QF2 Passengers Stranded in Dubai

[MEL_Traveller]

Sections of the aircraft aren't "closed" and no door to my knowledge is "unstaffed". Minimum crewing means all doors would have a crew member.

Could have been a weight issue, QF8 as an example never flies full. I doubt they'd fly a plane back with spare seats that could have been filled..

The above doesn't suggest anything that they weren't doing everything..

Standard operations would have a crew member at each door. The question is whether QF's operating procedures allow, in exceptional circumstances, the aircraft to depart with less than minimum crew required for all doors. This could mean restrictions on the number of passengers carried, and where those passengers can be seated for take off and landing. This might potentially explain the 50 empty seats, but I'm not sure of QFs policy in respect of this.

Could have been a weight issue, but with full flights on every other day you suspect they might leave bags behind rather than pax?

 

[moa999]

The SMH article is a bit weird.
VH-OQF didn't depart as QF2D until the 1st, so the flight the pax found out from the SMH, must have been one of the normal scheduled services

 

[Franky]

Your point about the multiplicity of EK and other flights available direct to home or via Asia is well made. Which supports those that consider Joyce remaining in Dubai could have been of help. He would of course be on first name terms with his opposite number at EK in Dubai, and a quick personal phone call to him may have been helpful in finding and making available any seats that could be used. I appreciate we are all Monday Morning Quarterbacks here, but a lot of peoplel get paid the big bucks to manage these occurences.

 

[drron]

Do a bit of research though and it is understandable that there were delays-
105,362 passengers arrive in Dubai on New Year’s Eve | GulfNews.com

And it does seem QF did do things for some pax even though they say they were told nothing-
Disgruntled Qantas passengers spend New Year's Eve in the sky, dozens more still stranded in Dubai | Stuff.co.nz

Passenger Jayne Blake, who managed to get on an earlier flight home because she was short on medication, arrived in Sydney on Sunday morning.
"I'm on blood thinners and ran out, thank God for medication," Blake said.
"We were on a QF2 flight, and the QF2 the previous day was delayed so we got offloaded off our QF2 to let them go on it, so we missed New Year's Eve and were told nothing."
"There was no communication from Qantas whatsoever, we were eventually put into a hotel – after 10-and-a-half hours. Some of us had luggage, some of us without and didn't know where our luggage was.

 

[coyote25]

Really do you think there would be 400+ spare seats at this time of the year?

I don't believe that of all the flights to Australia there were no seats whatsoever available. As I mentioned in earlier post get people to Australia, use travel class to work out priority order (and status inside travel class). Why everyone had to be offloaded from the second functional plane mid destination is difficult to understand.

 

[MrJetset]

Well we have heard from numerous different sources that ground agents in DXB (or indeed in operations control in SYD) didn't really explore other options about getting people back to Australia until quite a significant delay.

This is absolute nonsense. I was speaking with ops when it happened.

The aircraft went tech, the flight and cabin crew timed out and the food spoilt during the delay. The tech issue of the fuel sensor was the ultimate precursor to all this but OPs were sourcing new crew, trying to swap any of the birds inbound to DXB and many other options.

 

[funnymummy]

my experience was that I got a seat on an EK flight after missing QF connection and others were being turned away at the gate as no seats left, however there were empty seats on this flight - maybe about 20

I don't believe that of all the flights to Australia there were no seats whatsoever available. As I mentioned in earlier post get people to Australia, use travel class to work out priority order (and status inside travel class). Why everyone had to be offloaded from the second functional plane mid destination is difficult to understand.

 

[rtyuiop]

I don't know how he would have improved passenger outcomes by hanging around.

The only reason I suspect it might have improved passenger outcomes a bit is that in my experience in the corporate world, there is a fair difference in outcomes between 'get this done' and 'get this done because the CEO is in the next room and monitoring how it's going'.

The bigger difference probably would have been in perception.

Cheers,

Danny

 

[Quickstatus]

This is absolute nonsense. I was speaking with ops when it happened.

The aircraft went tech, the flight and cabin crew timed out and the food spoilt during the delay. The tech issue of the fuel sensor was the ultimate precursor to all this but OPs were sourcing new crew, trying to swap any of the birds inbound to DXB and many other options.

Yes no doubt that one A380 becoming inoperable throws the "spanner" in the works. So:

1) Why disrupt a second A380 load of passengers to add to the chaos?
2) Why call that move a regular policy
3) why if it were a regular policy then they did not subsequently disrupt the next load of passengers.
4) why is that "regular policy" virtually unheard of at that airline and others and only executed that one time

Qantas has standby crews. There are no standby capital assets like A380.
I wonder if standby crew were pre-positioned at certain hubs?.
I understand airlines need to run their operations as efficiently as possible but systems break when they are stretched too thinly.

Re aircraft loadings. The comparison with QF8 should be wth QF1 not QF2. Flying east usually has the assistance of prevailing winds. Flights like QF8 are to some extent load limited. To a lesser degree QF94 and QF74, then QF1 and QF12

 

[jb747]

Qantas has standby crews.

6,000 miles away.

I wonder if standby crew were propositioned at certain hubs?.

Not in this instance. They may be in some cases (i.e. volcanoes), but it takes a few days to position them, and generally issues are resolved by then.

 

[Flying Fox]

A real quandry - disrupt 400 pax for 48 hours or 800 for 24 hours each without knowing the actual duration of the potential disruption. After some thought I would go for the 400 option - this means 400 people have no disruption and the first 400 have max disruption - 1/2 the number of people disrupted. If the problem had taken longer to solve would we have had rolling 400 pax disruptions for days on end?

I would have thought that the '400 option' was a no brainer and that the flow chart would be -

1. Based on travel class and status within travel class shift pax into all available QF seats to SYD & MEL.
2. Hotel accommodation for those who couldn't be shifted.
3. When the delay was so long that pax had to go to alternate airlines, look at EK for direct flights to final destinations and/or SYD.
4. When the delay was so long that pax had to go to alternate airlines, look at all other airlines for direct flights to final destinations and/or SYD.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

This is absolute nonsense. I was speaking with ops when it happened.

The aircraft went tech, the flight and cabin crew timed out and the food spoilt during the delay. The tech issue of the fuel sensor was the ultimate precursor to all this but OPs were sourcing new crew, trying to swap any of the birds inbound to DXB and many other options.

we have a couple reports of flights with empty seats, and if those flights had empty seats, did not the half dozen other airlines with connections to Australia have at least a few?

 

[jb747]

Thankfully I wasn't there, but I did read yesterday that Dubai's passenger numbers for the 4 days from the 28th set new records, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a general lack of seats.

I don't understand how the person claiming there were 50 empty seats, on an aircraft she wasn't on, could have known.

Crew are not on standby, and ad hoc flights are crewed by whomever they can find. Mixed in with all of this would have been crews running out of hours, not having legal amounts of rest, hitting flight time limits. The time on the ground is legally required to be 'free of all duty'. Even sitting here at home, I'm affected by these rules.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I don't understand how the person claiming there were 50 empty seats, on an aircraft she wasn't on, could have known.

The quote was from a passenger on the plane - they counted the ~50 seats.

 

[RooFlyer]

The SMH article is a bit weird.
VH-OQF didn't depart as QF2D until the 1st, so the flight the pax found out from the SMH, must have been one of the normal scheduled services

Yes, I read is that she took the initiative, and got herself on a separate flight from the QF delayed ones.

Thankfully I wasn't there, but I did read yesterday that Dubai's passenger numbers for the 4 days from the 28th set new records, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a general lack of seats.

I don't understand how the person claiming there were 50 empty seats, on an aircraft she wasn't on, could have known.
<snip>.

I read it that she was talking about that other scheduled flight, that she did get on. Probably should read 'quite a few' rather than 50, or 'I could see 5, so extrapolate it to the rest of the plane and call it 50'.

I don't suppose you'd like to venture into the question of whether bumping a whole plane of pax in favour of an earlier delayed lot therefore having two planeloads of delayed pax, is a routinely employed thing, or not?

 

[jb747]

I don't suppose you'd like to venture into the question of whether bumping a whole plane of pax in favour of an earlier delayed lot therefore having two planeloads of delayed pax, is a routinely employed thing, or not?

I don't have any information, other than what I can read into the events, and from what I've seen in the past, so I don't know why any particular decision was made, or who made it.

I can see that some fairly heroic tours were operated by some crews, and one in particular was messed around to an amazing extent. So, whilst plenty of mud is being thrown, I will say that the crews should not be the target.

 

[**TBA**]

but your assertion that there weren't any seats available at all on 15 daily A380 and B777 services (plus many more via SIN) to Australia is straining credulity a little.

Emirates are known for overbooking their planes, so it doesn't surprise me at all that they didn't have any spare seats..

This is the peak-est time of year, I've heard horror stories of staff travellers being stuck in Dubai for days because there are no seats to Australia (via Asia or direct) at Xmas time.

 

[maroonone]

Trying not to go OT - this is one of the reasons I always check in at counters so that the airline is forced to keep counter staff numbers up. On a cancellation I had they only had two staff trying to hotel accommodate less than 100 pax in Sydney and it took 90-120 minutes. On topic - I think AJ staying in Dubai would have been more beneficial as he would have been personally aware of angst and told his people to "sort it" which might have provided more staff being applied and out of the box solutions being pursued. It is amazing what is achieved when the "General" personally says sort it. I wonder how many actual QF customer service staff are in this hub - I suspect less than a handful.

 

[clifford]

I wonder how many actual QF customer service staff are in this hub - I suspect less than a handful.

My guess is zero. And I know from personal experience that EK CS staff (if they exist) don't cut it.

 

[Franky]

(I would have thought that the '400 option' was a no brainer and that the flow chart would be)..

My flow chart would involve firstly asking for volunteers to partake of a free stopover for a day (or two?) to free up some seats; next offer would be to families with the youngest children; then travel class and status..