Qantas Delays/Cancellations

[Melburnian1]

It wasn't showing late this morning, but by 1730 AEDT on Sunday 8 January 2023, the 1705 hours SYD-SIN-LHR QF1 flagship was displaying as delayed until 2130 in initial pushback.

When these delays occur, pity the majority who lack access to an airport lounge. Boredom aplenty.

B738 VH-VZY on QF149 (1915 hours SYD-AKL) was off blocks at about 2017, so should be more than half an hour late arriving at its gate in Kiwiland.

 

[Melburnian1]

After pushing back at 2118, the heavily delayed 8 January QF1 (A388 VH-OQK) was airborne at 2133 hours., about four hours behind schedule. SIN arrival should be at approximately 0208 hours, 238 minutes late. Departure is predicted as 0405 hours with LHR at gate arrival 1030 on Monday 9, 255 minutes tardy. This should not adversely affect the evening 2040 hours QF2 southeast bound departure.

Was the QF1 delay due to no available crew until that hour, or some additional maintenance?

B789 VH-ZND on QF10 to PER is expected to depart LHR today half an hour late at 1220.

 

[ajw373]

Looking at the ontime stats for QF1/2 over the past 3 months it has only been on time maybe half a dozen times with delays of an hour (for QF1) quite regular.

Anyone know why these flights are always so late?

 

[AIRwin]

A388 VH-OQG arrived SYD as QF2 from SIN/LHR at 0721 hours, 71 minutes behind schedule.

I flew QF2 from SIN on New Year's Day - the inbound flight from LHR was already running late and then there was a further delay with an APU issue after pushback which plunged the entire aircraft into complete darkness so we had to return to gate for it to be fixed... I ended up missing my domestic connection in SYD. Ironically it was VH-OQD (not OQG) the same aircraft used for the Baku rescue flight!

 

[RichardMEL]

Well let's take the recent unfortunate and well documented diversions to Baku and Athens out of the equation for one - except to say these events cause follow on disruptions for days afterwards as the carrier tries to catch up.

This is basically the result of having a small and heavily utilised fleet of A380's in service criss crossing the globe between London/Singapore/Sydney and Los Angeles. These flights are routed very carefully and need multiple shells to operate correctly. You have a delay for whatever reasons at any point, and the house of cards can come down pretty easily unfortunately.

Also there's been a required maintenance issue (wing spar issue) with the A380 over the past few months which QF has had to address, which has affected availability of aircraft also.

Not excuses just an understanding that the A380's are spread thin and it's a complex jigsaw that even little things like a bag needing to be taken off due to a no show, or a medical issue with pax, or tech issue with an aircraft etc can cause ripple effects. While QF have replaced some LAX service with 787's the 380's are still in high demand and required for capacity.

so basically in my view there's a whole bunch of factors here that lead to these delays.

I'm sure someone like @jb747 can provide a better opinion on this

 

[ajw373]

I would have thought fleet utilisation was an issue but not the reason it is late so often.

This is especially so for QF2 which of course is flown by the aircraft that operates QF1 into London some 12 hours before hand. So even a delay of multiple hours on QF1 should give time to recover for an ontime QF2 departure later that night.

And in Sydney QF1 is again usually operated by a plane that arrives into Sydney early in the morning. So again enough time to recover any late running you would think.

Sure planes can have tech issues, and my own experience I was on a delayed QF2 ex London on 10th December which had a tech issue that needed sign off to allow it to fly, but doubt that is the case every day.

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

War in Ukraine also has an impact due to fewer available flightpaths to and from Europe.

I had one flight that was already running slightly late supposedly held at SIN for about an hour after doors closed due to congestion on the available flightpaths.

 

[Melburnian1]

Well let's take the recent unfortunate and well documented diversions to Baku and Athens out of the equation for one - except to say these events cause follow on disruptions for days afterwards as the carrier tries to catch up.

This is basically the result of having a small and heavily utilised fleet of A380's in service criss crossing the globe between London/Singapore/Sydney and Los Angeles. These flights are routed very carefully and need multiple shells to operate correctly. You have a delay for whatever reasons at any point, and the house of cards can come down pretty easily unfortunately.

Also there's been a required maintenance issue (wing spar issue) with the A380 over the past few months which QF has had to address, which has affected availability of aircraft also.

Not excuses just an understanding that the A380's are spread thin and it's a complex jigsaw that even little things like a bag needing to be taken off due to a no show, or a medical issue with pax, or tech issue with an aircraft etc can cause ripple effects. While QF have replaced some LAX service with 787's the 380's are still in high demand and required for capacity.

so basically in my view there's a whole bunch of factors here that lead to these delays.

I'm sure someone like @jb747 can provide a better opinion on this

Informative, with the 'wing spar' issue one out of the box.

'Complex jigsaws' and intensive working are true for large numbers of air, rail, trucking and ferry operators worldwide. It's not as if QFi is Robinson Crusoe in that regard, far from it.

RichardMEL doesn't explain how the small number of other airlines with A388 fleets that travel to and from Australia (EK and SQ are two) can, by and large, operate punctually and without cancellations while QFi so often does not run on time, and cancellations are all too frequent.

There's no evidence of which I'm aware to suggest that SQ's fleet is used less intensively than QFi's.

QFi also has long layovers at London Heathrow from 0615 to 2040 daily, although unlike Sydney and Los Angeles, the airline doesn't have its own maintenance facilities at London.

One occasional difficulty may be that since QFi rejigged its timetables with the Melbourne-London daily becoming a B789 via Perth rather than previous practice of both Sydney and Melbourne having QFi flights into and out of Heathrow with A388s, there is less flexibility with flight crews because the airline can't swap staff from the Melborune flight to the Sydney departure in London if for some reason tours of duty are badly affected by a couple of aircraft being badly late.

Despite its claims to the contrary, QFi has become a second rate airline that charges premium fares but frequently fails to deliver on the basics. Major commercial airlines are almost all 'safe', with differences only at the margin, so travellers rightly concentrate on aspects like punctuality, reliability and then drill down to ground and on-board service.

 

[Melburnian1]

War in Ukraine also has an impact due to fewer available flightpaths to and from Europe.

I had one flight that was already running slightly late supposedly held at SIN for about an hour after doors closed due to congestion on the available flightpaths.

Yes, but this must also affect SQ, and yet its A388s have a better punctuality record SIN-LHR-SIN than QFi's.

While an insufficient, small sample size, SQ308 (0910 hours SIN-LHR) has been 15 minutes late arriving at gate in London once in the past week: every other one has been punctual.

 

[Melburnian1]

One I missed yesterday (Sunday 8) was B789 VH-ZNK on QF11, the 1120 hours SYD-LAX that six days a week should be an A388. This took off at 1225 hours, arriving same day at 0645 hours, 40 minutes late.

QF10 last night arrived MEL at 2104 hours, 39 late with B789 VH-ZNI.

On Monday 9 January, QF81 (1230 hours lunchtime SYD-SIN, today rostered for an A332 although more often it's an A333) is expected to push back at 1540 hours, 190 minutes late. This flight has a good recent punctuality record. The delay may be because QF68 from BLR down to SYD (A332 VH-EBP, the 1740 hours, took off at 2147 hours last night. SYD arrival is forecast as 1414 hours mid afternoon, 214 minutes tardy.

 

[OATEK]

Yes, but this must also affect SQ, and yet its A388s have a better punctuality record SIN-LHR-SIN than QFi's.

While an insufficient, small sample size, SQ308 (0910 hours SIN-LHR) has been 15 minutes late arriving at gate in London once in the past week: every other one has been punctual.

I think one factor often overlooked is that QF1/2 transit in a third country, while very few SQ 380s do so. Yes, I know some EK/QR flights do (eg those that fly on to NZ), but in QF1/2's case they are flying in far more congested air space as well. But overall, the real reason they are often late is as others have said, spread too thin, and without the resources for a quick recovery. Remember when we used to turn around an A380 in SIN for example, where it would be much closer to Baku or Athens etc.

 

[Flyerqf]

I think the other factor is that SQ and EK fly multiple flights a day into ports like LHR and major Australian cities. Therefore they have more crew and resources to recover when something happens away from home. The main issue is though that Qantas have little flex in their fleet utilisation, often operating all available widebody aircraft on a single day.

 

[Melburnian1]

I think one factor often overlooked is that QF1/2 transit in a third country, while very few SQ 380s do so. Yes, I know some EK/QR flights do (eg those that fly on to NZ), but in QF1/2's case they are flying in far more congested air space as well.

The corollary is how SQ (with the exception of its flights to and from Oz, as you imply our airspace isn't as 'congested') has its aircraft spending a lot of time flying in and out of congested airspace at SIN but also UK/Europe/USA. So for that, it's swings and roundabouts.

 

[tomlee1986]

QF1 en route to LHR now (Syd 08/01 departure), that flight is now ETA in LHR @ 1025 instead of 0615!!

 

[Melburnian1]

I think the other factor is that SQ and EK fly multiple flights a day into ports like LHR and major Australian cities. Therefore they have more crew and resources to recover when something happens away from home. The main issue is though that Qantas have little flex in their fleet utilisation, often operating all available widebody aircraft on a single day.

But QFi is selling flights on the basis that they'll get passengers to and from safely, punctually and reliably.

If it can't meet the latter two objectives to the degree its competitors can, maybe it needs to be a little less ambitious. If QFi had kept two A388s a day flying into LHR, it would have better prospects of schedule recovery to and from that destination. Presumably loadings say for MEl-DXB-LHR and importantly, yields, were regarded as unsatisfactory so it decided to cut capacity in half using a B789, albeit via a new route in PER. Yet competitors fill multiple flights a day.

This suggests QFi's brand isn't as strong as Mr Joyce would have us believe.

 

[tomlee1986]

But QFi is selling flights on the basis that they'll get passengers to and from safely, punctually and reliably.

If it can't meet the latter two objectives to the degree its competitors can, maybe it needs to be a little less ambitious. If QFi had kept two A388s a day flying into LHR, it would have better prospects of schedule recovery to and from that destination. Presumably loadings say for MEl-DXB-LHR and importantly, yields, were regarded as unsatisfactory so it decided to cut capacity in half using a B789, albeit via a new route in PER. Yet competitors fill multiple flights a day.

This suggests QFi's brand isn't as strong as Mr Joyce would have us believe.

would QFi do better if they get more 789 and hopefully A350 soon?

 

[OATEK]

The corollary is how SQ (with the exception of its flights to and from Oz, as you imply our airspace isn't as 'congested') has its aircraft spending a lot of time flying in and out of congested airspace at SIN but also UK/Europe/USA. So for that, it's swings and roundabouts.

Is that really a corrolloary? How does it follow on?

I was just making the point that the QF A380s to Europe always have a transit point unless flying pretty much empty. This does not apply to SQ. Congestions is a second issue, not second level, but separate IMHO.

Not making excuses for QF, just trying to point out the differences. Scale of operations would be another.

 

[Dr4manyspecies]

Monday : the departure from Santiago of the overnight QF28 SCL-SYD (B789 VH-ZNG) was delayed 132 minutes, with ETA Sydney now 19:49 AEDT, 119 minutes late.

Meanwhile the Sunday evening QF94 LAX-MEL has been delayed 23 hours 25 minutes with new departure 20:30 PST Monday, and new Melbourne ETA of 06:20 AEDT Wednesday.

I'm surprised more hasn't been posted about the New Year's QF94 debaucle (and LAX flights in general for the 1st and 2nd). By the time we finally pushed back, we were late (at least I wasn't on the SYD flight that cancelled again), and then quarantine had to board us (and another flight in full hazmat) and baggage took forever so of course I missed the MEL-ADL... GAHHHHH! Supposedly, the 'operational issue' was due to the Manilla outage but who knows.
All I can say is, I'm not looking forward to flying via LAX again in July (but that's where the special flew into). Ohhhh the joys.

 

[Melburnian1]

Continuing with Monday 9, the delay to QF23 (1030 hours midmorning SYD-BKK, A333 VH-QPF) was greater than expected. Takeoff was at 1157 hours with gate arrival likely at 1750 hours, 100 minutes tardy. QF24 back overnight to Sydney will be similarly late.

 

[789nerd]

One I missed yesterday (Sunday 8) was B789 VH-ZNK on QF11, the 1120 hours SYD-LAX that six days a week should be an A388. This took off at 1225 hours, arriving same day at 0645 hours, 40 minutes late.

Monday : I think this B789 replacement was due to an A388 (VH-OQB) being used on an extra QF17 on the 7th [26 minutes late pushing back, however only 4 minutes late into LAX].

Also as a consequence of the replacement, Sunday's QF12 is now shown as a B789 service.