QF2 Passengers Stranded in Dubai

[MEL_Traveller]

Holding a carrier to a standard of total reliability is unworkable, unless you want to be paying fares much greater than we have today.

Yes, but this is what EU261 exactly does. It holds airlines responsible for managing their fleet and delivering flights as advertised. If they don't, hefty compensation follows.

We'll have to wait and see what QF offers in this case. But had this been departing the EU everyone would have got ~AUD900 for their troubles. That doesn't guarantee you'll get home quicker but it (a) does provide an incentive for the airline to rebook you as early as possible (even on another carrier) and (b) helps soften the blow just a little if the 400+ economy pax are getting a free one-way flight.

Without a legislated compensation regime, passengers might be left wondering if the airline really is pulling out all the stops to minimise delay.

 

[andrewpf]

If the openly gay CEO was transiting Dubai (especially if with his partner) he probably wasn't too keen on spending any unnecessary time in a hotel there.

Sorry but I don't think that flies at all (pardon the pun!) ... IMHO I highly doubt this came into his thinking, but if it did, then:

1) What about any other passengers he may be leaving in a similar situation?
2) He (of all the people on board) could have ensured two separate rooms for himself and his partner
3) Perhaps most importantly ... if this was really his thinking, then surely the logical question is why does the CEO believe that partnering with EK and using Dubai as a major hub is acceptable?

 

[bryanjones]

Although harder to manage, as a passenger I would much prefer to be stuck at my original port than put on a plane to Dubai and then have to wait there. Transiting Dubai is nice with the EK lounge, but I'd rather stay in my original place of departure

 

[coyote25]

I'm really surprised they went and caused issues with a larger set of PAXs. I would imagine an airline would instead start placing PAXs from the cancelled flight on any spare seats going back to Australia (not just Sydney as QF should have enough domestic flights free to get back to Sydney!). Working your way down from priority of F, J and Y with status membership within those cabins working out who goes first.

You might even ask PAXs back in London on the next flight for volunteers who wants to stay a free night in Dubai to make some space and actually get some happy PAXs on the later flights.

Why piss off so many extra PAXs? I wouldn't be impress being forced off a plane that was still operating. However I might accept a free night in a new country. I would be happy (well okay) if I was on the cancelled flight and they then took the corrective action above. I won't expect people to be kicked off their operating flight for me, I'd just expect QF to do everything possible to find spare seats including other airlines to get me home. That's what makes a full service airline IMHO, how you recover.

 

[mviy]

As this is a peak flying period the problem is worse than it would be at a non-peak time. At a non-peak time it would be easier to shift people onto our flights.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

As this is a peak flying period the problem is worse than it would be at a non-peak time. At a non-peak time it would be easier to shift people onto our flights.

But why allow a full plane to take off from LHR? Between the dozen+ airlines offering connections to Australia - not a single spare seat on any of them? In any class? Possible, but I'd be surprised. Baggage would be a problem, but I think pax would have rather got home with baggage arriving later.

 

[Skyring]

But why allow a full plane to take off from LHR? Between the dozen+ airlines offering connections to Australia - not a single spare seat on any of them? In any class? Possible, but I'd be surprised. Baggage would be a problem, but I think pax would have rather got home with baggage arriving later.

We don't know what the engineering problem was, nor do we know how much QF knew about it at various times. It may be that they thought they could have the problem fixed soonish, and if they had flown the next flight from LHR empty and it turned out they got the first plane fixed, then there would have been howls of outrage from those left behind, not to mention the huge expense at having to sort that lot out in London.

I am surprised that QF couldn't immediately start filtering pax back to Australia on other flights - QF to BNE and MEL, for example - and other carriers, beginning with their partner EK. Hard to believe that there weren't a few seats going.

Been a bit of a PR horror for QF. Perhaps they should get a few more staff trained up in Pax Relations.

There's very few of us who would want to fly in an unsafe aircraft, but I think we all hate being kept in the dark.

And for pity's sake, if AJ was on the spot, then there's no excuse for keeping the passengers uninformed. He would have known the situation and the solutions, why not pass on the info?

 

[clazman]

Quick read of the title, had a blond moment, who cares about 2 QF passengers stranded in Dubai.....

 

[yohy?!]

seems like they must have got everyone away yesterday, was on the 128 from HKG last night which was surprisingly empty (had a bank of 4 and pair of 2 free to ourselves in upper deck Y ) - thought they might have shunted some pax across to take advantage of the extra seats on the 380 but the FAs didnt seem to think this had happened.

 

[moa999]

VH-OQF back into service, due into SYD shortly as QF2D.

Regular QF2 also arrived this morning, so that should clear most of any backlog.

 

[Quickstatus]

VH-OQF was the A380 that was severely delayed at DXB apparently with a fuel flow sensor. It was grounded for over 48 hours. Its passengers including AJ spent one night in some hotel in dubai and were put on the next arriving QF2 A380 while those passengers were taken off. The airline spun a story that this was "normal practice" to minimise overall passenger delays.

This has (AFAIK) never happened before. If this was a common practice why was it only a one off. Suspicion falls on the airline expediting AJ return to OZ under the cover of some spin and the chaos of passengers doing musical chairs.

The Qantas delays and cancellations thread has been exploring this.


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Without a legislated compensation regime, passengers might be left wondering if the airline really is pulling out all the stops to minimise delay.

Aircraft operations have redundancies and contingencies with some critical areas having several layers of redundancies.
Some commentary on social media suggest that delayed passengers should have built contingencies into their itineraries.

It seems that in a period of full aircraft utilisation and peak period travel that the airline does not/ did not have any contingencies for getting their passengers to their destination

The airline might say they did provide accomodation and meal vouchers and would call this compensation but it really is not.


There are numerous possibilities to fly between DXB and AUS. While this period of travel is very busy and aircrafts full, it is telling that the airline made their passengers wait rather than try to get them home via other airlines.

 

[744]

We never did this all the time I worked in the responsible area. I'd love to know who came up with the plan but to disrupt 2 lots of pax is beyond stupid. As far as Joyce getting out before disrupted pax well that is just dumb. He should have been the last one to get away.

 

[Danger]

And for pity's sake, if AJ was on the spot, then there's no excuse for keeping the passengers uninformed. He would have known the situation and the solutions, why not pass on the info?

. . . As far as Joyce getting out before disrupted pax well that is just dumb. He should have been the last one to get away.

As mentioned above, I think Qantas missed a golden opportunity here.

The CEO of a major airline personally being front and centre to talk to passengers at the airport, deliver the latest information, standing at a check-in desk as passengers are given vouchers. Money can't buy that sort of positive publicity.

Absolutely he wouldn't have wanted to do it - who would - and especially not at new year, but it would be hard for any media outlet (including Australia's particularly poor bunch) to spin such a move in a bad way. It's certainly not the CEO's job and you wouldn't parachute the CEO in from Australia to do it, but being there, in the thick of it, wow, priceless publicity.

 

[moa999]

The CEO of a major airline personally being front and centre to talk to passengers at the airport, deliver the latest information, standing at a check-in desk as passengers are given vouchers. Money can't buy that sort of positive publicity.
.

And be stuck in a different timezone, away from key staff and support staff.

Like suggesting that the pilots help serve the food on board because a catering stuff up loading breakfast instead of dinner. Who's flying the plane.

 

[Danger]

And be stuck in a different timezone, away from key staff and support staff.

Like suggesting that the pilots help serve the food on board because a catering stuff up loading breakfast instead of dinner. Who's flying the plane.

Presumably the pilots would be somewhat busy flying the aircraft.

 

[ermen]

And be stuck in a different timezone, away from key staff and support staff.

Like suggesting that the pilots help serve the food on board because a catering stuff up loading breakfast instead of dinner. Who's flying the plane.

Actually the perception of the CEO at the coalface would be pretty strong. He would be fairly useless at the coalface, but equally so in SYD. But its all about perception... if he said he was the last man off DXB sends a stronger positive vibe than AJ took our plane!

But wait... there were no expert QF spin doctors in DXB... so AJ wouldnt know how to "spin" the situation right there and then...

 

[RooFlyer]

As mentioned above, I think Qantas missed a golden opportunity here.

The CEO of a major airline personally being front and centre to talk to passengers at the airport, deliver the latest information, standing at a check-in desk as passengers are given vouchers. Money can't buy that sort of positive publicity.

Absolutely he wouldn't have wanted to do it - who would - and especially not at new year, but it would be hard for any media outlet (including Australia's particularly poor bunch) to spin such a move in a bad way. It's certainly not the CEO's job and you wouldn't parachute the CEO in from Australia to do it, but being there, in the thick of it, wow, priceless publicity.

And be stuck in a different timezone, away from key staff and support staff.

Like suggesting that the pilots help serve the food on board because a catering stuff up loading breakfast instead of dinner. Who's flying the plane.

But Joyce was in Dubai anyway, away from key and support staff. As I understand it, he was delayed 24 hrs along with the rest of the plane load. And the pilot analogy doesn't hold up - whatever's loaded, they would have still been busy up the front. Joyce would still be doing his job while delayed as well (you'd expect), but could have made a big fella of himself by being seen on the front line for an hour or so.

Richard Branson in that situation probably would have done something publically and got the positive publicity, like he's so good at doing!

 

[Himeno]

One of the Fri QF2 pax is on twitter suggesting that this is no different to QF30 or QF32.
This person appears to have been rebooked home (CBR it appears) via ADL arriving 51 hours late, and is posting with an account created on Sunday merely to attack Qantas.

 

[VHOEJ]

Just to make it clear - this is one of the busiest times of the year, in addition to the many delays due to DXB fog, there was simply no seats to put pax on alternatives. All of the multiple EK flights were totally full - if there was space, they could have got the passengers away without these multiple disruptions. It just happened at the worst time of year......

 

[Quickstatus]

Just to make it clear - this is one of the busiest times of the year, in addition to the many delays due to DXB fog, there was simply no seats to put pax on alternatives. All of the multiple EK flights were totally full - if there was space, they could have got the passengers away without these multiple disruptions. It just happened at the worst time of year......

And It seems the airline had ZERO contingency to manage such a situation other than to dish out "care packages" , spin a one off action into a regular policy of delaying 2 plane loads so a VIP can sneak home earlier, and post inane comments on social media which made people even more angry.

Sure behind the scenes LAMES had a torrid time fixing the aircraft and they did get the aircraft going again

The ground staff - were following orders - and had to manage hundreds of disgruntled passengers compounded by taking off 400 odd passengers and putting on another group of passengers. This itself created a massive amount of work for them. Instead of 400 passengers now they had 800 passengers to deal with and all the while knowing what they were ordered to do was not a regular policy but to put it mildly an untruth.

The job of a pilot is to ensure the safety of the aircraft and passengers, to attain a takeoff/landing ratio of one and be an ambassador for the airline. Some say RdeC did this. Some say he overdid it. But he managed to turn the situation into something positive (and maybe even created a "cult" following). The pilots in this case flew the plane and delivered the aircraft and passengers safely to earth.

The job of a CEO is to manage in this case an airline on behalf of the shareholders, drive policy execution, make strategic decisions, be an ambassador for the brand and communicate with the employees, board, outside world especially customers.

AJ was there at the coal face. Sure all the coal face work is delegated to underlings. But It's not a good look and what a missed opportunity that all the publicity cannot buy to turn a negative into a positive. His was the responsibility of protecting the brand and driving loyalty and customer satisfaction and patronage.

So tell me who did not do their job??