Qantas Delays/Cancellations

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

RickyT84, you are a master of understatement. QF11/12 and QF93/94 to and from LAX require 4 x A388. The LHR flights ex SYD and MEL require a total of six, while HKG needs one on the days you discuss, which equals 11. With one in maintenance in MNL, there are no spares leading QF to rely on its B744s when something goes wrong.

The delayed Wednesday 2 July QF94 departed LAX at 0928, 10 hours late, arriving in MEL 45 minutes ago at 1753 - nine hours 33 minutes late.

It now appears to be forming QF9 to LHR at 1935 tonight from gate 11, so may well be a bit late getting away.

On both Wednesday and Thursday (2 and 3 July 2014), QF108 (normally a B744) was or is expected to be delayed by two and a half hours to about 0220 departing from LAX for SYD.

UPDATE: The Thursday 3 July QF108 did not depart LAX until 0319 on Friday and is hence not due in SYD until 0945 on Saturday 5 July. The QF website shows it arriving and then departing five minutes later at 0950 from the same gate as QF107 back to LAX. Not even RyanAir could manage such a feat!

 

[RickyT84]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

RickyT84, you are a master of understatement. QF11/12 and QF93/94 to and from LAX require 4 x A388. The LHR flights ex SYD and MEL require a total of six, while HKG needs one on the days you discuss, which equals 11. With one in maintenance in MNL, there are no spares leading QF to rely on its B744s when something goes wrong.

The delayed Wednesday 2 July QF94 departed LAX at 0928, 10 hours late, arriving in MEL 45 minutes ago at 1753 - nine hours 33 minutes late.

It now appears to be forming QF9 to LHR at 1935 tonight from gate 11, so may well be a bit late getting away.

On both Wednesday and Thursday (2 and 3 July 2014), QF108 (normally a B744) was or is expected to be delayed by two and a half hours to about 0220 departing from LAX for SYD.

You are welcome. Although strictly speaking HKG only needs 0.714 aircraft (5 days out of 7 days).

No delays to QF9 this evening as it was formed by this morning's QF10.

The delay on QF108 on 3 July was due to the delayed departure of the JFK-LAX leg. Not sure what happened on the 2 July.

 

[flychrisfly]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Carpet cleaning contractors are very good at dealing with such eventualities, but the fixed seating may make it hard to remove the water and then the dampness as well as they'd like. That's a question for those professionals. Wouldn't the carpet then smell for some time if not removed?

Airplane atmospheres are very dry, after an hour in flight the carpets would be dry even without cleaners. They just have to get it in the air!

 

[Must...Fly!]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

And -OQD is back flying. Winging it's way to Dubai as I type...

 

[pjm99au]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Qf594 Per -BNE diverted to OOL for refuelling last night due to the security issue at Brisbane airport. Landed 23.00, refuelled at 01.30. Wheels up at 01.50 and finally landed BNE 18 mins later. What was to be a quick 3.5 hour flight became 8 hours (made more comfortable by a fortuitous points upgrade to 1A). Crew did a fantastic job of keeping everyone informed as to what was going on. Only room for improvement for managing an unfortunate situation was the apparent lack of organising any taxis at 2.30am. Congratulations to the crew for keeping a full 767 happy and comfortable during a difficult time for all

 

[flychrisfly]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Qantas are reducing the frequency of QF63/64 later this month to 6 per week, down from 7. Annoying for me because...
:: I had booked a trip with friends to Africa (via JNB) for Safari's etc
:: Cousin in Dublin decided to get married so I tacked on a JNB - DUB return fare (separate ticket on BA via LHR) and pushed back the return QF JNB-SYD flight. All good so far though with an inconvenient 9 hour transit in JNB.
:: This return flight is one of the ones cancelled. The 9 hour stop over in JNB is now 33 hours! No desire to spend any more time there and would really like to just get home.

Worst case, I pay for a change to the DUB-JNB flights to push them back a day, but I'm hoping the TA can weave some magic and redirect the DUB-LHR-JNB with BA to DUB-LHR-Asia and then jump on Qantas to Syd.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

While it will affect all airlines, if I heard correctly, ATC momemntarily suspended departures from SYD due to a 28 knot crosswind.

The suspension only appeared to last a couple of minutes as the crosswind has now reduced to 21 knots.

However there is quite a lot of late running into and out of SYD despite Wednesday being one of the three quietest days of the week for domestic airline passenger numbers (as far as I know, the others are Tuesday and Saturdays). In one example, QF1522 (a 717, VH-YQV) is amusing itself in a holding pattern near scenic Bundanoon in the southern highlands, having departed CBR at 1854 (24 minutes late) but not now due into SYD until 2010 (50 minutes late). A slow trip: when total trip time is considered, it could be little slower to drive or even use NSWTrainLink depending on a traveller's suburban destination.

 

[love_the_life]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

While it will affect all airlines, if I heard correctly, ATC momemntarily suspended departures from SYD due to a 28 knot crosswind.

The suspension only appeared to last a couple of minutes as the crosswind has now reduced to 21 knots.

However there is quite a lot of late running into and out of SYD despite Wednesday being one of the three quietest days of the week for domestic airline passenger numbers (as far as I know, the others are Tuesday and Saturdays). In one example, QF1522 (a 717, VH-YQV) is amusing itself in a holding pattern near scenic Bundanoon in the southern highlands, having departed CBR at 1854 (24 minutes late) but not now due into SYD until 2010 (50 minutes late). A slow trip: when total trip time is considered, it could be little slower to drive or even use NSWTrainLink depending on a traveller's suburban destination.

The joke is always fly CBR - SYD in 20 minutes then circle for 60! Speaking of trains, we took the train to Sydney Central a month or so back…..quite a pleasant way to while away 4 hours :mrgreen:

 

[Flyerqf]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Today's QF35 is delayed over 24 hours, now due to depart tomorrow at 1100.

Flow on effect is that QF82 is now delayed 24 hours also.

 

[ctrunfree]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

More engineering problems yesterday..QF 29 to HK had engine problem, so swapped with QF flight to Singapore, which was then pushed back about 8 hours! Our HK flight left an hour or so late, would have been earlier except one passenger went walkabout!

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

This may have been a flowon delay. QF19 from SYD to MNL departed more than three hours late at 1526 on Monday 14 July, arriving MNL at 2135 and departing at 2253 as QF20.

It is about 450 kilometres from SYD now and due there two hours late at around 0830. In turn, QF129 to PVG is likely to be delayed at least a little as it is timetabled to depart at 0935. Hopefully its return working will be back on time.

While these incidents are relatively minor as one offs, they do not help QFi's bottom line, especially when flights such as QF35 above have to be delayed more than 24 hours.

UPDATE: While QF20 arrived SYD at 0847 and formed QF129 departing 27 minutes late at 1002, the latter is only expected to be five minutes late into PVG at 1835.

QF23 to BKK today (Tuesday 15 July) was almost three hours late departing SYD at 1238 but should pick up a bit of time to BKK with a forecast arrival two and a half hours late at 1905. QF24 should then be an hour and 45 minutes late into SYD tomorrow morning at 0830. The aircraft should then do another BKK rotation so hopefully it will depart on time at 0945 (or close to it) on Wednesday morning, 16 July 2014.

 

[OATEK]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Amazing how one thing goes wrong, and it starts a chain of events. QF 479 cancelled. Don't worry we have 2 seats on QF 465 15mins later.

Ring ring, sorry Mr Oatek but the seats disappeared before they were confirmed. We have 2 seats on QF 467, another 30mins later. OK, but I will stay on the line until they are confirmed. Confirmed.

QF Announcement: For pax on QF 467. This flight is delayed 50 mins.

Provided we do get away, it becomes a delay of at least 1:45hrs. The joys of flying.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

The qantas.com.au website flight status is offline at present, but I had thought that tonight was the first night that QF10 ex LHR would be due into MEL at 2055.

Not a good start, because it's not coming in until about 2200, meaning that the 2255 hours QF9 to DXB and LHR is estimated to be off blocks at 2359.

That said, the timetable still gives plenty of time for QF9 to turn around in LHR to form QF2 to SYD if it is just an hour or three late into LHR.

It will be interesting to see if the new improved timetables lead to higher patronage, as in theory they should.

UPDATE: QF9 departed MEL at 0040 on Tuesday 11 July. With QF estimating that the flight will spend less time on the ground in DXB, rather optimistically QF predicts a LHR arrival at 1420, only 40 minutes behind time.

This morning's QF10 (old schedule) was diverted to ADL due to fog in MEL and will now arrive at the latter at about 0815.

QF94 is also late with an originally forecast arrival of 0930, now altered to 1130 due to being diverted into SYD, while QF93 is shown as departing 40 minutes late at 0950, but that may change for the worse.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

This afternoon's QF11 from SYD to LAX has been delayed from 1305 to 2030 - about now. Did it go 'tech' earlier today? I could not see any obvious A388 QF flight delays other than this one.

All being well, the return QF12 ought not be affected due to the lengthy layover in LAX.

 

[jb747]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Did it go 'tech' earlier today?

No, just decided to have an afternoon off. You realise that nobody in the industry actually uses that term.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

jb747, many thanks. I would prefer to use the term 'failed' (if that's the case with this particular aircraft) but aviation fora contributors (some of whom may be aviation sector employees or consultants) constantly use the term 'tech!'

QF11 has just departed at 2050.

 

[jb747]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Star Trek term....to explain anything that either the viewer, or perhaps the writer, can't actually explain.

 

[OzEire]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

No, just decided to have an afternoon off. You realise that nobody in the industry actually uses that term.

Which begs the obvious question JB, what term do industry folk use for an unserviceable aircraft ?



OzEire

 

[nlagalle]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Which begs the obvious question JB, what term do industry folk use for an unserviceable aircraft ?



OzEire

I believe you just answered your own question....

 

[jb747]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Which begs the obvious question JB, what term do industry folk use for an unserviceable aircraft ?

As a generalisation, the people in the terminal have no idea why an aircraft is unavailable, other than perhaps knowing it might be engineering related.

The pilots use highly technical terms...if it's broken...then we say it's broken. Unserviceable is a term I heard more in the military than in civil use. Obviously if it's an aircraft that I'm waiting for, then I'll normally know exactly what the problem is. Much of the time is taken with waiting for parts to arrive...a surprising number of the mechanical fixes are quite fast. Computer resets can be very time consuming, sometimes taking hours, and annoyingly, not having timing that is all that predictable.

But, 'going tech' is not a term anyone with a pair of wings would ever use.