qantas reputation is disgusting, and would probably avoid them at all costs unless there was no alternatives

 

[equus]

Imagine them paying for business and then being forced onto economy, the implications simply arent get them from A to B

The conditions of carriage don't allow Qantas to force anybody into economy. The conditions state

at your option:

meaning the passenger gets to choose. It might be no effective choice if you need to make a connection, but I would argue that the missed connection (if truly a connection) is still Qantas' problem if your chosen option is:

• accommodate you on a reasonable alternative available flight on our services.

The trick here is to know your options - and to stick firm. Reasonable alternative should be fairly obvious - gets you to the same place, and not weeks later, and available is not qualified by anything like fare buckets or the like - if there is an empty seat in the right cabin it should be yours.

 

[Pushka]

The conditions of carriage don't allow Qantas to force anybody into economy. The conditions state

meaning the passenger gets to choose. It might be no effective choice if you need to make a connection, but I would argue that the missed connection (if truly a connection) is still Qantas' problem if your chosen option is:


The trick here is to know your options - and to stick firm. Reasonable alternative should be fairly obvious - gets you to the same place, and not weeks later, and available is not qualified by anything like fare buckets or the like - if there is an empty seat in the right cabin it should be yours.

We had an international connection so no choice.

 

[Ade]

upgrade system somehow caused a double issue of those boarding passes.

Slightly OT - I have had this happen to me. 17 Aug MEL-SIN QF35, upgraded from Flex Y to PE at the gate. But the agent had 4 BPs with various seat numbers in PE for me. He handed me the incorrect one by mistake. I boarded and he came running down the aerobridge - asked me to come with him, scanned all the 3 remaining passes and handed the right one with the right seat number.

 

[Austman]

I'm thinking other airlines, Qatar, Emirates, SQ and so on would not do this.

There's plenty of online reports of all of those doing it, but at the gate or at check-in.

Pax claiming it was forced on them etc.

It seems to be industry-wide.

A difference being exactly how each airline does it. And what compensation they might offer.

To add: I think it was really bizare that it happened to you when you were on-board and seated! I can only imagine that Qantas, at the time boarding commenced, thought there were at least 2 no-shows in J? But those no-shows then "showed"??

 

[kangarooflyer88]

It's a publicly available document on the Fair Work Commission Website.

So maybe there is some precedence here in favour of the employees. But it still does not absolve Qantas of their duty of care to you under the terms you agreed to with them per the conditions of carriage.

Section 4.7 of QF's contract of carriage says they can either accommodate a passenger on a reasonable alternate flight or pay the fare difference. They do not guarantee you a seat.

As others have pointed out, Section 4.7 is specifically worded that it is at the discretion of the traveller which remedy is chosen. I would argue that either remedy could be valid depending on the need. For instance, if you got bumped from J to Y flying QF to JFK, I think you'd want to be put on a later flight to NYC rather than slum it in Y despite of the fare differential offered. Similarly if you are on a status credit run and counted on earning those exact status credits you may very well want to let QF rebook you to ensure you receive the status credits you need. On the other hand if it's a short segment of an otherwise long journey, sometimes taking the L there makes sense.

We had an international connection so no choice.

I don't think anyone is disputing your decision here. It was the right one given the circumstances. Certainly I wouldn't throw a fit if it's a short segment of a long haul trip.

There's plenty online reports of all of those doing it, but at the gate or at check-in.

Pax claiming it was forced on them etc.

It seems to be industry-wide.

A difference being exactly how each airline does it. And what compensation they might offer.

Correct and different airlines handle it differently. Part of that is due to the culture (i.e. US which tends to be more pro consumer) some of it is spelled out in law such as Europe's EU261 or Canada and Israel's Passenger bill of rights. Regardless, it's clear that this stuff needs to be codified in regulation. Hopefully this is something positive that will come from the ACCC investigation along with former CEO Alan Joyce violating the terms of the OneWorld alliance by saying no to Qatar.

-RooFlyer88

 

[equus]

Similarly if you are on a status credit run

If you are on a status run, you just claim Original Routing Credit (unless of course the reasonable alternative is a multi-sector routing that will generate you even more status credits)

 

[kangarooflyer88]

If you are on a status run, you just claim Original Routing Credit (unless of course the reasonable alternative is a multi-sector routing that will generate you even more status credits)

What makes you so certain ORC will grant you the original credits you were ticketed to during a downgrade? Certainly the airline could be justified in saying well we refunded you the fare difference so you flew in economy, there you go!

 

[equus]

What makes you so certain ORC will grant you the original credits you were ticketed to during a downgrade? Certainly the airline could be justified in saying well we refunded you the fare difference so you flew in economy, there you go!

That fact that it is a different department that handles it - and it is a tried and trusted process. You simply email them the details of the original PNR and the fact that you were involuntarily re-routed / downgraded / whatever and they will process it.

 

[jpp42]

We had an international connection so no choice.

How is that no choice? Surely Qantas should have rescheduled your connection too?

 

[Pushka]

How is that no choice? Surely Qantas should have rescheduled your connection too?

We only had 8 days away and didn't want to cut it back further. One flight to Bali a day from Melbourne amd we wouldn't get to other cities in time for theirs.

Post automatically merged: Sep 5, 2023

There's plenty of online reports of all of those doing it, but at the gate or at check-in.

Pax claiming it was forced on them etc.

It seems to be industry-wide.

A difference being exactly how each airline does it. And what compensation they might offer.

To add: I think it was really bizare that it happened to you when you were on-board and seated! I can only imagine that Qantas, at the time boarding commenced, thought there were at least 2 no-shows in J? But those no-shows then "showed"??

I can imagine for overbooking but not for employee reasons.

I have a subscription to expert flyer and right up until our upgrade, there were at least two seats free in J. The seat map showed the seats we were allocated as available to book. So not a no show.

 

[Clayton]

And pilots are the only reason customers can pay to fly.

It's a cyclical relationship, but for me this all goes back to the way Qantas approaches service issues and recovery not the incident itself.

For instance the approach to downgrade compensation being difference between paid J and flex Y fare is absolutely ludicrous and should be changed.

And baggage handlers, refuellers and ground crew are the only reason the pilots can fly the aircraft as well. It is a finely tuned ecosystem and normally customers have more rights than employees, unless you're an employee of UA, AA or other union dominated sky-buses.

 

[Austman]

I have a subscription to expert flyer and right up until our upgrade, there were at least two seats free in J. The seat map showed the seats we were allocated as available to book. So not a no show.

Still can be a no show.

J was fully booked once you took the last 2 seats. And once check-in closed they'd see if J had fully checked-in. It no doubt had.

But there can still be no shows and cancellations after check-in closes.

Eg they might have seen that 2 x J pax would almost certainly miss their connection to your flight. And no shows can happen when pax do online check-ins and then don't turn up. There's probably other reasons too.

 

[Ambo]

As others have pointed out, Section 4.7 is specifically worded that it is at the discretion of the traveller which remedy is chosen. I would argue that either remedy could be valid depending on the need. For instance, if you got bumped from J to Y flying QF to JFK, I think you'd want to be put on a later flight to NYC rather than slum it in Y despite of the fare differential offered. Similarly if you are on a status credit run and counted on earning those exact status credits you may very well want to let QF rebook you to ensure you receive the status credits you need. On the other hand if it's a short segment of an otherwise long journey, sometimes taking the L there makes sense.

I didn't say it wasn't the traveler's discretion. The purpose of my post it to say that the EBA is enforced by Federal Law. The Language of the Conditions of Carriage allow QANTAS flexibility that QANTAS don't have under a EBA or the Fair Work Act.

The EBA supersedes the conditions of carriage because the conditions of carriage allow for QANTAS to downgrade a passenger and provide alternatives but the EBA and thus Federal Law don't allow QANTAS to downgrade a pilot.

 

[jpp42]

The EBA supersedes the conditions of carriage because the conditions of carriage allow for QANTAS to downgrade a passenger and provide alternatives but the EBA and thus Federal Law don't allow QANTAS to downgrade a pilot.

You're missing the point. No one is saying Qantas should violate the EBA*. But the situation simply shouldn't exist in the first place. People in this thread are sugggesting:

* Qantas should operate in a manner such that this is an extremely rare situation; i.e. having enough standby pilots in all major ports, planning most deadhead moves well in advance
* If there is no alternative, Qantas must come up with fairer ways such as voluntary downgrades for market based compensation (i.e. keep increasing the compensation until even Donald Trump would take it.)
* Qantas should try to renegotiate the EBA to make the right to business class less strict on short-haul flights (I understand not all would agree, but it's an option), given it's unlikely to actually be a "safety issue."
* Australia should implement fairer compensation schemes for all such issues, along the lines of US DOT's denied boarding rules or EU 261. This is the real crux of the matter.

* I would also wonder if the EBA is quite as strict as people are making it out to be. What is the actual contractual remedy if Qantas is forced to fly a deadhead pilot in Economy class? It's not like someone's going to gaol for a "violation of federal law." I suspect the actual impact will might well be elsewhere, i.e. the deadheading flight in economy might count as paid duty time rather than rest time or something like that.

 

[equus]

There are many scenarios that could have caused @Pushka timing. The fact that the seat usurpers were in the lounge doesn't mean that they were necessarily intended to be on that flight. Holding the flight, and the very late dealing with the situation tends to suggest (at least to me) some very dynamic shuffling going on.

A possible scenario is that the pilots in question were scheduled to operate a flight somewhere, and were on duty travel for that - but not booked on this flight at all, but on another one - possibly later, or possibly to a totally different destination. A situation then develops and QF are short of pilots to operate something soon from MEL. Whoever is responsible for the crew assignments then works out that the can reallocate these pilots to that flight - and there is an ADL-MEL flight with timings that make it workable.

What we don't see or know, it what other pilots were moved from somewhere else to cover what may have been the original plan for these two - or what flight gets delayed / cancelled.

I doubt that even QF would plan to have pilots placed on a flight well before boarding without allocating them to a seat then subsequently delay the flight and mess up the handling of the downgrade just on the off-chance that 2pax checked in might no-show.

 

[jpp42]

What we don't see or know, it what other pilots were moved from somewhere else to cover what may have been the original plan for these two - or what flight gets delayed / cancelled.

I doubt that even QF would plan to have pilots placed on a flight well before boarding without allocating them to a seat then subsequently delay the flight and mess up the handling of the downgrade just on the off-chance that 2pax checked in might no-show.

This is why I'm wondering what the EBA actually says if duty travel pilots must be assigned economy, even though they're entitled to business class normally. Usually, the lawyers have thought about it and there will already be some kind of remedy - as I mentioned above, maybe they will be paid at their normal duty rate and the flight counted as duty time, rather than rest, for hours of service calculations. This might impact the length or number of subsequent flights they can operate that day, but if it were really that urgent a last-minute situation, this could buy the crew planners a few more hours to work out what to do about the later flight(s).

Also, Qantas doesn't have business class on all flights, what happens when pilots get assigned economy on a 717 to HBA or similar?