Qantas Delays/Cancellations

[RooFlyer]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

I don't think many of us are enamored with newspaper reporting of aviation issues, but these 2 lines caught my eye from the article melburnian1 quoted:

The plane landed safely at LAX with emergency crews on stand-by.

Passengers from flight QF94 will fly back to Australia via Sydney later on Saturday. Qantas said that no flow-on impacts were anticipated.

I guess it might be standard procedure, or maybe emergency crews are always 'on stand-by'. But if a plane turns round and flies 4.5 hrs back with an indication or actual fuel pump issue, and comes into land, one wonders what the emergency crews would be on stand-by for?

Is it realistic for QF to say 'no flow-on impacts are anticipated' (assuming that's actually what the airline said!) with the A380 returning to LAX. At the very least there will be flow-on iimpacts for the pax on that flight, if they have connections / stuff to do in Australia on scheduled arrival date! An aircraft will have to be subbed on for the Oz-LAX flight that the affected crew will probably have to be re-scheduled and another crew subbed in etc etc etc ..

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

JMFK was aboard this flight and his comments etc here: http://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/community/trip-reports-and-trip-photos/trip-report-conference-las-vegas-59195-2.html#post1031533

Explains the emergency services too.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

'Lack of flow on "impacts"' - not quite.

The delayed QF94 from Thursday night finally departed LAX at 1022 local time on Saturday 19 April and is due at MEL at 1910 this evening, 20 April.

The delayed QF1 from Saturday 19 April departed SYD at 2214, a minute earlier than QF's revised timing had predicted and supposedly should be in LHR at 1245 today, so Sunday night's QF10 ought not be delayed.

QF128 from HKG to SYD would normally have departed at 2005 on Good Friday, 18 April but incredibly is not now predicted to leave until 2100 on Monday 21 April, an extraordinary 73 hour delay. It should arrive SYD at 0745 on Tuesday morning.

While an extra weekend in HKG at QF's expense might please leisure travellers with time up their sleeves, I hope that QF has been able to accommodate travellers with a pressing urgency to be back in Oz by placing them on other QF, CX or other airlines' flights. What was the experience of any AFFers stuck in HKG by this occurrence?

QF128 ex HKG on Saturday 19 April (VH-OQJ) is running two hours 17 minutes late with a predicted SYD arrival this morning at 0937.

This shows the 'pecking order' of A380 utilisation and required substitution by 744s: despite the long layovers in LAX and LHR that act as de facto recovery time when one or more A380s fail (not an everyday occurrence), HKG passengers seemingly go to the back of the queue. Someone has to, of course. It must rapidly become a complex exercise for any airline faced with a sudden, unplanned lack of equipment: in QF's case, the odd aircraft having to ferry down to MEL to form a departure lacking an A380, flight and cabin crews out of position, rosters requiring modification, catering changes and how to accommodate perishable freight and priority mail and parcels not to mention numerous passenger handling issues including finding hotels for tired travellers.

As with any transport delay to air or surface modes, it's the elderly travellers and those with young children for whom I most feel. It must be an occasional occupational hazard for staff that at its worst must play havoc with family and social lives.

 

[Flyerqf]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

'Lack of flow on "impacts"' - not quite.

The delayed QF94 from Thursday night finally departed LAX at 1022 local time on Saturday 19 April and is due at MEL at 1910 this evening, 20 April.

The delayed QF1 from Saturday 19 April departed SYD at 2214, a minute earlier than QF's revised timing had predicted and supposedly should be in LHR at 1245 today, so Sunday night's QF10 ought not be delayed.

QF128 from HKG to SYD would normally have departed at 2005 on Good Friday, 18 April but incredibly is not now predicted to leave until 2100 on Monday 21 April, an extraordinary 73 hour delay. It should arrive SYD at 0745 on Tuesday morning.

While an extra weekend in HKG at QF's expense might please leisure travellers with time up their sleeves, I hope that QF has been able to accommodate travellers with a pressing urgency to be back in Oz by placing them on other QF, CX or other airlines' flights. What was the experience of any AFFers stuck in HKG by this occurrence?

QF128 ex HKG on Saturday 19 April (VH-OQJ) is running two hours 17 minutes late with a predicted SYD arrival this morning at 0937.

This shows the 'pecking order' of A380 utilisation and required substitution by 744s: despite the long layovers in LAX and LHR that act as de facto recovery time when one or more A380s fail (not an everyday occurrence), HKG passengers seemingly go to the back of the queue. Someone has to, of course. It must rapidly become a complex exercise for any airline faced with a sudden, unplanned lack of equipment: in QF's case, the odd aircraft having to ferry down to MEL to form a departure lacking an A380, flight and cabin crews out of position, rosters requiring modification, catering changes and how to accommodate perishable freight and priority mail and parcels not to mention numerous passenger handling issues including finding hotels for tired travellers.

As with any transport delay to air or surface modes, it's the elderly travellers and those with young children for whom I most feel. It must be an occasional occupational hazard for staff that at its worst must play havoc with family and social lives.

The delay in Hong Kong has been caused by a technical issue with another aircraft (OQD) -completely separate to the issue with OQK at LAX.

QF1 left 6 hours late due to OQL arriving in late due to a separate tech issue.

Almost unprecedented to have three A388 go tech concurrently.

 

[mannej]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

QF128 from HKG to SYD would normally have departed at 2005 on Good Friday, 18 April but incredibly is not now predicted to leave until 2100 on Monday 21 April, an extraordinary 73 hour delay. It should arrive SYD at 0745 on Tuesday morning.

According to theqantassource, OQD (the delayed bird) has already flown back to SYD as QF128D. This occurred yesterday.

 

[Mattg]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

This shows the 'pecking order' of A380 utilisation and required substitution by 744s: despite the long layovers in LAX and LHR that act as de facto recovery time when one or more A380s fail (not an everyday occurrence), HKG passengers seemingly go to the back of the queue. Someone has to, of course.

Not sure I quite agree with you. The fact that QF sent an A380 to HKG yesterday, meaning that a 747 was subbed in for QF11 says to me that HKG was given priority in this case.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

According to theqantassource, OQD (the delayed bird) has already flown back to SYD as QF128D. This occurred yesterday.

mannej, you (and the website you quote) may well be correct, but it's a mystery why the QF company website still shows what I quote above. It's pretty rare for the QF website to display a flight departing on Monday when you suggest it's already departed a day ago.

 

[Flyerqf]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

mannej, you (and the website you quote) may well be correct, but it's a mystery why the QF company website still shows what I quote above. It's pretty rare for the QF website to display a flight departing on Monday when you suggest it's already departed a day ago.

The Qantas Source may have updated because OQD was due to operate QF128D at 19.10 last night but was cancelled at the last minute.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

flyerqf, thank you. So if that's true, the QF website is correct after all? To cancel the retimed QF128D at the last minute after a 24 hour delay would have been annoying for passengers and QF staff. The latter have to go back to their hotel and again change out of uniform. Tedious!

A Happy Easter to both you and mannej. This evening for a couple of hours then there should be two QF A380s in HKG, as VH-OQE is expected to be 38 minutes early on QF127 into HKG with a forecast arrival of 1642. is the alleged delay until Monday (rather than tonight) because any repair or unplanned maintenance takes a significant time, such as a special part needing to be flown in from an Airbus facility in Europe, or is it due to more mundane matters such as crew hours?

 

[Flyerqf]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

flyerqf, thank you. So if that's true, the QF website is correct after all? A Happy Easter to both you and mannej.

The QF website is correct. It must be a significant issue for the aircraft to be grounded for 3 days.
I'm sure it will be mainly empty when it does fly back as pax should be transferred to other services, rather than waiting 3 days.

Happy Easter to you as well Melburnian1 and to all.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

One limiting factor flyerqf may be that it's a most unusual week in Australia with Easter Monday, then only three days' work for those of us who are wage slaves, then Anzac Day so it is very possible that many flights back to Oz including QF's are extremely busy (plus it's the end of Victorian school holidays). So there may not be swathes of spare seats even with the relatively high capacity of A380s in QF's case or CX's more frequent smaller equipment.

 

[Mike79]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

I was on QF128 that operated on 19th Apr out of HKG. We were delayed for more than 3 hours, due to QF128D from 18th Apr had the technical issue which delayed its service 24 hours earlier resurfacing during taxi, and QF tried to accommodate as many passengers as possible onto the QF128 service on the 19th Apr. There were indeed 2 QF A388s in HKG on 19th Apr, as there should be today when QF127 lands. The QF128 service on the 19th Apr had about 100 seats available, and it took more than 3 hours to accommodate the passengers over to our flight, with baggages, catering as well as the additional fuel required.

Although a frustrating experience, this had to be done given passengers on QF128D were already delayed for 24 hours. The crew handled the situation well and professionally, and drinks/snack/fruits were served in J during the delay. QF128 eventually landed in SYD about 1 hours and 40 minutes late on 20th Apr.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Mike79, that's equal to or better than one passenger being rebooked every two minutes, which is impressive. One assumes that there are still some pax marooned in HKG as we speak. Thank you for the excellent update. www.theqantassource isn't often incorrect, but it was on this rare occasion. Good that those of you who had boarded did not have to deplane. Much more of a delay and QF may have decided to do this as pax can become restless sitting for extended periods.

The delayed QF1 from yesterday (VH-OQL) has just had a slow entry into DXB but should be at the terminal in five to 10 minutes, a little later than QF predicted. Looks like an LHR arrival of roughly 1300 today. As an update, with QF2 from LHR (VH-OQH) just about to land at 1330 AEST (0730 DXB time) and QF10 (VH-OQF) due in DXB at 0810, these three QF birds can greet each other.

On Sunday 20 April, after the late running QF94D (VH-OQK) arrives from LAX at MEL at 1910, a ferry flight is operating to SYD empty as QF6018 at a forecast 2130 departure ex MEL. Further unpredicted expense for QFi.

 

[Flyerqf]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

All A380 services are back on schedule now.
QF2 left LHR on time (20/4 dep) despite arriving in 7 hours late due to long layover time.

OQD remains in HKG - due back in tomorrow - but as QF has one A380 frame as a spare, this doesn't impact the schedule at all.

 

[ctrunfree]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Just back from our trip that started with QF9 significant delay 16 March (resulting in our loss of a prepaid night's accom in Dubai enroute to Venice) …. at the time Qantas 'Customer Care' told us to suck it up - they won't compensate us and our travel insurance won't cover us for mechanical failure …. we thought there might be letters in the mail at home from Qantas (in the past we have received compensation for disrupted flights) - nothing. Any clues re further action, or is it a lost cause?

 

[Must...Fly!]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

It was what, 5 days ago over Easter, and you expect a letter and compensation already?

Goodness me....

 

[geordieladinoz]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

It was what, 5 days ago over Easter, and you expect a letter and compensation already?

Goodness me....

16th March makes 1 month and 5 days.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Just back from our trip that started with QF9 significant delay 16 March (resulting in our loss of a prepaid night's accom in Dubai enroute to Venice) …. at the time Qantas 'Customer Care' told us to suck it up - they won't compensate us and our travel insurance won't cover us for mechanical failure …. we thought there might be letters in the mail at home from Qantas (in the past we have received compensation for disrupted flights) - nothing. Any clues re further action, or is it a lost cause?

ctrunfree, yours is a reasonable expectation.

While QF cannot predict mechanical failures and its contract of carriage may have all sorts of exclusions (such as not guaranteeing to 'uplift' you on a particular day), its advertising gives us all the impression that one's trip will be hassle free and seamless. As a side issue, courts have ruled at times over the years that advertising is 'mere puffery', though.

Its failure to respond is not unknown among airlines, but is in contrast to surface travel operators the world over (particularly rail in urban areas) that typically have well defined, codified passenger compensation codes.

Watch your mailbox for a couple of weeks, then if necessary complain in writing (not email) to the airlines' customer (sic) advocate, whose address can be found on all the major domestic airlines' websites:

Level 18
363 George Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000

This is a relatively new 'office' and not well known among airline passengers. It is essential that you are able to demonstrate to the 'customer advocate' that you have done your best to have the airline resolve your perceived problem.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

OQD remains in HKG - due back in tomorrow - but as QF has one A380 frame as a spare, this doesn't impact the schedule at all.

flyerqf, as a matter of interest, our esteemed answerer of all questions in AFF's 'Ask the pilot' section, jb747, suggested recently that QF lacked a spare A380. However he must have been referring to how one of the 12 is often out for planned maintenance, as the roster requires six between MEl or SYD and LHR return, four on the two LAX routes and one (five days a week if I recall) SYD to HKG or v.v.

 

[ctrunfree]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

It was what, 5 days ago over Easter, and you expect a letter and compensation already?

Goodness me....

16 March - it was over 5 weeks ago!