Qantas Delays/Cancellations

[Melburnian1]

Re: QF9 MEL - DXB - LHR delayed 16 hours

Sadly, QF1501 this morning, the 0755 MEL to HBA B717, did not depart until 1358 - more than six hours late - and staggered into HBA at 1513 with no gain on the alloted.

While fog causes all sorts of problems, these B717 flights have numerous problems. They must surely be among QF's least reliable. One wonders if any regular flyers to the island capital are avoiding these in favour of VA or JQ.

 

[OATEK]

Re: QF9 MEL - DXB - LHR delayed 16 hours

Sadly, QF1501 this morning, the 0755 MEL to HBA B717, did not depart until 1358 - more than six hours late - and staggered into HBA at 1513 with no gain on the alloted.

While fog causes all sorts of problems, these B717 flights have numerous problems. They must surely be among QF's least reliable. One wonders if any regular flyers to the island capital are avoiding these in favour of VA or JQ.

QF1505 was very full last evening, with 8 in J and hardly a spare seat in Y.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: QF9 MEL - DXB - LHR delayed 16 hours

On Wednesday 27 August, the 2255 hours QF9 did not depart MEL until 0304 on Thursday - four hours and nine minutes late. What a shocking time of the night to have to wait for any public conveyance! It was three hours and 23 minutes late arriving in LHR at 1703 on Thursday.

On Friday 29 August, LHR's QF2 departure occurred at 0046 on Friday morning instead of 2125 - an eerily similar four hours and 21 minutes late, although this and the Wednesday ex MEL were not the same A388. It took only six hours 24 minutes to reach DXB in lieu of the timetabled six hours 55 minutes so with a bit of Irish luck it may arrive in SYD at 0730 on Sunday 31 August, exactly two hours late.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: QF9 MEL - DXB - LHR delayed 16 hours

Tonight (Thursday 4 September 2014), the 1550 hours QF1 (A388 VH-OQC) still has not departed SYD at 2158, although the QF website claims that it will depart at 2200. The forecast LHR arrival is 1120 on Friday 5 September: this may be somewhat optimistic. Let's hope for the sake of passengers on board that it takes off prior to the 2300 hours curfew. A minority of passengers might find the prospect of a 'free' hotel night in SYD appealing (assuming that if it needed to, QF could source same) but for most travellers, I daresay that a 15 hour delay due to the A388 being defective combined with the unavoidable curfew would be politely described as an annoyance.

In the other direction, QF1 departed LHR an hour late on Wednesday night and overstayed at DXB by another hour, so it is now due in SYD tomorrow morning a bit more than two hours late.

Once again, unhelpful to QFi's bottom line. It would be interesting to ascertain if as the A388s age (not that they are yet elderly), longer or more frequent maintenance is required due to unplanned failures.

UPDATE; QF1 managed to depart at 2214 on Thursday night. It is not now expected to be in LHR until 1150 on Friday 5 September, meaning that QF10 to MEL will be late off blocks.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Thursday's QF1 ended up not arriving DXB until 0647 on Friday 5 September 2014. After spending a minute more than the allotted in that centre of commerce, it is forecast to arrive LHR at 1250, six hours and five minutes late.

As I suggested yesterday (but the QF website at that time did not), QF10 from LHR to MEL has now been delayed to a predicted 1445 departure, 75 minutes late. The website claims that it will arrive in MEL on time at 2055 on Saturday night but once again that may be optimistic.

When QF changed the LHR timetables, I said that many travellers would welcome the choice of different arrival times between QF1 and QF9 along with differing departure times for QF10 and QF2. I even suggested patronage should rise from what 'The Australian' claimed was unimpressive figures for the period of time it sampled.

However one downside is that when the incoming aircraft (in this case QF1) runs significantly late, delays to the return working (in this case QF10) cannot be avoided. At least QF10 with its 2055 scheduled arrival time in MEL would not have many same (night) connecting passengers given that after immigration and customs processing, a 2130 or later showing in the public arrivals hall is too late to transfer to last flights to HBA, LST, SYD, ADL and so on.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

February, May and November tend to be less well patronised months ex Australia for international flights due to factors such as November preceding Christmas holidays and February coming just after.

QF's cancellation of flights between DXB and LHR has occurred previously but the latest news is that it will also occur to a minor extent in October.

Not a great sign for how QF flights are performing on its only 'own metal' European run. It delivers further evidence to the many who believe that one Mr Dixon made a bad error when he declined to purchase B773ERs for QF some years back, opting instead for what I have read a few times are allegedly unsuitable A388s:

Qantas cancels A380 flights due to weak demand

The one positive is that AJ is trying to get costs under control. If there were insufficient bookings to make the flights viable, QF's bottom line will be better off from the flight cancellations.

The question remains, however: with more than 600,000 visitors from UK to Oz annually and more from other European nations (Scotland, anyone - soon?) and countless Australians still embarking on a European adventure whether a Eurail for the age 30s, backpacking for the 19 year olds or river cruising for the 65 plusers: why cannot QF consistently achieve good loadings on its QF1/2/9 and 10 when it only offers about 700,000 seats per annum each way in total?

 

[sydstar]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Not a great sign for how QF flights are performing on its only 'own metal' European run.

<snip>

The question remains, however: with more than 600,000 visitors from UK to Oz annually and more from other European nations (Scotland, anyone - soon?) and countless Australians still embarking on a European adventure whether a Eurail for the age 30s, backpacking for the 19 year olds or river cruising for the 65 plusers: why cannot QF consistently achieve good loadings on its QF1/2/9 and 10 when it only offers about 700,000 seats per annum each way in total?

So, over October/November, QF are cancelling 5 out of 122 flights between DXB and LHR (and return). Is this really a big issue? There will still be one QF flight to LHR, plus all the EK options into LHR/LGW

Perhaps part of the reason why QF can't "consistently achieve good loadings" is because all those people you mention about to embark on their "european adventure" don't need to go near LHR anymore, and instead start at CDG/FCO/AMS etc - which is the whole point going via DXB!

It should also be considered that the likes of EK and EY (and to an extent SQ/CX) have now opened up the likes of GLA/NCL/MAN direct to DXB/AUH meaning that quite a few of those UK visitors heading to Australia don't have any reason to need to touch LHR (and therefore QF ex LHR).

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

status_seeker, while true that QF is only cancelling about in in every 24 DXB - LHR own metal flights between DXB and LHR (61 days - 122 flights originally timetabled - five cancellations) between October 1 and November 30, it's sad (and a commentary on QF's uncompetitiveness) that while CX and SQ to name two can consistently operate multiple flights between their home ports and LHR (albeit that in SQ's case it did lower the frequency or reduce the size of the aircraft used for one flight), QF struggles to operate two return trips a day using 'own metal' between DXB and LHR.

Anyone travelling via HKG or SIN on CX or SQ respectively can also fly to numerous European airports other than LHR, but those carriers still run multiple flights to LHR. CX and SQ are not relying on codeshares to take the place of own metal flights: each promotes their own aircraft.

Compared with just a couple of years ago, QF has markedly reduced its own metal flights to Europe. Not so long ago it flew to FRA. Years ago it had other destinations in that continent.

The combined population of the UK and Oz is roughly 80 million; we can add residents of UAE to that. Yet still QF is cutting some flights.

I find it extremely difficult on current information to ever see QFi returning to profitability.

QF may have a costs problem with its high salaries paid to management, pilots and many other staff, but it also has a lack of revenue problem. The end of the mining boom in WA and the forecast by former Federal Minister Peter Reith on page one of today's 'AFR' that Australia may face a recession in 2015 does not bode well for airlines generally that operate within, to or from Oz.

 

[Mattg]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

While most of that is true Melburnian1, cancelling 5 half flights (as I believe it's just the DXB-LHR sectors) over 2 months during the off-peak season is not that significant. It's just the nature of it being off-peak season and Qantas isn't the only airline to do that kind of thing.

Of the 1460 flights Qantas is scheduled to operate this year between Dubai and London (and vice versa) they have cancelled 22 due to low demand. That's approximately 1.5% of flights...

 

[sydstar]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Anyone travelling via HKG or SIN on CX or SQ respectively can also fly to numerous European airports other than LHR, but those carriers still run multiple flights to LHR. CX and SQ are not relying on codeshares to take the place of own metal flights: each promotes their own aircraft.

Compared with just a couple of years ago, QF has markedly reduced its own metal flights to Europe. Not so long ago it flew to FRA. Years ago it had other destinations in that continent

And again the reason CX and SQ can run multiple flights a day to HKG and SIN, apart from strong O&D traffic, is the fact that HKG and SIN are their respective hubs. Both can run traffic from Asia (including SYD/MEL/BNE/PER/ADL) before sending it one stop to their EU destinations - no different to EK in DXB and what QF is promoting with the EK partnership.

While it is sad QF has cut back Europe routes, the lack of a centrally located hub to allow one stop flights makes it very difficult to compete with competitors with lower cost bases, competitive premium products and a geographical advantage. Is there really a strong O&D premium market for AUS-FCO? ATH? CDG has had traffic rights issues. So that only really leaves Germany. A 330 PER-DXB-Berlin might be all that could be viable, considering EK traffic rights issues

QF should really be compared to the likes of BA and NZ, the only 2 carriers not stopping over in their own hub.

 

[Mattg]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

QF should really be compared to the likes of BA and NZ, the only 2 carriers not stopping over in their own hub.

On this topic, how's Virgin Atlantic's London-Hong Kong-Sydney flight going?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

While it is sad QF has cut back Europe routes, the lack of a centrally located hub to allow one stop flights makes it very difficult to compete with competitors with lower cost bases, competitive premium products and a geographical advantage.

Air New Zealand doesn't seem to have a problem.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

This report below may be a bit unfair in singling out QF, because these sort of 'standard letters' (or '...emails') are a reasonably common practice in business, but it's an embarrassing gaffe:

Dear [insert name], Qantas takes your complaint very seriously, honest

 

[mannej]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

This report below may be a bit unfair in singling out QF, because these sort of 'standard letters' (or '...emails') are a reasonably common practice in business, but it's an embarrassing gaffe:

Dear [insert name], Qantas takes your complaint very seriously, honest

Certainly not the first to make this errror, probably won't be the last...

United Airline’s complaint response draws blanks

 

[nlagalle]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

On this topic, how's Virgin Atlantic's London-Hong Kong-Sydney flight going?

I'm not sure actually it's been pretty quiet since May..

 

[nlagalle]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

status_seeker, while true that QF is only cancelling about in in every 24 DXB - LHR own metal flights between DXB and LHR (61 days - 122 flights originally timetabled - five cancellations) between October 1 and November 30, it's sad (and a commentary on QF's uncompetitiveness) that while CX and SQ to name two can consistently operate multiple flights between their home ports and LHR (albeit that in SQ's case it did lower the frequency or reduce the size of the aircraft used for one flight), QF struggles to operate two return trips a day using 'own metal' between DXB and LHR.

i didn't see it struggling on my last 2 flights.. full..

Anyone travelling via HKG or SIN on CX or SQ respectively can also fly to numerous European airports other than LHR, but those carriers still run multiple flights to LHR. CX and SQ are not relying on codeshares to take the place of own metal flights: each promotes their own aircraft.

You cannot really compare asian carriers who are hub cities. they aren't having to transit people through like QF do. but of course can you imagine the outcry if QF actually moved some operation offshore??? we are not well placed geographically to be a hub.. Asia and the ME are..

 

[Goodonya]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Sitting here in QF oneworld lounge at TB LAX, QF94 schedule departure of 10:50pm is now 1:30am, a 2hr 40m delay :evil:
I was hoping to catch up with kevrosmith here but see that QF108 is also delayed from an 11:50pm to a 2:40am departure. His JFK departure seemed to be delayed and AFAIK he's not here in LAX as yet. Didn't catch up with him in NY even though we were at same hotel. Way too much happening in NY.
There is only so much you can eat. Oh well back to the bar

 

[Fruitcake]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

His JFK departure seemed to be delayed and AFAIK he's not here in LAX as yet.

He reported on another form of social media that the flight was delayed at JFK due to a flat tyre.

 

[Goodonya]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

He reported on another form of social media that the flight was delayed at JFK due to a flat tyre.

He'll probably arrive when I'm boarding now (if no more delays).

 

[Goodonya]

Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion

Just got boarding call for QF94