I will never complain about about qantas again after flying American Airlines in the US....
I will never complain about about qantas safety after seeing flaps that look rusted on an AA 767-200
I will never complain about about qantas again after seeing how rude AA staff are!
Anyway rant over.. I think we have it lucky in our country, as we have such high expectations of our airlines!
These were my thoughts almost exactly, after a flight from SFO-JFK in Y on an AA 767-200 on August 2 this year.
I was flying on a QF ticket so only had limited access to seats on the online seat selector and could not pre-book an exit row seat (I'm 6'9", so it's a must!). When I arrived at SFO to check in about 2.5 hours before the flight, I went to the AA counter and requested a seat with extra legroom - was advised nothing available and I should check at the gate as passengers booked in exit row seats usually get upgraded. I headed straight to the gate desk where a staff member was typing at the computer. He ignored me for about 5 minutes and then said he couldn't help me and that I would have to wait for the gate staff who would be there shortly. Well, they didn't arrive for over an hour - about 40 minutes before the flight! When I went to the counter, the staff member said if anyone needed a seat with extra legroom, it was me and said I'd like this and handed me a replacement boarding pass for a row 17 seat. Now I had checked the seat guru website earlier and from what I could remember, that was about where the exit row was, but I didn't clarify - silly me! It turned out to be a bulkhead seat, with slightly more knee room but argualy less legroom than a standard seat, given you can't put your feet under the seat in front. So much for me liking it! Luckily I noticed there was an empty window exit row seat two rows behind me, so when the seat belt light went off, I asked the flight attendant whether I could take that seat and was told 'of course'! I had to wake the aisle passenger to get to the window seat and he wasn't happy!
During the whole flight of about 5 hours, I was only offered one drink of water! Granted it was a red eye, but ...
When coming in to land, I looked out at the left side wing to see:
- almost no clear coat on the flaps and what appeared to be corrosion (commonly referred to as rust!) on the flaps;
- clear coat peeling off almost all of the screws on the wing and what again appeared to be corrosion on the screws;
- a couple of other patches on the wing where the clear coat was peeling off and there appeared to be corrosion;
- a significant number of cracks in the white paint on the arm that the engine was mounted on (hopefully cracks only in the paint and not stres fractures in the metal);
- a greasy footprint on the engine left by a mechanic.
Suffice to say, I was shaking my head and thanking my lucky stars when I got off the plane!
not too sure about them having rusty flaps as they are made from aluminium, most likely grease stains from jack screws, hinges, tracks and bellcranks...
Yeah I dont think AA is going around flying rusty aircraft either. Dirty ones? indeed!
As detailed above, there definitely appeared to be significant amounts of corrosion (commonly referred to as rust) on the AA 767-200 I was on, and it defintely wasn't just grease!
It never ceases to amaze me how much people will put personal comfort ahead of safety when such comparisons come up, I will never complain again about any aircraft flown by an Australian trained pilot to be frank, no matter what the airline. I would have much rather been in the F cabin of the recent CX A330 evac at HKG than the EK F cabin of the aircraft that did some renovations to the MEL ground equipment had they both had a F cabin.
Agreed!
Talking recently to a friend who flies for Qantas and his summary was that whilst a lot of the company personal do not like where they are going (no pun) and a lot of people such as us do not like where they are going they are catering for the masses and have managed to cut costs significantly and have kept the airline profitable.
Either the most profitable or the only profitable airline at the moment, as far as I understand.
