Qantas Delays/Cancellations

[Himeno]

What were the circumstances allowing Air France to rescue their passengers but QF could not?

AF had 1 flight with fewer pax to worry ab0ut. QF had 3. At 3 different airports.
AF had more hours available for crew, so more options to play with then QF does.

 

[Flyerqf]

QF42 from Jakarta is delayed 14 hours due to a crewing issue.

 

[Flyerqf]

AF had 1 flight with fewer pax to worry ab0ut. QF had 3. At 3 different airports.
AF had more hours available for crew, so more options to play with then QF does.

To be fair though only one was delayed significantly and they should have contingencies. Keeping customers on a a plane for 9 hours after a 15hour flight is not satisfactory.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

AF had 1 flight with fewer pax to worry ab0ut. QF had 3. At 3 different airports.
AF had more hours available for crew, so more options to play with then QF does.

But I'm not sure what difference that makes? When jetstar had a debacle at HNL many years ago stranding passengers they learned from that and employed a specialist company to handle delays. When the same thing happened a week later that specialist company had a representative at the airport within 45 minutes. Passengers were on buses within an hour. And at hotels checking-in shortly after that. Everyone was given phone cards and meal credits. Airlines at outstations may not be the best people to handle significant delays (organising transport, finding rooms etc). But I don't know what arrangements are in place in Dubai - maybe they have a company like that.

Not sure how crew hours will have affected the outcome for AF. The plane disembarked and pax were bused to Dubai.

 

[Flyerqf]

Tomorrow’s QF93 is departing at 1700 (nearly 6 hours after the 1115 scheduled time).

QF15 is showing on time at this stage which would indicate a replacement 744 being ferried up from SYD.

 

[Flyerqf]

Tues 26 QF16 which returned to LAX now appears to be departing again at 1630 on Wed 27 for an arrival in BNE at 0030 Fri 29.

 

[Melburnian1]

With its return to LAX, QF16 from there to BNE (ex LAX Tuesday 26 December) must have been cancelled. It is still showing as 'delayed' on the QF website.

It will be interesting to see if QF15 (ex BNE 1120 hours Thursday 28) is cancelled, or whether a B744 is ferried up to BNE ex SYD to substitute. There may not be a spare during Christmas - New Year/ school holidays.

 

[Quickstatus]

Apologies for not contributing. I am on holidays.
QF seems to have completely dropped the ball on this one. Its up there with the last fiasco at NYE last year also in DBX.
They really have to re-examine their response to situations like this.

Airline customers generally do not patronise airlines based only on their safety record/culture. Its the experience of met expectations that is paramount. Unfortunately its not enough to just get the passengers there - this applies to low rent budget operation, but particularly to high end operations like QF. Here QF really did not have a solution. Expect that such a solution especially at an outstation requires significant financial expenditure.


Road to DXB:
AAN (Al Ain) is only about 150km to DXB via a sealed highway. While it would have taken 2 hours by road but in reality significantly longer from aircraft door to hotel door in DXB, it would have been a large logistical exercise to transport 500? passengers by road. Buses for most passengers, Limos for VIP passengers, ?for special needs passengers?. Several issues arise with such road transport - buses breaking down, accidents on the road, passengers falling ill - are these significant?

In any case this is a really bad outcome for QF. Twice now they have failed.

 

[milehighclub]

With its return to LAX, QF16 from there to BNE (ex LAX Tuesday 26 December) must have been cancelled. It is still showing as 'delayed' on the QF website.

QF16 is still planning to operate again so it is delayed not cancelled.

QF94 is going via Sydney for a crew change.

 

[Flyerqf]

Oh dear, QF16 is currently dumping fuel and about to commence decent back into LAX. It will land approx 3 hours after its initial take off. No indication on the cause.

Update - mechanical reasons confirmed for returning to LAX.

 

[jb747]

Bus transfer from Al Ain is extremely problematic, and probably wouldn't be attempted unless the aircraft were dead. The first issue to resolve is that of the local authorities. In many cases, depending upon where you've come from, they will not allow you to disembark your passengers at all, and going landside would be even more difficult. Beyond that, most of the passengers would have been intending to remain on the aircraft out of Dubai, so getting to Dubai without the aircraft means that either it, or they, would have to wait in Dubai anyway. Unloading the cargo from a 380 in Al Ain would also fall into the unlikely category. You'd have trouble organising it will a couple of days notice. A smaller aircraft...much easier.

The intend was never to stay there for any length of time. Sadly ATC's slot management there can totally stop the show. It's a Cat III airport, but only in name.

Off-line airports are always shockers...and the only reason you ever go there is because the aircraft won't keep flying indefinitely.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Appreciate the logistics, but I guess it could be difficult for passengers to understand when they see/hear Air France apparently managed to provide transport in under two and a half hours. Comments on QF's Facebook page suggested the AF pax were accommodated on connections out of DXB, but without bags.

Other comments (on Facebook) are suggesting the fog situation was known well in advance, and that the only other airline at Al Ain was air France. All other airlines had gone to major hubs. Don't know how accurate that is, and there are probably good reasons why airlines went where they did, but it doesn't sound like the communication got through to passengers.

 

[Quickstatus]

Yes logistics surrounding ANY solution will be a major headache.

The airline must find someway to communicate this to the passengers. Some will not like nor understand any news unless it’s good which is impossible as they are already somewhere they are not.

The crew would have been stuck on the plane for same duration as passengers and copping lots of flak.

Was ground power connected to the aircraft and catering supplied? Loos emptied?.
I’ll bet the first and biz passengers were sitting pretty!!

Hopefully the move back to SIN would be better overall. Much more fuel range as well so diversions due to weather will be less. No fog in SIN

The 787 service to LHR may also be susceptible to landing in destnarion and alternates perhaps more so.

 

[jb747]

Was ground power connected to the aircraft and catering supplied? Loos emptied?.

Catering at any offline port is unlikely. That's why it's offline. I know of Captains who've had multiple pizzas delivered...but that won't be an option at OMAL.

Who cares about ground power. The APU will provide more electricity and air than any ground setup.

 

[Himeno]

In late September 2009, I was on QF32 (VH-OQB) into SIN. Weather in SIN lead to a diversion to KUL. The aircraft taxied to a remote stand near the MH hangers. No food available, although the crew served what remained of the drinks loaded in LHR. No one, other then the captain, was allowed of the aircraft (even though there were people connecting in SIN to KUL). Nothing available to be loaded other then fuel.
Other pax were worried about missing their connections. I was more concerned about the crew running out of hours.
This was before MH got their A380s and there were bus loads of MH ground staff pulling up along side and taking photos.
Ultimately, the weather cleared enough and slots arranged for departure to SIN around 2.5 hours after landing at KUL, but with the way people have been treating these situations now, there would be people demanding to be processed through Malaysian immigration and buses chartered to drive pax down to Singapore.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

...but with the way people have been treating these situations now, there would be people demanding to be processed through Malaysian immigration and buses chartered to drive pax down to Singapore.

I know what you mean, but ultimately passengers are becoming more aware of situations and potential options explore. Too often the treatment of passengers by airlines is one-sided. It can often appear that reasons for delays or cancellations are not entirely transparent or forthcoming. How many airlines continue to claim 'extraordinary circumstances' for delays which are deemed their responsibility under EU261 (and therefore compensation payable). So pax would have been wrong to ask to get off the plane in your situation (at SIN), but they would have been right to at least enquire at Al Ain. The passengers don't know. But neither does the airline. Given past performance at DXB, perhaps passengers were a little wary.

Ideally airlines should work with passengers as a partnership during IRROPS.

 

[jb747]

Ideally airlines should work with passengers as a partnership during IRROPS.

In my experience, with about 90-95% of the passengers that's exactly what it is. There is no reason for me to dick people around, and sadly whatever situation we are in, we are in together.

 

[Flyerqf]

In my experience, with about 90-95% of the passengers that's exactly what it is. There is no reason for me to dick people around, and sadly whatever situation we are in, we are in together.

From what we’ve read it would appear that the crew and passengers were in the dark together. Given that the onward flight to LHR had been cancelled even before the plane left AAN for DXB.

 

[flychrisfly]

Today's QF7 Syd-DFW has a delayed departure from 2:30pm to 4pm. Just received a text from Qantas... Sigh. Suspect my connection is now stuffed

 

[flychrisfly]

Today's QF7 Syd-DFW has a delayed departure from 2:30pm to 4pm. Just received a text from Qantas... Sigh. Suspect my connection is now stuffed

Further, the text referred me to the website which now, 90 mins later, has not been updated. The app has though. The online chat agent had no clue about anything so I called QF to change my connection, which ended up being painless so I'm all set. Also, the F lounge angel called to make sure I didn't arrive too early.