Forced to move to earlier flight and almost missed curfew

[JohnK]

I am extremely disappointed at what happened to me (and others) last night and to be honest this is just not good enough

The facts as I know them

• Use OLCI for QF557 BNE-SYD at ~T-24 hours and pre-allocate 4D
• Turn up at airport at 5:35pm and offered earlier flight by Quickcheck machine even though I can see it is scheduled to leave 10mins after my booked flight. Refuse to take earlier flight
• Proceed to check-in with luggage and told I will be put on QF555 as they had instructions to put everyone from QF557 onto QF555 as it was likely to miss curfew. Again refuse and ask if I can move onto QF553 as this was leaving on time. Told no this aircraft is full. As far as I can tell this aircraft was not full but I cannot prove it. Given boarding pass for QF555 with seat 9D.
• Go to business lounge and I am able to change seat to 11C exit row. (This is silly as there was someone already in 11B but no one in 11A!)
• Departure gate of QF555 changed to gate 16 and departure gate of QF557 changed to gate 21 which is the original gate of QF555. Boarding time of QF555 chaged to 7:55pm and boarding time of QF557 changed to 7:20pm
• QF551 boards and departs
• QF553 boards and departs close to scheduled time of 6:15pm
• QF549 boards and departs
• QF557 boards at 7:34pm and takes off shortly thereafter with what appears to be a lightly loaded flight
• QF555 boards at 8:02pm and then had issues with lights/oven in galley. Puchback at ~8:35pm and again notice a lightly loaded flight. Plenty of seats available front and back
• Touchdown in SYD ~10:54pm
• Waiting at the carousel in SYD and the first 30 bags come out and not one business tag on these bags. Wait some more and the final 16 bags come out with most of them the business tags. My bag was number 46 out of 46 bags. :shock:

I arrived at BNE airport at 5:35pm and did not take off until 8:35pm. In that time QF551, QF553, QF549, QF557 all departed well before and I do not believe these flights were full.




At some point in time I went to see the service desk staff and this is what I was told

• There was an aircraft swap between QF555 and QF557 (which explains the gate change) as there were concerns that QF557 would not make curfew.

When I asked if there were any concerns that QF555 was now possibly going to miss curfew and what about the passengers stuck on QF555

• I received a totally blank look from the service desk staff with no real explanation

Seriously Qantas this is not good enough....

 

[markis10]

Sounds like Qantas did what they could to make sure ALL passengers got to where they were going, I would say they were forward loading and by the time you had got to the point where you were changed, despite several prompts earlier, all the seats were gone on the earlier flights and you got best flight available.

Its quite possible 557 was cleared to deadhead with crew only to ensure there was no follow on issues the next day, who knows, as an experienced traveller one would expect such delays and events from time to time and expect the airline to be proactive, hindsight is 20 20 vision and can leave you feeling disappointed but at least you got to were you were going.

 

[Bundy Bear]

The fact you didn't miss curfew shouldn't really be a problem.

QF555 would have been catered and QF557 would have only had the snack.

Think of the bright side you got on your originally scheduled aircraft.

 

[serfty]

The reality is "Stuff happens".

As I posted on the totally OT thread - don't check luggage if you can avoid it. (You have 2 x 7kg carry-on allowance on Qantas domestic jet services.)

This gives you maximum flexibility when issues arise.

(Nor do need to concern yourself with how long it gunna take to come out on the carousel.)

 

[MelUser]

I played clever on Sat and jumped to an earlier flight at checkin and my luggage missed the flight and didn't get it until next day!

If I had stayed on original flight I would have been 2 hours later but with luggage.

It can be a real gamble!

 

[JohnK]

The reality is "Stuff happens".

Yes it does happen and I know it. Just disappointed at how the situation was handled by Qantas staff.

I should never have accepted a move to an earlier flight when I could clearly see that it was going to be delayed. One of the drawbacks of getting to the airport too early with Coachtrans.

As I posted on the totally OT thread - don't check luggage if you can avoid it. (You have 2 x 7kg carry-on allowance on Qantas domestic jet services.)

Not as simple as it sounds. I would need to carry 2 x 7kgs bags + laptop bag at both airports. Not that simple and most times going to BNE I need 20+ kilos.

Sounds like Qantas did what they could to make sure ALL passengers got to where they were going, I would say they were forward loading and by the time you had got to the point where you were changed, despite several prompts earlier, all the seats were gone on the earlier flights and you got best flight available.

Best flight available was my original flight which ended up leaving earlier than the earlier flight.

Its quite possible 557 was cleared to deadhead with crew only to ensure there was no follow on issues the next day, who knows,....

Definitely passengers on board. There was a boarding call and a final boarding call.

.... as an experienced traveller one would expect such delays and events from time to time and expect the airline to be proactive, hindsight is 20 20 vision and can leave you feeling disappointed but at least you got to were you were going.

I am used to expecting delays but not when QF staff are falling overselves to be "proactive" and in the end just leave passengers on QF555 and if they miss curfew then tough luck. By the way a lot of the passengers around me on QF555 were moved from QF557.

The fact you didn't miss curfew shouldn't really be a problem.

Not a problem now.

QF555 would have been catered and QF557 would have only had the snack.

Both catered flights.