Apologies, I know the conversation has moved on, but I need to correct an inaccuracy. Regardless of the amount of alcohol consumed, air passengers will not be under the weather. At cruising altitude they will be over the weather.
In the unlikely event that your customer’s flight is delayed overnight for reasons within our control and your customer is away from their home port, we will provide your customer with meals, accommodation (except where providing an accommodation will further delay the customer) and transfers.
We will provide your customer with any further assistance required by the laws of the applicable country if their travel on a Qantas operated flight is disrupted outside Australia.
Good luck with accommodation. We were 10hrs late leaving Sydney, no accomodation. We were 10 hrs late leaving Santiago for Buenos Aires, request for accommodation denied. Qantas couldn’t give a damn.
I was in London and booked to fly back on the impacted QF2 service. Through Flighty app I was getting alerts about the QF1 delay from Singapore so expected it wouldn’t depart on time that night. I wasn’t seeing any changes in the Qantas app to this point.
I then received an SMS from a Qantas team member at LHR advising me the flight would be delayed by at least 13 hours and offering assistance.
They offered to search for flights on other airlines or get me accomodation. I asked them to check other flights that day. She came back and booked me on an oversold Emirates flight with a confirmed Business class seat the whole way through to Melbourne.
From my experiences with Qantas in these matters they have always been proactive and helped as much as they can.
Maybe the difference is I figure they have probably got 400 upset customers, if I can be polite and friendly to the agent they tend to try and do a bit more for me to help. This was the case here, so whilst the situation sounded unavoidable due to the crew hours being exceeded, I didn’t think being aggressive with the team would get me a better result.
It's nice to hear you were pleasant to the staff (as one should be in any circumstances), but I doubt it had much impact on your positive outcome.
It was far more likely a combination of:
1. The threat of having to pay $1,040 in delay compensation (under UK law); and
2. Emirates having 6 daily A380 services between London and Dubai during an off-peak travel period in the UK (schools were back two weeks and most people would be back in work).
Being pleasant certainly made no difference in Singapore (or on the phone with Qantas).
- Earn up to 100,000 bonus Qantas Points* - Enjoy an annual $450 Qantas travel credit - Don't forget the two complimentary Qantas Club lounge invitations and two visits to the Amex Centurion Lounges in Melbourne and Sydney.
True… and applies to connections. However, it only appears to extend rebooking outside of the original connecting carrier if the fare rules are met. If it was a QF/AA fare only, you’d be stuck with AA. if it allowed any carrier from the US gateway to the final destination, you could book UA/DL etc. (or any carrier from the european gateway to the final destination).
Of course that’s just the rules, and as we know airport staff have a lot of leeway… especially in the USA for example. And probably in europe too given EU261.
I’m not sure there’s a right to be accommodated on another airline in the event of IRROPS.
this isn't entirely true. The reality is that there are potential options, moreso at the airport, if you speak to the right people. During an IRROPS situation the rebooking rules become slightly more flexible. This does need to be on day of departure, or it would otherwise be captured in the rebooking rules above (I can't remember if it's a 72 hour cut off for it to be called irrops vs schedule change?)
either way, in may 2024 I was on a QF/AA ticket, flying jfk-lax-syd-akl. when I was in the air flying jfk-lax my lax-syd was delayed 18 hours or something.
ended up exiting the secure area, going to first check on desk, talking to the duty manager at check in. Initially told "no we don't rebook on other carriers", until I pointed out a) this was an IRROPS situation, b) asserted a delayed lax-syd would further delay me home since the schedule made me miss the last syd-akl (resulting in an overnight to Sydney) and c) NZ had a lax-akl flying out with J seats in 2 hours
they promptly rebooked me onto NZ after than 5 minute interaction in J and I was off on my merry way
though it is annoying with qantas you have to push it. when I flew CX in a typhoon in 2023, my icn-hkg was cancelled so I couldn't do icn-hkg-akl, CX proactively put me on NZ icn-akl on departure day due to airport closure in hkg....
this isn't entirely true. The reality is that there are potential options, moreso at the airport, if you speak to the right people. During an IRROPS situation the rebooking rules become slightly more flexible. This does need to be on day of departure, or it would otherwise be captured in the rebooking rules above (I can't remember if it's a 72 hour cut off for it to be called irrops vs schedule change?)
either way, in may 2024 I was on a QF/AA ticket, flying jfk-lax-syd-akl. when I was in the air flying jfk-lax my lax-syd was delayed 18 hours or something.
ended up exiting the secure area, going to first check on desk, talking to the duty manager at check in. Initially told "no we don't rebook on other carriers", until I pointed out a) this was an IRROPS situation, b) asserted a delayed lax-syd would further delay me home since the schedule made me miss the last syd-akl (resulting in an overnight to Sydney) and c) NZ had a lax-akl flying out with J seats in 2 hours
they promptly rebooked me onto NZ after than 5 minute interaction in J and I was off on my merry way
though it is annoying with qantas you have to push it. when I flew CX in a typhoon in 2023, my icn-hkg was cancelled so I couldn't do icn-hkg-akl, CX proactively put me on NZ icn-akl on departure day due to airport closure in hkg....
As I said .. ‘airport staff have a lot more leeway especially in the USA’, which is where you were departing from.
The US is far more adaptive and flyer-friendly when it comes to rebooking during IRROPS.
The point is that for the pax on the delayed QF1, there may not be any simple enforceable *right* for rebooking on another carrier. It’s not in the contract of carriage, not in the policy, and it’s not covered by any consumer law.
this isn't entirely true. The reality is that there are potential options, moreso at the airport, if you speak to the right people. During an IRROPS situation the rebooking rules become slightly more flexible. This does need to be on day of departure, or it would otherwise be captured in the rebooking rules above (I can't remember if it's a 72 hour cut off for it to be called irrops vs schedule change?)
either way, in may 2024 I was on a QF/AA ticket, flying jfk-lax-syd-akl. when I was in the air flying jfk-lax my lax-syd was delayed 18 hours or something.
ended up exiting the secure area, going to first check on desk, talking to the duty manager at check in. Initially told "no we don't rebook on other carriers", until I pointed out a) this was an IRROPS situation, b) asserted a delayed lax-syd would further delay me home since the schedule made me miss the last syd-akl (resulting in an overnight to Sydney) and c) NZ had a lax-akl flying out with J seats in 2 hours
they promptly rebooked me onto NZ after than 5 minute interaction in J and I was off on my merry way
though it is annoying with qantas you have to push it. when I flew CX in a typhoon in 2023, my icn-hkg was cancelled so I couldn't do icn-hkg-akl, CX proactively put me on NZ icn-akl on departure day due to airport closure in hkg....
It's nice to hear you were pleasant to the staff (as one should be in any circumstances), but I doubt it had much impact on your positive outcome.
It was far more likely a combination of:
1. The threat of having to pay $1,040 in delay compensation (under UK law); and
2. Emirates having 6 daily A380 services between London and Dubai during an off-peak travel period in the UK (schools were back two weeks and most people would be back in work).
Being pleasant certainly made no difference in Singapore (or on the phone with Qantas).
Hi,
We were on that QF1 flight and wondered how you went about your request for compensation? Do you have an email address you could share with me to get started please? Very inexperienced traveller here with my two kids first travelling experience. Thank you
Hi,
We were on that QF1 flight and wondered how you went about your request for compensation? Do you have an email address you could share with me to get started please? Very inexperienced traveller here with my two kids first travelling experience. Thank you
Join Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) for free and unlock insider tips, exclusive deals, and global meetups with 65,000+ frequent flyers.AFF members can also access our Frequent Flyer Training courses, and upgrade to Fast-track your way to expert traveller status and unlock even more exclusive discounts!
