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

[prozac]

Quite a long time ago but Qantas had separated my wife and and I on a J flight from Sydney to Perth, hosties made no effort to help. Approached said Vince Sorrenti who was in aisle seat next my wife, said Hello Vince - he gave me that big toothy grin until I asked if he wouldn't mind moving to my window seat so my wife and I could sit together. Flat out said no way and got uptight. Nor would the guy next to me. He had a very cold and angry woman next to him for the next 4 hours or so
She was OFFENDED!

I've heard flying business class can do that to you. Now you know why the hosties didn't bother.

At least with Rodney Rude you knew what you were going to get!

 

[Pushka]

Wow, that’s all pretty condescending isn’t it? There’s only one person who observed the behaviour and suffered the consequences of the pilots in the lounge and that was the OP. You can call it tinfoil hat stuff if you like ( that’s pretty insulting in itself) but the OP was there, you weren’t and I think OP‘s take on things should carry some weight?

And the question remains if they were pilots acting boisterously, is that acceptable behaviour from a pilot on duty? They were on duty while in the lounge, we are told, so should their behaviour be any different in the lounge, than in the coughpit?

I’d love to hear the Qantas chief pilot’s view on this.

Don't worry about it RooFlyer, it seems there were others present who overheard their conversations and observed their behaviour and could make far better interpretation of their situation in life than we were.

 

[mannej]

All that aside, airlines should rethink their practice of ousting paying pax in order for any of their employees to get a comfy seat. If there's a free seat, then fine, but its mental to be treating their staff like that in the face of pissing off their customers.

But it’s not for all and sundry though is it…

I thought it’s quite clearly articulated in the thread that it’s only for tech crew on duty and not for the cleaner wanting to go on holiday.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

All that aside, airlines should rethink their practice of ousting paying pax in order for any of their employees to get a comfy seat. If there's a free seat, then fine, but its mental to be treating their staff like that in the face of pissing off their customers.

As a paying customer I would prefer my pilots and cabin crew to be in the most comfortable seat possible before operating my plane.

This doesn’t appear to be a common event, although unfortunate for the OP to have experienced it.

 

[elanshin]

All that aside, airlines should rethink their practice of ousting paying pax in order for any of their employees to get a comfy seat. If there's a free seat, then fine, but its mental to be treating their staff like that in the face of pissing off their customers.

There's many factors to this. This isn't staff standby tickets which are the lowest priority. If the tech crew is needed to make sure another flight doesn't get delayed or cancelled, in the grand scheme of things, it is better to get them there.

If its pilots, their EBA agreements have them in the highest class iirc. Flight attendants definitely don't oust J seats (I've watched them walk to the back of Y in repositioning flights.)

Now how QF handles this on the customer side is the real crux here. This is where improvements need to be made. The situations above do legitimately happen. Just that if the compensation for it are adequate and presented correctly, I doubt this thread would even exist.

 

[Pushka]

Now how QF handles this on the customer side is the real crux here. This is where improvements need to be made. The situations above do legitimately happen. Just that if the compensation for it are adequate and presented correctly, I doubt this thread would even exist.

Exactly this. I’ve stated this so many times. Why were we taken off the plane to deal with it. The fact that it was the two people we’d moved away from in the QP because of their disruption was the icing. Oh yeah. And being given the middle seat when we’d previously selected two aisle ones.

Shame this thread got started up again. I’d moved on. But here we are. @admin please close it down.