Hurricane Hilary - LAX - Qantas Travel Waiver?

[nolasyd]

Hi AusFF - my in-laws are scheduled to return to the US (LAX) on QF 11 tomorrow. I rang up Qantas at 7am this morning as all other airlines already have travel waivers posted (including Oneworld partner AA) to see if we could reschedule. At that point, they were not even aware of the storm even though it has been plastered all over the news. By mid-day, the agents had heard about it, but still had zero power to do anything and said just wait. Just now, an agent sounded like he was going to re-book them for Wednesday, but 30 minutes later came back saying that he had reserved the Wednesday flight, but "the airline" needs to authorised the change and they have not given any waivers yet. I got the sense he supports multiple airlines, and he was even confused as to why Qantas had nothing in place.

As my in-laws have a connecting flight on another airline, we need to coordinate the change. I don't understand why on earth Qantas would not offer up a travel waiver like every other airline on earth flying to LAX. Are they going to get a message at 3am that the flight is cancelled, or show up at the airport and have a 10 hr delay? They are elderly, and this is just the absolute worst service I have ever seen.

Any ideas on how to take this forward? The call centres are powerless!

 

[cove]

Just had a look in LA Times. It should be around LAX Saturday night or Sunday morning.

 

[serfty]

Here is AA's

Travel alerts − Travel information − American Airlines

www.aa.com

 

[RooFlyer]

To the OP - sorry, your folks I think will need to keep calling. It sounds a pretty hopeless situation. Make sure they have SMS alerts 'on'

Here is United's alert to go with AAs

https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/trip-planning/travel-alerts.html

Just like with covid, are Qantas waiting to the very last minute to cancel or advise a waiver, hoping most pax will change their flights and pay the fees?

 

[nolasyd]

Seems it. Call centres all say they are waiting for HQ to give them authority. They too find it ridiculous. Even their help desks cannot do anything without Qantas HQ authorisation. So sad that Qantas is forcing my in-laws to have a very bad evening where they don't know what the plan is. Agent said they need to show up tomorrow at 7am unless the are given authority to re-issue - beyond insane.

 

[nolasyd]

Still shocked that we are pending a decision. How can every Qantas call centre be so un empowered. It’s crazy that every other airline on earth has a travel waiver to LAX - yet Qantas only option is to offer me a change fee of $3,000 the take it up with customer care.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looks like both the QF and AA flight are scheduled to fly ex SYD tomorrow morning. Maybe they are waiting till closer to the time to sort things out and minimise disruption?

 

[nolasyd]

The point is the other airlines have issue travel waivers, allowing travels to move their flights so they don’t get stuck at LAX and it proactively re-accommodates those that don’t need to travel on the day or don’t want to fly into a weather event. It’s not really about what flights the airlines choose to run, it’s more about ensuring your passengers don’t get dropped off in a situation with poor odds of immediate recovery (ie lots of flight cancellations / missed connected / limited hotels). I guess this all foreign to Qantas?

 

[jrfsp]

can’t say I’m surprised, QF arnt known for their flexibility in weather events.

 

[RooFlyer]

can’t say I’m surprised, QF arnt known for their flexibility in weather events.

... or their having the customer's interests at heart.

 

[Himeno]

I didn't even know there was a hurricane near California until this thread.

There were 2 typhoons hitting Japan/Korea a week ago. One went over Kyushu on the 10th, then into Korea on the 11th.
Another was forecast to hit Tokyo last weekend, but then it chanced course and went over Osaka on Monday night.

Where their travel wavers for those?

 

[MollyJones]

Can you pay the change fee and claim it on travel insurance? Does their policy cover them for the weather event?

 

[RooFlyer]

Where their travel wavers for those?

I can't really see the relevance of that. See post #8

 

[Vic]

Hardly a concerning hurricane at this point. The projected track has it still off the Mexico coast at 1 pm on Sunday, according to CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/19/weather/hurricane-hilary-california-southwest-tropical-storm-saturday/index.html

Post automatically merged: Aug 19, 2023

The point is the other airlines have issue travel waivers, allowing travels to move their flights so they don’t get stuck at LAX and it proactively re-accommodates those that don’t need to travel on the day or don’t want to fly into a weather event. It’s not really about what flights the airlines choose to run, it’s more about ensuring your passengers don’t get dropped off in a situation with poor odds of immediate recovery (ie lots of flight cancellations / missed connected / limited hotels). I guess this all foreign to Qantas?

yeah, we've never had anything like a hurricane in Australia...

 

[nolasyd]

Not hurricanes/cyclones mate - travel waivers to prevent dumping passengers in harms way - even if you choose to run your service. I am originally from New Orleans, so know a thing or two about these storms! In any case, it’s interesting to note that all of Qantas’s Syd—>LAX competitors have travel waivers in place. This is also an unheard of weather event - LA does not get cyclones!

 

[RooFlyer]

Concept of pro-active customer service Vs betting on a hurricane / tropical storm.

Some airlines choose the former, some the latter.

 

[Himeno]

Not hurricanes/cyclones mate - travel waivers to prevent dumping passengers in harms way - even if you choose to run your service. I am originally from New Orleans, so know a thing or two about these storms! In any case, it’s interesting to note that all of Qantas’s Syd—>LAX competitors have travel waivers in place. This is also an unheard of weather event - LA does not get cyclones!

Of course they do. They are just rare because the cooler water off the coast lowers their intensity or the local wind patterns push it along the coast and back out to sea. By the time they make landfall in California, most of them have degraded to tropical storms or depressions.
CA had a hurricane strength storm make landfall in the 1930s.

 

[Vic]

Not hurricanes/cyclones mate - travel waivers to prevent dumping passengers in harms way - even if you choose to run your service. I am originally from New Orleans, so know a thing or two about these storms! In any case, it’s interesting to note that all of Qantas’s Syd—>LAX competitors have travel waivers in place. This is also an unheard of weather event - LA does not get cyclones!

This one still isn't in California either. Certainly NOT in the timeframe you've mentioned. Rain depression... Go look at the projected track and you said QF11 tomorrow. Scheduled to land at 7 am? When the cyclone is still projected to be in Mexico.
Australia gets Cyclones, Qantas is familiar with them.
Yeah, I'm orginally from the Northern part of Australia, I know just as much as you. Probably even more since I can look at the weather forecast, not just airline waivers...

 

[nolasyd]

They have now accommodated the change. It’s a shame they could not have done it at 7am today like all other airlines. As for the severity of the storm, that’s not the point. Forcing passengers into what is potentially harms way is not the way an airline should be operating. All three other airlines running SYd-LAX recognized this over 24 hrs ago. It took hundreds of complaining passengers to get Qantas to agree by midnight.

 

[RooFlyer]

Of course they do. They are just rare because the cooler water off the coast lowers their intensity or the local wind patterns push it along the coast and back out to sea. By the time they make landfall in California, most of them have degraded to tropical storms or depressions.
CA had a hurricane strength storm make landfall in the 1930s.

Qantas is familiar with them.

So you guys (and Qantas) know more about the potential for disruption at LAX because of a hurricane/tropical storm (as I described it above) than American Airlines and United? Edit: and Delta. calling it a tropical storm and Alaskan, ditto.

As has been pointed out, its not simply about the weather, or if an actual disruption eventuates - its about an airline providing some customer-focussed service, where they allow changes by the customer at no charge when there is the reasonable possibility of disruption at the destination.

An airline can either say:

* No worries, you guys do what you need to do with this uncertainty and we won't make money out of it; or

* Ha ha ... too bad, so sad, fly as you booked and take your chances or pay up.

All but one airline on the route chose the first, in ample time for their customers to re-arrange their schedules, if they wanted. That's called looking after your customers. It seems one airline (guess) chose the second until forced to do otherwise or left it to the last minute.