QF1 from SIN diversion to Baku, Azerbaijan (GYD)

[Pushka]

QF is sending an A380 nonstop to pick them up

View attachment 312529

And take them to LHR? Likely to arrive late on Christmas Day I guess.

 

[prozac]

QF is sending an A380 to pick them up

Imagine the PR if they had a flash sale for cheap seats to any one of Mumbai, IST, SIN, KUL, or any of other major destination along the way.

 

[Quickstatus]

And take them to LHR?

Yes. Unless they all vote and decide to go visit Santa first. The diverted aircraft remains on ground in Baku. The crew that takes them to LHR likely are the original ones as they have rested.

 

[AIRwin]

4 pilots?.
How many cabin crew?
+ Santa?

 

[Tannin]

From The Guardian - Qantas has issued a statement saying (the bit about it being a recovery aircraft on standby is blatantly incorrect):

The recovery flight, which is being operated by an Airbus A380, departed Sydney at 11:40am this morning for Baku Airport.
The aircraft will then pick up customers at Baku Airport and continue on to London. It is expected to arrive at Heathrow early on Christmas morning.
The aircraft operating the recovery flight is one of the operational spares that Qantas has on standby over the holiday season to help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this.

Qantas also thanked the Australian government and seven foreign governments for “urgently processing the necessary flight path approvals for this one-off recovery flight.”

Qantas engineers are also travelling from London and Sydney to inspect the A380 in Baku, with a suspected faulty sensor in the cargo hold.

Qantas has also apologised to customers:

We have apologised and thank them for their patience while we finalised the recovery plans. They have spent the night at the Marriott Hotel and been provided meals and transport. We’re providing regular updates to customers on the recovery plan.
We’d also like to thank the pilots and crew who operated the disrupted service for their professionalism and their support to customers.

 

[Quickstatus]

the bit about it being a recovery aircraft is blatantly incorrect):

I don’t have a problem with it being called a “recovery flight”. The airline is sending an aircraft, maybe some parts to recover the QF1 service and passengers from Baku.

 

[Melburnian1]

At which Marriott in Baku are passengers (and crew?) staying?

TripAdvisor lists three. One is a Courtyard by Marriott.

 

[Melburnian1]

I don’t have a problem with it being called a “recovery flight”.

Yes, it's an accurate description surely?

The aircraft is flying to ensure passengers can get to their destination, London, more quickly, plus assist those travelling southeast bound to SIN and SYD/beyond. That's 'recovering' (or partly so doing) an adverse situation.

What is QF's beef? Is it hyper sensitive given the huge criticisms of Alan Joyce (many of which were and are justified), the egg/toilet paper-throwing mansion incident, the dreadful decline in onboard catering according to many users or the terrible punctuality and sometimes high cancellation rates of many of its international and domestic flights?

 

[Quickstatus]

Yes, it's an accurate description

I think so. Luckily the airline had an available airframe. Question is why did it have an spare. Isn’t air travel bursting at the seams?

 

[Tannin]

I don’t have a problem with it being called a “recovery flight”. The airline is sending an aircraft, maybe some parts to recover the QF1 service and passengers from Baku.

Sorry, perhaps I should have been clearer. "Recovery flight" is fine. "is one of the operational spares that Qantas has on standby over the holiday season to help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this" is incorrect. It's been flying daily per the link in my original post.

 

[Mwenenzi]

QF media -->QF1 DIVERSION TO BAKU Published on 24th December 2022 at 13:12
https://www.qantasnewsroom.com.au/qantas-responds/qf1-diversion-to-baku/

Update
Qantas has deployed a recovery flight from Australia to assist customers who are disrupted in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The recovery flight, which is being operated by an Airbus A380, departed Sydney at 1140am this morning for Baku Airport. The aircraft will then pick up customers at Baku Airport and continue on to London. It is expected to arrive at Heathrow early on Christmas morning.

The aircraft operating the recovery flight is one of the operational spares that Qantas has on standby over the holiday season to help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this. Having these aircraft and additional pilots and cabin crew on standby has provided flexibility to operate the recovery flight at short notice and minimise the disruption to customers.

Qantas would like to thank the Australian Government and seven foreign governments for urgently processing the necessary flight path approvals for this one-off recovery flight.

Qantas engineers are travelling from London and Sydney to inspect the A380 currently on the ground in Baku with a suspected faulty sensor in the cargo hold.

We know this has been a significant disruption for customers ahead of Christmas, however we will always put safety before schedule. We have apologised and thank them for their patience while we finalised the recovery plans. They have spent the night at the Marriott Hotel and been provided meals and transport. We’re providing regular updates to customers on the recovery plan.

We’d also like to thank the pilots and crew who operated the disrupted service for their professionalism and their support to customers.
<snip>

Politically a difficult area of the world

 

[Quickstatus]

"is one of the operational spares that Qantas has on standby over the holiday season to help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this

It’s clearly operational
It’s a spare
And they always have standby crew
And it’s the holiday season.

So I can understand why the airline will want milk this positive PR.

What you are saying is that it is more luck and not necessarily a policy of the airline to keep spares that there was a standby aircraft which is why I asked the question above.

I have mentioned several times that QF made a massive mistake in not tempering its seat releases immediately post covid and got themselves into situations where they were short of aircraft, crew, call centres to properly manage the demand with sufficient backup.

 

[milehighclub]

Given the disruption earlier this year, QF does in fact, have some operational spares across the fleet. It so happens that of the 6 A380, only 4 are needed in service. 3 for LHR and 1 for LAX every other day. So this was in a sense spare. It will still have some operational impact though.

 

[albatross710]

I have a relative due to depart LHR-SYD on QF2 25 Dec. Proactively QF have been in contact, rescheduled their flights and arranged overnight accom where it was needed.

 

[VHOEJ]

The airline has spare aircraft for this period to recover from disruption. If they could fly every aircraft and had enough crew, they would be doing it given the demand and fares. The focus is on minimising disruptions from the usual problems, rather than running the fleet into the ground with no spare capacity. There are always a significant number of aircraft out of service getting engineering work done on them

 

[drron]

Thank goodness there was an operational spare with our son and family off on QF1 to London on boxing day.

 

[Quickstatus]

So this was in a sense spare

Rather than an airline policy to keep spare aircraft’s in case of problems. No airline would intentionally keep spares especially during peak travel periods - I think this is what @Tannin is alluding to.

 

[milehighclub]

Rather than an airline policy to keep spare aircraft’s in case of problems. No airline would intentionally keep spares especially during peak travel periods - I think this is what @Tannin is alluding to.

QF made that exact decision - they made an operational decision to keep some aircraft available, along with crew (some time ago due to planning and rostering) for this peek period, in case of a disrupt across aircraft types.

 

[jpp42]

I am surprised they aren't running daily to LAX with 6x A380's available. The real issue must be shortage of crews.

It might also be that the "spare" airframe was having some maintenance done that could be postponed a bit.

I also wonder why it requires a flight all the way from Australia to get the pax onward to London. Surely they could charter one or more aircraft from any of many European airlines to get them on their way sooner, without the expense of an empty A380 flight? I understand most carriers are very busy but there's a lot to pick from.

 

[PineappleSkip]

I wonder if some A380 flights have been replaced by 787s?