Flight delayed, missed connection and abandoned by Qantas

[Ade]

As far as I can see it is only so QF can say that they answer calls now in a reasonable time.

QF goes "Hey, y'all complained that it takes forevaaaaa to talk to someone from the call center. It took someone 9 hours etc etc. So we changed this and now y'all can speak to someone in under 5 minutes. But no one say nothin abut call center solving issues"

Customers go "yea!" and googles "Singapore airlines" or "Virgin Australia"

 

[Happy Dude]

Just been listening on ABC 774 MEL to a(nother) horror story involving Jetstar abandoning pax out of OOL, forcing them to travel to BNE at their own cost then back again when the BNE flights were cancelled. No-one is safe in the jungle.

 

[toowongman]

Madness. I literally can't trust an airline to fly my 76 yo mother interstate anymore. She wants to do BNE to MEL to visit some friends, I'm going to fly with her down and back and return vv. alone just so I can be there to aid with any irrops.

 

[porterble]

Didnt see this thread until the front page article. But I was in a similar situation to blackcat20 back in May with a MEL-SYD-DFW-IAH return flight where the connections were too tight in both SYD outbound and DFW return. When United ended up changing the IAH-DFW flight, the QF booking agent's response was to just cancel the entire booking under the premise that it would be easier to rebook de novo. Long story short they weren't able to rebook the flights and I ended up out of pocket for replacement flights for 9 weeks until they processed the refund on the original booking. Ended up spending more hours on hold with QF than I did actually airborne for the entire itinerary!

 

[RAM]

How has Qantas not fixed its automation! It is so bleeding obvious and would be a huge cost saver to reduce manual processes and calls to the inept call centres. This shows how flawed their systems currently are. The call centre just exposes all the problems

Chances are that a large part of the Q IT systems was originally written in COBOL which was (is?) unbeatable in data handling. Trouble is that COBOL went out of fashion after M$ made a massive push (in late 1980s early1990s) to launch their own workarounds to push companies onto Windows. Universities dropped COBOL in degrees by the early 1990s (at the latest). COBOL was under the hat of what used to be called 'structured programming'. Meaning if someone picked up the code then they could understand it vs much programming since then that is a mystery and examples such as Windows now run into tens of millions of lines with different groups updating a small component in isolation creating more 'bugs' (that hackers take advantage of).

As the fun & games over IT systems handling the Millenium - despite not working in IT (but having done well in COBOL at university in the 80s) I was contacted several times in early 1999 and offered $100 per line of COBOL program code if I committed to at least 13 weeks. A small COBOL program may have 8,000 to 12,000 lines. Large systems (in a bank or airline) often have over a million lines in total. The offers I received were all for banks' systems.

COBOL was described as akin to writing a world-ranking thesis (lots of lines of code that works) but runs at the speed of light as it is compiled into machine code - not each line 'interpreted'.

Given Q's history of 'enhancements' - what odds that the core of Q's IT system consists of COBOL grafted onto SAP & travel systems like Amadeus?

 

[encryptededdy]

what odds that the core of Q's IT system consists of COBOL grafted onto SAP & travel systems like Amadeus?

I would've expected rebooking and stuff to be built into Amadeus and the like?

 

[willclan]

I would not have accepted a domestic flight due to arrive 95 minutes before international departure.

I know it meets MCT but when things go wrong you'll lose out even if airline puts you on next available flight.

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

 

[justinbrett]

I know it meets MCT but when things go wrong you'll lose out even if airline puts you on next available flight.

I think the MCT at SYD for D-I needs to be reviewed, it really needs to be at least 2:00

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

Depends on the time of the flight - I like to aim for "3 bites at the cherry"- so I've got three flights that will get me to the departure port in time for the flight. So for BNE-SYD I am for 3:30-4:00 between flights. Whether or not there's seats on those flights isn't a consideration, it's just a planning guideline.

If I'm travelling on separate tickets home from the US (usually pay QF out of LAX but a separate AA ticket) - I always allow for heaps of time in LAX - 6+ hours.

 

[MJHoops]

I would've expected rebooking and stuff to be built into Amadeus and the like?

And here is how easy to use that looks!
Link here

 

[TomVexille]

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

That's what we're doing, but after multiple QF schedule shuffles, we've ended up on the last flight of the night which presents its own set of problems, and will be rather uncomfortable with two very tired and cranky small children.

 

[JohnK]

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

I travelled the night before from BNE for a 1:15pm JQ departure from MEL. Even then I was worried as one of the QF flights later were cancelled. If anything like last Friday afternoon then a huge worry.

I'm on QF23 at 9:50am late August. Qantas sells the connection from BNE that morning. Too dangerous.

 

[RooFlyer]

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

Definitely. And also schedule so you arrive at least one day ahead of where you need to be especially if you’re catching a critical connection overseas or maybe joining a cruise - maybe schedule to be there two days before for a cruise.

 

[BD1959]

I'm of the view that in Australia you almost need to travel to your point of international port of departure a day earlier to ensure you can be there for the overseas leg of your trip, domestic connections are often unreliable in the current covid environment.

This is precisely what I've done for the start my AY J RTW in September. MEL-PER the evening before the following day's mid-day QF72.

Regards,

BD

 

[Lynda2475]

Universities dropped COBOL in degrees by the early 1990s (at the latest).

Factually incorrect. I learnt COBOL in the mid 90s at University (along with newer object oriented languages, none of which were MS Windows based) and plenty of my contemporaries made a motza during Y2K remediation projects in the late 90s. fixing COBOL/PL1 based systems. COBOL is not that efficient, its just very structured; whereas as OO allows you to define variables etc on the fly.

 

[porterble]

Definitely. And also schedule so you arrive at least one day ahead of where you need to be especially if you’re catching a critical connection overseas or maybe joining a cruise - maybe schedule to be there two days before for a cruise.

Good if you can do it. I have yet another <2hr transit in Sydney later this year. Hopefully QF can manage to get the transfer bus running by then.

Factually incorrect. I learnt COBOL in the mid 90s at University (along with newer object oriented languages, none of which were MS Windows based) and plenty of my contemporaries made a motza during Y2K remediation projects in the late 90s. fixing COBOL/PL1 based systems. COBOL is not that efficient, its just very structured; whereas as OO allows you to define variables etc on the fly.

Yeah, I learnt both COBOL and FORTRAN in CS at uni in the late 90s, so certainly wasn't gone by then. In fact I only learnt Java in 4th year, and OO in 2nd year.

 

[Berlin]

I only came across this thread reading the front page editorial on it and was stunned/shocked at first. Until I saw the words “South African call centre” mentioned. Now I’m not surprised AT ALL anymore.

Sad, really sad. I have a rather complicated QF redemption trip to Europe coming up soon that has been on purpose booked in a way that avoids having to fly Qantas itself. Getting it ticketed was a veritable nightmare already but in the end I found someone in Hobart who sorted it within 3 minutes. But reading all those things on here, wow- now I am SCARED rather than excited about the big Europe holiday in September!

Saying all that- I had some fairly mediocre experiences with SQ too recently (calling them is no fun either I must say!) and what friends in Europe tell me about LH and the likes- no wonder that Qantas thinks they get away with it. Globally (and for a “legacy carrier”), they would probably still not even rank that badly. And I know, this is VERY hard to believe.

 

[porterble]

Saying all that- I had some fairly mediocre experiences with SQ too recently (calling them is no fun either I must say!) and what friends in Europe tell me about LH and the likes- no wonder that Qantas thinks they get away with it. Globally (and for a “legacy carrier”), they would probably still not even rank that badly. And I know, this is VERY hard to believe.

This is a big part of the problem, who are the alternatives? Personally I have been burned by VA, DL, CX, UA, ANZ at different points. Ironically the only airline that I had trouble free flying with was Ansett...

 

[justinbrett]

As bad as this was for OP, it is somewhat reassuring to see QF confirm their policy is in fact to rebook you.

I only came across this thread reading the front page editorial on it and was stunned/shocked at first. Until I saw the words “South African call centre” mentioned. Now I’m not surprised AT ALL anymore.

Sad, really sad. I have a rather complicated QF redemption trip to Europe coming up soon that has been on purpose booked in a way that avoids having to fly Qantas itself. Getting it ticketed was a veritable nightmare already but in the end I found someone in Hobart who sorted it within 3 minutes. But reading all those things on here, wow- now I am SCARED rather than excited about the big Europe holiday in September!

Saying all that- I had some fairly mediocre experiences with SQ too recently (calling them is no fun either I must say!) and what friends in Europe tell me about LH and the likes- no wonder that Qantas thinks they get away with it. Globally (and for a “legacy carrier”), they would probably still not even rank that badly. And I know, this is VERY hard to believe.

I am also going to Europe in September, flying BA J award SYD-LHR direct. I'm then going with a good friend to MUC for Oktoberfest, flying BA revenue. He's really not happy about flying BA with the similar situation to QF over there.

 

[Berlin]

As bad as this was for OP, it is somewhat reassuring to see QF confirm their policy is in fact to rebook you.



I am also going to Europe in September, flying BA J award SYD-LHR direct. I'm then going with a good friend to MUC for Oktoberfest, flying BA revenue. He's really not happy about flying BA with the similar situation to QF over there.

When are you in Munich? I'll be there 19th to 21st September. Just in case you happen to be around at the same time...

Besides that, agreed- I was also relieved of some sorts that this is still official policy. So 'all one needs to do' in an emergency like this is to get someone in Hobart or Auckland on the phone!

 

[justinbrett]

When are you in Munich? I'll be there 19th to 21st September. Just in case you happen to be around at the same time...

I will just miss you - we fly back to LHR on the 18th (we are just going to Oktoberfest for the opening day). We were somewhat limited as he has to go back to work and I'm flying on to JFK on the 20th for part 2 of my holiday, another 3 weeks in the US (and returning home from LAX via QF).

We're actually flying into VIE first and out of MUC, so will spend time in Austria before the festival. I have only been to your namesake (Berlin) so looking forward to seeing another side of Germany.