Qantas Dumps Economy Luggage in Darwin for London Flights

[Must...Fly!]

You seem to think that management have an eye in on day to day ops. That's not how it works, not that quickly anyway. Management is a fun term that's thrown around and is often misunderstood to include factors well outside the scope of what management is tasked to do. Some don't even do that but that's another story.

Qantas have clearly been proactive in moving passengers to other carriers where they know they need a weight tolerance. Those reports are on this very forum.

 

[jpp42]

A risk assessment doesn't mean that everything always happens perfectly once you've done that assessment. A risk assessment just means that you *understand* those risks and can mitigate them where they are unacceptable. Risk assessments involve assessing both the chance of something occurring and the impact if it does occur. The chance of a random emergency runway maintenance that was only known about mid-flight (after departing Sydney) or the chances of large weather changes that require additional fuel, most likely scored as a low probability. The impact when it did occur - offloading bags - would be considered lower than alternatives (offloading pax in Darwin, cancelling the flight entirely), so the combination of chance and impact, means it scored low enough to allow the flight to depart Sydney without further changes. A good risk assessment should also take into account the company's ability to engage in service recovery - the fact that Qantas can't staff their call centres to help passengers with the status of their luggage, needs to come into the equation also.

I have no idea whether formal risk assessments are done for every longhaul flight, perhaps they are. But without being a Qantas apologist, it's unfair to criticise any company for ONE particular operational event. A risk assessment is ultimately a qualitative assessment, it won't be perfect and sometimes low-probability events do in fact happen, as with this case. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice. Qantas lost in this occasion in terms of providing perfect customer service, but they didn't compromise safety. The real test is whether these kinds of events happen frequently, I know Qantas has lots of customer service failures but I don't think that offloading bags in the middle of longhaul flights is something that has been a habit.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

A risk assessment doesn't mean that everything always happens perfectly once you've done that assessment. A risk assessment just means that you *understand* those risks and can mitigate them where they are unacceptable. Risk assessments involve assessing both the chance of something occurring and the impact if it does occur. The chance of a random emergency runway maintenance that was only known about mid-flight (after departing Sydney) or the chances of large weather changes that require additional fuel, most likely scored as a low probability. The impact when it did occur - offloading bags - would be considered lower than alternatives (offloading pax in Darwin, cancelling the flight entirely), so the combination of chance and impact, means it scored low enough to allow the flight to depart Sydney without further changes. A good risk assessment should also take into account the company's ability to engage in service recovery - the fact that Qantas can't staff their call centres to help passengers with the status of their luggage, needs to come into the equation also.

I have no idea whether formal risk assessments are done for every longhaul flight, perhaps they are. But without being a Qantas apologist, it's unfair to criticise any company for ONE particular operational event. A risk assessment is ultimately a qualitative assessment, it won't be perfect and sometimes low-probability events do in fact happen, as with this case. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice. Qantas lost in this occasion in terms of providing perfect customer service, but they didn't compromise safety. The real test is whether these kinds of events happen frequently, I know Qantas has lots of customer service failures but I don't think that offloading bags in the middle of longhaul flights is something that has been a habit.

Agree. But these is also risk assessment regarding brand, in which case this is not a ‘one off’ when considered alongside the lack of catering, long call hold times, and passengers being told they are the problem for long queues (not ‘match fit’).

Sometimes you need to increase risk mitigation in one area as part of the overall strategic risk appetite.

(if I understand the timing correctly, the issue was known about several days before the bag off-loading incident? So this didn’t occur mid-flight on the first day and therefore entirely unforeseeable.)

 

[OZDUCK]

It has been said that the Perth - LHR flights are to resume from 23 May rather than waiting until 19 June. The article was written by Geoffrey Thomas but it is directly quoting a QANTAS executive so I assume that it is correct.

Qantas brings back Perth-London nonstop earlier than planned

www.airlineratings.com

 

[dajop]

This thread is so funny, that so much debate can go into this. All it boils down to, from what I can tell:
1) Sh@##t happens.
2) It's how an airline responds to sh#@#t happening that is the important bit.
3) Prima facie it seems that QF didn't respond that well to sh##t happening in this instance, but:
3a) it's hard to tell if this view is influenced by a raft of other service failures (such as the easter luggage/catering debacle and the long wait times and poor phone customer service) that has conflated something that is not extraordinary into something diabolical, and
3b) We are relying entirely on media anecdotes, probably mainly involving outliers. We don't know how long after landing most pax received their luggage, nor do we know the geographical location (end destination) of the outliers.

Could be either much better or as bad as it seems. Who knows.

 

[RooFlyer]

You seem to think that management have an eye in on day to day ops. That's not how it works, not that quickly anyway. Management is a fun term that's thrown around and is often misunderstood to include factors well outside the scope of what management is tasked to do. Some don't even do that but that's another story.

I call anyone who makes decisions involving other staff or logistics a 'manager' and therefore 'management'. 'Management' should be proactive not just reactive. Avoid something happening (such as checking the catering situation prior to a know Easter crush, with staff shortages a possibility), not just clean up afterwards

This thread is so funny, that so much debate can go into this. All it boils down to, from what I can tell:
1) Sh@##t happens.
2) It's how an airline responds to sh#@#t happening that is the important bit.
3) Prima facie it seems that QF didn't respond that well to sh##t happening in this instance, but:
3a) it's hard to tell if this view is influenced by a raft of other service failures (such as the easter luggage/catering debacle and the long wait times and poor phone customer service) that has conflated something that is not extraordinary into something diabolical, and
3b) We are relying entirely on media anecdotes, probably mainly involving outliers. We don't know how long after landing most pax received their luggage, nor do we know the geographical location (end destination) of the outliers.

Could be either much better or as bad as it seems. Who knows.

Agree with all of that. Personally I factor in some inevitable exaggeration when you read specific complaints but in entirety, the whole Qantas experience recently, from removing service desks at airports, the Easter, and continuing catering debacle, the domestic luggage debacle, this international offloading, call centre wait times, hanging up on callers etc, flight cancellations and needing 10s hours on the phone to sort out the airlines actions or mistakes, or to get a refund, all while the airline continues to charge premium fares is just the pits. And there is AJ at the helm, happily touting a new service in a few years and blaming the customers for problems.

Anyone who doesn't think that needs a rant or three is living in another world.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I call anyone who makes decisions involving other staff or logistics a 'manager' and therefore 'management'.

Then you have never worked in an airline operation. I used to routinely make decisions about baggage & catering and I was nowhere near a "manager" as you want to put it.

I had my manager/management to answer to but just because I was empowered to make the necessary operational decisions does NOT make me a manager.

 

[RooFlyer]

Then you have never worked in an airline operation. I used to routinely make decisions about baggage & catering and I was nowhere near a "manager" as you want to put it.

You can tell I’ve never worked in airlines? .

All fair ‘nuf but in my operation you’d be a manager ( of certain things) and go into the bonus pool

 

[VPS]

It has been said that the Perth - LHR flights are to resume from 23 May rather than waiting until 19 June. The article was written by Geoffrey Thomas but it is directly quoting a QANTAS executive so I assume that it is correct.

Qantas brings back Perth-London nonstop earlier than planned

www.airlineratings.com

People on other forums (fora) have said their flights have been changed to go via Perth

 

[justinbrett]

Agree. But these is also risk assessment regarding brand, in which case this is not a ‘one off’ when considered alongside the lack of catering, long call hold times, and passengers being told they are the problem for long queues (not ‘match fit’).

Sometimes you need to increase risk mitigation in one area as part of the overall strategic risk appetite.

(if I understand the timing correctly, the issue was known about several days before the bag off-loading incident? So this didn’t occur mid-flight on the first day and therefore entirely unforeseeable.)

You're conflating corporate risk (something done in HQ) with aviation safety risk (of which all are involved).

The focus of the airline is quite rightly on aviation safety - and this is not cleanly divided as strategic or tactical as you suggest - it's a holistic process with continual review. There would be standing risk assessments for the LHR flights, and probably specifically updated for DRW-LHR. There may not have been a formal risk assessment done for the displaced threshold, but at very least it would be an informal review of the standing risk assessment. This will carry through to dispatch and operating crew execution, unlikely to be formally documented but should be verbally briefed at least.

PR and financial risk to the company is not really baked into this process at all - these are exercised through company policy, not HQ staff micromanaging the load planner or flight crew. If this was an ongoing issue (more than the couple of days it was) or something identified formally well in advance, HQ might have got involved - but for something like this, it's firmly within execution. I doubt they were even tracking it before it made the news.

Offloading bags or pax isn't even a hazard, it's a treatment.

Again - Qantas apologist.

You can tell I’ve never worked in airlines? .

yup.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

You're conflating corporate risk (something done in HQ) with aviation safety risk (of which all are involved).

The focus of the airline is quite rightly on aviation safety - and this is not cleanly divided as strategic or tactical as you suggest - it's a holistic process with continual review. There would be standing risk assessments for the LHR flights, and probably specifically updated for DRW-LHR. There may not have been a formal risk assessment done for the displaced threshold, but at very least it would be an informal review of the standing risk assessment. This will carry through to dispatch and operating crew execution, unlikely to be formally documented but should be verbally briefed at least.

PR and financial risk to the company is not really baked into this process at all - these are exercised through company policy, not HQ staff micromanaging the load planner or flight crew. If this was an ongoing issue (more than the couple of days it was) or something identified formally well in advance, HQ might have got involved - but for something like this, it's firmly within execution. I doubt they were even tracking it before it made the news.

Offloading bags or pax isn't even a hazard, it's a treatment.






yup.

Exactly, strategic and tactical risk. Everyone understands technically why the bags had to be left behind. It’s the ‘why it happened in the first place’ and the subsequent handling that have people complaining.

Suggesting different parts of the company operate without even picking up the phone to inform the other seems accurate at the moment. And it leads to bad press.

 

[dajop]

PR and financial risk to the company is not really baked into this process at all -

Other than serious safety incidents, there are probably few PR incidents around the treatment of customers (or workers) that would cause serious financial impact to the company. That is one of the roles of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program - to mitigate against risks from these "PR fires" that arise from time to time. Between corporate contracts, the handcuffs of status and the QFF program, as well as the strong safety culture and national carrier branding, QF customer service incidents are water off a ducks back.

 

[justinbrett]

Everyone understands technically why the bags had to be left behind. It’s the ‘why it happened in the first place’ and the subsequent handling that have people complaining.

And this is the crux of it. You're still maintaining this was a preventable issue to not offload the bags. There's been enough posters explain why this was not the case, so if you choose to continue to believe that, that's on you. I'm not going to change your mind.

I will fault the decision to keep the bags in DRW to wait for the next DRW-LHR flight. Obviously the next flight was going to be full as well. I guess that's standard practice in SYD or PER with lots of flights going through - not many going through DRW and those that are are probably weight restricted as well.

We don't know how many bags, how many pax affected, how long they were delayed before getting to the UK (noting they then need to clear customs and get delivered locally). We're just piecing this from twitter and a Guardian article. Not to doubt the authenticity, but we have no idea of the scale.

Suggesting different parts of the company operate without even picking up the phone to inform the other seems accurate at the moment. And it leads to bad press.

Pretty accurate for any large corporation or government department actually, can't argue with you there. Most major airlines included.

 

[jrfsp]

Is there any confirmation that the bags were actually offloaded in DRW (as opposed to not being loaded in SYD).

The articles dont really make it clear....seems conflicting

 

[justinbrett]

Is there any confirmation that the bags were actually offloaded in DRW (as opposed to not being loaded in SYD).

The articles dont really make it clear....seems conflicting

From what I read, flights on the first day were offloaded in DRW, and the second day pax were sent texts or told at check in whilst in SYD - though some didn't get the text until after they checked in.

I'd imagine it was only the bags offloaded in DRW with the extended delay, as the report I read said they waited for the works to be complete for another flight to take the bags (which would have been +2 days). The ones never loaded in SYD would have gone freight or another airline.

 

[RooFlyer]

yup.

Keep the up, and we'll be OK.

 

[jb747]

Strategic vs tactical.

Strategic is deciding you'll fly to London. Tactical is everything related to actually getting there.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Strategic vs tactical.

Strategic is deciding you'll fly to London. Tactical is everything related to actually getting there.

Operationally, yes.

From a corporate perspective things like brand and reputational risk are strategic. Some, like safety, cross over for airlines like QF where safety is a major brand element. Or conversely for airlines with a bad reputation, trying to fix it.