Qantas passenger sues over broken IFE

[Princess Fiona]

Excess drinking? We don't know that. He may have had a few drinks in the lounge. Seems like he chose to complain about his seating issues instead of accepting someone's stuff up.

From the article "he was acting in an aggressive and abusive manner towards the staff and had been drinking alcohol". 6-12 police officers attended. Neither you nor I know if any seating stuff up happened, only that he wasn't happy with his allocated seat and that was the outcome.
I think that's a bit more than just choosing to complain.
The man is despicable

 

[Daver6]

Several weeks ago on a flight in Y from MEL to PER, the IFE for a few rows of seats (including mine) stopped working. The crew were great in terms of keeping us informed about the issue and what they were doing to resolve it. Eventually, there was nothing more to be done and we were informed the CSM would be around the offer compensation. Our options were either 5k QFF points, a bottle of wine (turned out to be from J to take home), a QP/international J lounge single use pass or a domestic J lounge pass. I took the domestic J pass.

As far as I could tell, no one was annoyed at all due to the way it was handled. Now this was for a flight of just over 4 hours. So if one were to extrapolate based on this, $100 isn't unreasonable and 3k QFF points was pretty stingy IMHO.

Of course, never an excuse for acting like a tool.

 

[turnip666]

No matter how abusive I wonder at the need to have so many police involved.

 

[puppysparkes]

I can't wait to see him go to a higher court. I bet the lunatic will be a self-represented litigant too.

They always are lunatics. "It's the principal"

 

[fairbasa]

3k points is pretty pathetic in a currency where at best it's worth about $30 and where a third of all points go unredeemed. The guy definitely does sound like a PITA serial litigant though. I doubt any magistrate/judge he comes across will have any sympathy for him.

On the topic of QF compensation lottery - I don't like the fact it seems to be based on status. Mrs fairbasa (NB) and myself (WP at the time) were both travelling on a QF flight from SIN-MEL a couple of years back where there was some technical problem which led us to depart the gate twice and turn back twice, spending a few hours on the plane before finally having the flight cancelled. I was given 20k points compensation, Mrs fairbasa only ~5k.

To me everyone is equally inconvenienced and should be compensated equally.

 

[clazman]

Assumption it was a full flight, so they didnt have the option of moving him

 

[Melburnian1]

How, exactly, was his IFE broken?

'
Is it possible the passenger broke it?

And if he'd had a bit to drink - but not an excessive amount - were the airline staff super aggressive towards him, or extremely dismissive or patronising?

But for his being a serial litigant, his request for $100 compensation was probably reasonable.

Filing fees at VCAT have risen a lot: I think his would have been $61.50, so it really was for him a matter of principle, rather than a 'cash grab':

https://www.vcat.vic.gov.au/resources/fees/civil-division

Six to 12 police appears to be an overreaction, unless he was violent.

 

[Hvr]

They always are lunatics. "It's the principal"

Maybe the principal should have insisted teachers tell him what principles are worth fighting for. :mrgreen: There must be a movie about this somewhere.

The correct term for people like this is querulent.

 

[astrosly]

But the offer of 3000 points for the broken entertainment system was pathetic from Qantas.

This is what I was given for non-functioning IFE in PE on a 14 hour Santiago to Sydney flight last November. Had contacted customer service twice before silently having this added to my QFF account.

 

[Katie]

We were on QF23 on 28 Dec. IFE was not working in Y, but was working in J.
All Y pax at the gate were offered a $30 airport voucher to use in a newsagent to buy books and magazines. We three coped; luckily Little Miss had her DVD player and mini iPad.

Unluckily, Mr Katie had not charged the DVD player and its spare battery properly. :evil: So there was limited DVD time, if the two batteries were fully charged, they should have lasted the whole flight.

Back to luckily, the in-seat power was working, and we could re-charge the iPad mini. Little Miss doesn't have much content on it, but could play some games. I tried suggesting that she would burn the battery more quickly by listening to music/watching one of her shows on it AND playing a game at the same time. What do mothers know ... *sigh*.

 

[Archphoto]

Have lost count the number of times IFE has been woeful on the many QF flights I have undertaken - reboots, reboots and more reboots, freezing and being rebooted, rebooted and simply non-operational.

It happens - certainly not great when you're on long flights, but it is what it is. If you want to ensure you're going to be able to watch a movie, might pay to fork out some $$ for a mini dvd player, and load it up.

At 3000 points per (total) failure, I would have easily clocked up 90,000 points over a 4 year period, plus all the J whiskey that was offered to me by the QF crew. Never had an upgrade offer during that time due to the failures (or any other upgrade either). WP had some nice perks for the 4 years I held it, but upgrades sure weren't one of them.

It happens, it's definitely a PITA, but seriously, I'd rather the IFE fail than something that *really* affected my safety. Sheesh, this guy needs to get a life.

 

[drron]

He has a life.I know many who only live to complain.They would be devastated if everything went smoothly.

 

[marki]

He has a life.I know many who only live to complain.They would be devastated if everything went smoothly.

Agree 100%

 

[MEL_Traveller]

IFE is paid for as part of the fare. Sometimes things happen. But compensation should be forthcoming and quick... either an 'on-the-spot' record to credit 3000 points or 'choose anything from duty free up to the value of $50'.

 

[Spongbob]

He has a life.I know many who only live to complain.They would be devastated if everything went smoothly.

I resemble that remark. People would not complain if others did their job properly. And another thing, ...

 

[JohnK]

He has a life.I know many who only live to complain.They would be devastated if everything went smoothly.

Nothing wrong with complaining. That's how things get done.

Oh and if everything went smoothly there'd be something wrong....

 

[Straubs]

I was given a $50 duty free voucher about 8 years go when I flew Qantas to Hong Kong. IFE did not work for anyone (in economy at least) for the whole flight. The vouchers were given at the end of the flight as we got off. The best part was picking up all the dropped vouchers on the way in to the gate. I kept offering them back to people who'd dropped them, many of whom told me they didn't need or want them. I was happy as I had $250 of (admittedly overpriced) duty free to spend on the flight home.