Monday 18 July 2016 has seen QF495, the 0615 hours early morning SYD to MEL and QF403, the 0645 hours departure both cancelled as have been QF419 and QF421, the 0900 and 0930 hours hours southbound, presumably due to the fog in Sydney.
With this many peak period flights cancelled from SYD to MEL on a Monday morning, there must be hundreds of businessmen and women, and others, badly delayed. Some may cancel their day return flights given the impossibility of morning appointments.
Compare this chaos to a reliable, competently operated high speed train that sadly we still lack between these two cities of almost five and 4.5 million residents. The recent CLARA proposal has many unanswered questions to it and with its apparent selection of maglev as opposed to the far more widespread worldwide conventional rail may not be the answer, but at least there is some movement at the station.
QF2012 (0655 hours SYD up to TMW), QF2040 (0815 hours SYD to DBO in western NSW) and QF2016 (0830 hours SYD to CFS) were Qantaslink flights that suffered the same fate.
QF1582, the 0620 hours HBA - SYD (B717 VH-NXJ) did not take off until 0844 so arrival should be at 1024, 134 minutes late.
QF1511, the 0620 hours SYD to CBR was badly late, departing at 0747. Arrival was 80 minutes late at 0840 hours. The following 0650 hours departure, QF1461, did so at 0740 with arrival being at 0834, 49 minutes late in another case of how a later scheduled flight beat an earlier scheduled flight on this route with its high weekday peak periods timetabled frequency. Another flight, QF1513, departed 39 minutes late at 0854 this morning with arrival predicted at 0955, 40 late into the national capital. QF1467, the next flight, is delayed from SYD by an expected 55 minutes until 0955.
QF405 (0530 hours SYD down to MEL) departed 21 minutes late at 0651 but lost a lot of time, arriving MEL at 0853, 48 minutes late. It has been windy in Melbourne this morning with recorded gusts between 0600 and 0900 hours varying between 47 and 57 kilometres an hour at Melbourne Airport.
The 0700 hours from SYD to CFS, QF2104 departed 68 minutes late. Arrival is forecast to be 63 minutes late at 0928.
The identically timed departure of QF409 down to MEL was delayed ex SYD by 78 minutes with arrival predicted as 0955, 80 minutes late.
QF508 (0806 hours SYD - BNE) departed 45 minutes late with arrival likely at 1015, 40 minutes tardy.
QF2221 (0810 hours SYD down to WGA) has one of the worst delays with departure delayed until an expected 0955, 105 minutes late.
The 0810 hours SYD across to PER, QF575 did not push back until 0856. Arrival should be 35 minutes late at 1155.
The identically timed 0820 hours departures from SYD of QF2020 to ARM and QF2205 to ABX have been delayed until a predicted 1030 in both cases. QF2164 (0830 SYD up to PQQ) should instead depart at 1010, so its anticipated tardiness is a little less than the other two.
QF417, the 0830 hours SYD down to MEL and QF510 (0835 hours SYD - BNE) are expected to depart at 1015. However the following QF461, the 0845 hours SYD - MEL is predicted to depart at 1000, ahead of QF417, while the following SYD - BNE flight, QF512 should depart at 0945 instead of 0905, again ahead of its predecessor. Perhaps on either route some travellers with HLO may be transferred from one to the other.
QF423, the 1000 SYD - MEL should instead depart at 1045 this morning.
The SYD - WTB fairly recently introduced Qantaslink flights have a pretty good timekeeping record but that is not the case this morning with QF2016, the 0845 hours from SYD not expected to depart until 1010 hours.
QF840, the 0915 hours SYD - DRW should instead depart at 1035 while QF1583, the 0920 SYD down to HBA has been retimed to 1100. This is a classic example of how peak period delays on the 'golden triangle' affect tourist and VFR-friendly timed longer distance flights on routes with much lower frequencies.
SYD - ADL does not have the number of flights as SYD - MEL, but this ADL route appears not to be suffering the same days. In an exception, QF1555, the timetabled 1130 ex SYD for the wine capital has been given the boot.
