Qantas Chaos [MEL 'iced' by cold - VA issues too]

[greenfish]

The flight number affects all sorts of things. If you change it at short notice, you need to change the already lodged flightplan, tell catering, tell the refueller, tell ground ops for bags/gate assignment, tell rostering so they can amend all the crews rosters, re-arrange arrival slots with ATC (which is sometimes impossible at short notice) etc etc etc. i don't see why it matters to the passengers so much???

I "think" the argument is the perceived unfairness where a later flight leaves before your earlier scheduled flight. Happened to me once on VA in Mel, on one of the IT check-in chaos days - I was placed on an earlier flight that ended up departing several hours later than my originally scheduled flight.

 

[greenfish]

It certainly is an issue that has happened before.

My wife and kids were caught be lack of de-icing equipment in MEL in 2005; they were flying EK AKL-MEL-DXB-MAN but the plane was iced during the stopover.

Ended up with an overnight stop in MEL and DXB - 55 hours to Manchester with 2 small kids anyone?

 

[katiebell]

The flight number affects all sorts of things. If you change it at short notice, you need to change the already lodged flightplan, tell catering, tell the refueller, tell ground ops for bags/gate assignment, tell rostering so they can amend all the crews rosters, re-arrange arrival slots with ATC (which is sometimes impossible at short notice) etc etc etc. i don't see why it matters to the passengers so much???

It matters if you are on, say, the 0600 flight as you need to get to SYD early and your flight is delayed by 4 hours whilst all the later flights leave before you, all with shorter delays and you are not able to move to an earlier departure.

If what you say is true, then why was it possible to make a complete change for an aircraft (i.e. BNE to SYD rather than BNE to MEL) when it is, apparently, so hard to use a different aircarft of exactly the same configuration, for a different flight on the same route, especially as gates were not even assigned to many aircraft because of the delays.

 

[Boris spatsky]

It matters if you are on, say, the 0600 flight as you need to get to SYD early and your flight is delayed by 4 hours whilst all the later flights leave before you, all with shorter delays and you are not able to move to an earlier departure.

If what you say is true, then why was it possible to make a complete change for an aircraft (i.e. BNE to SYD rather than BNE to MEL) when it is, apparently, so hard to use a different aircarft of exactly the same configuration, for a different flight on the same route, especially as gates were not even assigned to many aircraft because of the delays.

I understand the concern but i simply answered your question - changing the flight number (for any airline) creates a raft of other problems that, in themselves, would cause potentially further delays.

 

[QFflyermelbourne]

There is a million factors katiebell. Generally the thinking from the airline is to impact as few passengers as possible. So if all the following flights can get away on time you have potentially thousands less people impacted. The downside being the few that are will be impacted worse. Also there are many operational things. At what stage did they decide icing would be a problem? Had catering and cargo already been loaded? While two aircraft might be configured the same, one might be due into a port that is a heavy maintenance base for that type for scheduled work and therefore can't be sent somewhere else.

There is also a staff concern and associated cost. If you start rearranging everything and the dominos fall in many ways and many more flights end up slightly delayed then you have more staff that run the risk of needing to be paid overtime or worse still running out of duty hours. Then how many do you have on call that can be sourced quickly?

It's just life....keep smiling and wait it out...

 

[greenfish]

I understand the concern but i simply answered your question - changing the flight number (for any airline) creates a raft of other problems that, in themselves, would cause potentially further delays.

I guess what I'm wondering is why the flight number can't be maintained but just moved to a less icy aircraft? So everything stays the same apart from the plane itself?

 

[katiebell]

I guess what I'm wondering is why the flight number can't be maintained but just moved to a less icy aircraft? So everything stays the same apart from the plane itself?

Exactly the point I was trying to make as I was referring to the MEL-SYD 'shuttle'. It would also avoid the issue of overtime and running out of duty hours are most crew would get to destination closer to the scheduled TA.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Exactly the point I was trying to make as I was referring to the MEL-SYD 'shuttle'. It would also avoid the issue of overtime and running out of duty hours are most crew would get to destination closer to the scheduled TA.

That's fine if in fact there is a spare aircraft - most of the time (at least in our operation, i can't speak for the others) there isn't, or the spare is hours away in a different port.

You can't go with partial ice. It is either gone, or it isn't. I would suspect that even spares at Melbourne would have had the same problem.

 

[Boris spatsky]

I guess what I'm wondering is why the flight number can't be maintained but just moved to a less icy aircraft? So everything stays the same apart from the plane itself?

It can, if in fact there is a spare aircraft. See my reply above.

 

[QFflyermelbourne]

Proof of at least one de-icer in mel this Afternoon. Bad photo from boarding gate sorry but the truck says "De-icing unit" on the side.