QF56: 24 hour+ delay and counting

[r21111]

Unfortunately Mondays QF56 LAX - BNE was turned back to LAX 2 hours mid flight due to a passenger medical incident.
Passengers bussed to airport hotel overnight and back on busses to Airport to recheck in for 10am flight today. Everyone at boarding gate when screens update to “now 8PM”. 45 minutes later after plane is pulled from the gate an announcement is made to confirm planned flight now at 8PM due to crew unavailable.
Passengers invited back to hotel again (or business lounge).
A lot of disappointed passengers re the 2nd delay.

 

[jb747]

The 10am departure would have been what the ops centre planned to have. As you were told before you left the airport, they would not have had contact with the crew that they wanted for that flight. The crew that flew the medical return would not be able to fly the trans Pacific flight until they’d had 24 hours off, so they’d need to grab the crew who are scheduled for the next night. There is no guarantee that they‘d be in any position to operate the next morning…they are not on standby, and legally do not have to even answer the phone until 24 hours after their own landing.

This is one of the issues of having multiple types operating to a city. If you have 4 flights a day, and they’re all the same aircraft type, then there would potentially be 8 crews in town, so it would generally be possible to put together an ad hoc crew. With 3 types, there’s very likely only one crew that could be considered, and the chances of making that ad hoc crew decrease to almost zero.

 

[UP4014]

I hope the poor individual is safe and survived. People need to not worry about delay times when there is a medical need to land, one day it could you, me or a family member.

 

[r21111]

I hope the poor individual is safe and survived. People need to not worry about delay times when there is a medical need to land, one day it could you, me or a family member.

All on board are completely sympathetic to the initial 24 hour delay and turning the flight back. Areas to improve are: the 2nd and 3rd delay, the problems of call centers trying to fix the various connections, and availability/capacity of crew in this situation.

Thanks for insight jb747.

 

[Mattg]

The 10am departure would have been what the ops centre planned to have. As you were told before you left the airport, they would not have had contact with the crew that they wanted for that flight. The crew that flew the medical return would not be able to fly the trans Pacific flight until they’d had 24 hours off, so they’d need to grab the crew who are scheduled for the next night. There is no guarantee that they‘d be in any position to operate the next morning…they are not on standby, and legally do not have to even answer the phone until 24 hours after their own landing.

This is one of the issues of having multiple types operating to a city. If you have 4 flights a day, and they’re all the same aircraft type, then there would potentially be 8 crews in town, so it would generally be possible to put together an ad hoc crew. With 3 types, there’s very likely only one crew that could be considered, and the chances of making that ad hoc crew decrease to almost zero.

To add to the complications here, QF now exclusively uses Jetconnect crew on the LAX-BNE route.