The QF staff were great, nothing was too much trouble explaining and helping people who needed it. The cabin crew this morning where very generous towards people some of whom were becoming a bit frayed at the edges.
I had a different experience. I thought the cabin crew really were very helpful and apologetic, but the ground staff at BNE and, to a lesser extent, LAX were unhelpful. I was through Customs at BNE early and couldn't locate a single QF staff member in the near-empty terminal. I made my way up to the departures level and realised that no one was there either. I went back down to arrivals and was about to start to make phone calls to organise my own hotel when some Qantas staff eventually arrived.
At this point the staff pointed at where they wanted queues to form by cabin class. Each of the half dozen people ahead of me in the queue received the same curt reply to any and all questions that that they had: "It's all in the letter" or "Just read the letter". I can't imagine that organising that number of hotel rooms and transfer buses in a short amount of time could be easy, but... I was coping well with the overnight delay in LAX and the three hours on the ground at BNE before the flight was finally aborted, but the rudeness of the QF ground staff was, for me, what turned this into a hellish experience.
My trip home went like this:
A voicemail message to me in New Orleans requesting that I ring Qantas in relation to the rescheduled flight. When I rang I was told 4 times that I could make my own hotel arrangements and then be reimbursed, and then at the end of the phone call, there was a single mention of Qantas being able to arrange hotel accommodation on arrival in LA. I wasn't sure if the spiel was intended to emphasise the sort-yourself-out option, or if it just came across that way based on the call centre person reading from notes in the computer system.
My AA DFW-LAX flight was delayed by close to two hours, which would have caused me to miss QF12 home, irrespective of the rescheduling of the flight.
When I arrive at LAX the ground staff directed me to "the Red Zone" to catch a hotel bus to the Radisson. Trying to find the "Red Zone" was assisted by the large number of people who were occupying an island, clearly all waiting for shuttles. It was a case of too many people in a small space, and there was a fair amount of pushing and shoving going on. I was knocked off my feet to the ground by two bozo's with Q tagged luggage as they surged forward to get on another hotel's shuttle. One of the baggage porters helped me up and gave the departing Q tag warriors a mouthful of Spanish expletive.
The Radisson was fine as an experience, except that the meal voucher approved by Qantas didn't actually cover the cost of a breakfast!
I could see from the flight path that we were being diverted to BNE, and I assumed it was to take on fuel.
It was about 10.40 pm by the time I arrived at the hotel I was put in, The Landmark in Spring Hill. It was emphasised at check-in that Qantas hadn't provided advice about meals and that, in any event, their restaurant was closed. This led to a fair bit of angry PAX behaviour, including one dramatic Basil Faulty-like episode where a guy was loudly berating a Qantas staff member on his mobile phone about there being no restaurant and the fact that the hotel was claiming no knowledge of any approval of food vouchers.
At about 11.20 pm I got a phone call from the hotel's front desk to say that a bus had been arranged for 4 am to get us to the airport to catch a flight to Sydney. At that point I rang 131313 and arranged a mid-morning flight. I'd had about 5 hours' sleep in LAX and couldn't see myself getting up at 3.30 am to catch the bus.
When I got to BNE today the check-in staff complained about The Landmark stating that the hotel had been advised about meal vouchers and that "Qantas wouldn't by using that hotel again". This struck me as plain silly. The Landmark couldn't supply meals at 11.00 pm and 3.00 am. The Landmark were also nice and did their best to manage the 36 check-ins as quickly as they could.
The shemozzle at BNE and the attitude of the ground staff were the only bits of the 50 hours it has taken me to get home that I'm left feeling aggrieved about. That and having a bruised elbow courtesy of the two Q Taggers.
