Qantas passengers forced to sleep on floor of DFW

[RichardMEL]

I am shocked there seems no move at compensation for pax (from the anecdotal post above). Really? Come on QF... rub salt in to the wound?

I certainly hope they redress this and in a meaningful way.

 

[zan5hin]

What a nightmare.

In the future, Amazon deliveries will be so fast and ubiquitous, passengers might as well go online and order an inflatable sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and pillow and get it delivered to the terminal.

 

[Mattg]

All the stories above compared experience at one airline in 2022 with experiences in prior years.
I think the travel environment has changed so comparability is low. Thats why I am not flying internationally. Lots of cobwebs still.

Well, I've done plenty of international flying in 2022 on other airlines and I have not had any of the bad experiences others have reported with Qantas. Quite the opposite, in fact - most of the other airlines I've flown with this year have actually got their sh** together!

 

[Franky]

I don't agree that rebooking onto other flights/carriers was a reasonable option in this case. It's not one or two pax who have misconnected, it's an entire 787 load that would need to be reaccommodated, which is an incredible amount of work for whoever has to handle it. There are no other flights to Australia from DFW on any carrier, except for Qantas the next day, and no domestic flights out to other ports like LAX or SFO until much later in the morning. The international flights from those US west coast ports to Australia wouldn't leave until the next evening, a timing driven by SYD's curfew but tends to work out for other destinations too, due to connections on both ends.

Also, never mind that US domestic flights tend to operate at very high load factors these days, so getting an entire 787 load of people to LAX/SFO (even HNL?), wouldn't be easy, even if there were seats available onward to Australia. And most importantly, none of that gets the passengers to Australia any earlier than simply waiting until the plane in DFW was fixed and crew available again. So yes, it was way cheaper for Qantas to get the pax to wait until the same plane could be used again, but it was also the only reasonable option here if you actually look at the passenger point of view (many who have chosen DFW to avoid places like LAX to start with). I think you need to focus on why the process of getting accommodation, and the communication on the revised departure time, didn't work any better.

Well put…

 

[aikman]

Absolutely appalling service from Qantas.

People pay a premium to fly Qantas because they expect to be looked after, not to be told to fend for themselves when things go wrong.

 

[snabbu]

Dejoyce (verb): Leaving one in a state of disappointment or dismay. The opposite of rejoice.

Gotta be in the running for post of the year.

 

[OATEK]

Well, I've done plenty of international flying in 2022 on other airlines and I have not had any of the bad experiences others have reported with Qantas. Quite the opposite, in fact - most of the other airlines I've flown with this year have actually got their sh** together!

Have you tried BA this year? Of three flights, two badly delayed with minimal information for passengers. One cancelled and rebooked 7hrs later for a 90min flight. 3 out of 3 sub-par, as opposed to my smooth experiences with QF1/2.

 

[Quickstatus]

most of the other airlines I've flown with this year have actually got their sh** together!

Cobwebs at LHR T2

 

[Mattg]

Have you tried BA this year? Of three flights, two badly delayed with minimal information for passengers. One cancelled and rebooked 7hrs later for a 90min flight. 3 out of 3 sub-par, as opposed to my smooth experiences with QF1/2.

View attachment 281921
Cobwebs at LHR T2

Fair enough - I have not flown with BA or through LHR this year.

 

[JohnK]

I flew Cathay Pacific once from JFK to Hong Kong and then on to Singapore. That flight was delayed by 4 hours as we arrived at midnight so I missed my connection to Singapore and had to be rebooked on a morning flight. On arrival in Hong Kong Cathay had organised hotel and meal vouchers.

We all have different experiences.

Flying CX business MNL-HKG-BKK on the one ticket with another AFFer and we on separate tickets.

Delayed in MNL and arrived in HKG to see the BKK flight pulling away from gate. 30+ passengers connecting to that last flight of the night and CX could not bother holding the flight.

The 2 AFFers are Oneworld Emerald and another Emerald from the flight rushed to service desk first. He put us on the last flight the next night. No offer of hotel. We had to push for hotel and then he wanted to give us same room. We managed to get separate rooms.

Went to one of the lounges and asked them for earlier flight. No. All flights full. It wasn't until the other AFFer showed them availability on first flight the next day that they put us on that flight.

I've had bad experiences with all of them. All airlines can be as bad each other. Treat customers very poorly.

 

[Zanzara]

We all have different experiences.

Flying CX business MNL-HKG-BKK on the one ticket with another AFFer and we on separate tickets.

Delayed in MNL and arrived in HKG to see the BKK flight pulling away from gate. 30+ passengers connecting to that last flight of the night and CX could not bother holding the flight.

The 2 AFFers are Oneworld Emerald and another Emerald from the flight rushed to service desk first. He put us on the last flight the next night. No offer of hotel. We had to push for hotel and then he wanted to give us same room. We managed to get separate rooms.

Went to one of the lounges and asked them for earlier flight. No. All flights full. It wasn't until the other AFFer showed them availability on first flight the next day that they put us on that flight.

I've had bad experiences with all of them. All airlines can be as bad each other. Treat customers very poorly.

Holding flights is a very expensive business, surprising how some people expect it. There would normally need to be a hell of a lot of passengers that are misconnecting to warrant it.
Reluctantly, providing a hotel room after harangIng ground staff at a long noted troublesome intermediate port is not. Also, whilst Oneworld status might make you personally feel valued as a customer, in HKG right now, it probably doesnt mean much. I too have experiences like the unfortunate QF passengers in DFW have (with another airline) and whilst some people are prepared to rationalise and remain loyal to QF after being treated in this way I personally would not.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

Fares on this route (SYD<>DFW) are priced at a premium so you would expect some kind of service if things went south. People fly QF because they expect a certain level of service and reliability and QF know this hence high fares. Alan knows this and can drag the airline through the mud to a certain extent without too much damage to the brand as the stickiness with the FF program gives QF amazing loyalty.

I always fly with travel insurance and some basic plan B options as a seasoned traveller but most PAX do not - in this example they deserve to at least get reliable information and a hotel room for their money. It is clear no one from QF was managing this IRROPS and hence no correct info or accomodation - I would love to hear from any WP/P1 PAX on this flight.

 

[drron]

Well quite a few years ago when QF cared a 747 was held at SFO just for the 2 of us. And they gave us the exit row seats. We were flying Y.
More recently an AA DFW-LGA flight was held for 25 minutes because of a late connecting flight from LAX. We had connected from PHX so we waited.

 

[dajop]

I always fly with travel insurance and some basic plan B options as a seasoned traveller but most PAX do not -

Actually not so clear cut, many insurance policies will not cover mechanical delays (“delays due to the transport provider”) as they expect the airline to pick up the tab (whilst those out of the control of the carrier, such as weather related delays will be covered). Of course all policies vary. But the old AFF/FT mantra of “just claim on travel insurance” is fraught with loopholes.

 

[kpc]

When our QF8 flight was cancelled 4 years back, we were put on AA Dfw to Lax in Y, NZ Lax to Akl in J then NZ Akl to Syd in J. We were travelling Qf in F. ....took hours to reticket the flights and to find our luggage in Dfw as we were transitting in Dfw from YYZ.

 

[stm1sydney]

As a side note, not just about this incident, what I've noticed over time is passengers always play the victim (yep and sometimes they are, however) and someone else should always immediately look after them because it's not their fault.

Yeah, 100% agree with you and Alan Joyce on this. Customers are a bloody nuisance and just need to be more "match fit"...

 

[Quickstatus]

we were put on AA Dfw to Lax in Y, NZ Lax to Akl in J then NZ Akl to Syd in J

Would have caused me to think twice about accepting that offer compared to waiting it out in a hotel at DFW for another day or two and then a direct non stop QF8D. Of course, it may be a no brainer if there is an imperative to get back ASAP

QF know this hence high fares

There are certainly several reason which may or may not be related to the Qantas brand. The extent to which it does or does not is debatable

 

[Katie]

I wonder what part DFW IROPS played in this. Only because as I was flying DFW-MSP last month, Mr Grotty and Chatty next to me ("I met some Australian girls in a bar once, and they said I was the Tasmanian Devil" ) said earlier in his trip, they'd been delayed for over24hrs in DFW, had to sleep in the terminal for the night, couldn't even get blanket anywhere as the shops were shut.

I was desperately trying not to converse with him, but I think he was on a trip to/from a destination wedding. I don't know what routes, and I didn't try to find out more about his delays. I assume they were with AA. I certainly got the impression from him that no-one at AA/DFW cared or were being proactive about the delays.

 

[rikkitikkitavi]

They probably decided to get going with a skeleton Qantas presence in DFW, it should be fairly easy to arrange busses and hotels there. Airlines are notorious for overly optimistic repair time frames, financially it’s better off overall to piss of the passengers rather than have them all scatter to the wind in the event you actually do fix the plane before a deadline. Same thing in the morning, the earlier they all get there the better (for Qantas). Hopefully the second Sydney airport solves this, but I imagine NIMBYs will flock to new housing estates and then demand expensive sound proofing and curfews…

 

[RooFlyer]

They probably decided to get going with a skeleton Qantas presence in DFW, it should be fairly easy to arrange busses and hotels there.

Qantas needs zero presence at DFW although I suspect they have someone / someone contracted to look after the routine stuff. What they need is an agreement or contract which secures some local bodies at short notice to 'look after' Qantas pax if a flight goes pear-shaped. Its not as if DFW is a quaint country airport where such skills are in very short supply. In fact I'd be pretty sure such contracting firms would exist, but Qantas is just too uncaring about its customers to bother.