VA Cancellations, Delays growing?

[Saab34]

Yeah, the operations team sit there stressed trying to work out aircraft movements and crew allocations and a manger stands up and screams "cancel everything, we have to disrupt passengers, tarnish our brand and pay out accommodation costs cause the IPO the AFF Forum members keep making out will happen tomorrow and it will need to be a success!"

Manager sits down and scratches his head and then thinks ... Wow I been screaming about that IPO for almost a year

The point is, they are not investing in crewing. He it wages or recruitment, or retaining anyone.

When you are in a IPO audit period, which is this half, spending is cut and no extra funds are allocated.

Perhaps they should pull back the schedule? Again, in IPO mode, don’t want to destroy the numbers.

 

[Bagpuss]

The point is, they are not investing in crewing. He it wages or recruitment, or retaining anyone.

When you are in a IPO audit period, which is this half, spending is cut and no extra funds are allocated.

Perhaps they should pull back the schedule? Again, in IPO mode, don’t want to destroy the numbers.

So you are saying they aren't running a safe airline?

If a Virgin Australia plane crashed I don't think any sort IPO will do very well! It would likely be the end of Virgin Australia with REX at the forefront.

Unfortunately cancellation and delays are having throughout the aviation industry.

Crew rostering at Virgin Australia was poor for many years pre-covid. Possibility covered up by having excessive standby crews.

 

[MarkD]

So you are saying they aren't running a safe airline?

If a Virgin Australia plane crashed I don't think any sort IPO will do very well! It would likely be the end of Virgin Australia with REX at the forefront.

Unfortunately cancellation and delays are having throughout the aviation industry.

Crew rostering at Virgin Australia was poor for many years pre-covid. Possibility covered up by having excessive standby crews.

I dont believe their safety has been brought into question. I certainly believe they are a safe operation just becoming extremely unreliable which is measured and factual.

 

[Bagpuss]

I dont believe their safety has been brought into question. I certainly believe they are a safe operation just becoming extremely unreliable which is measured and factual.

I don't disagree about the unreliability.

I disagree it's based around so much as an IPO, they have just literally signed off on the new deal with the ground staff (cabin crew yet to be done)

Virgin signs deal with ground staff, cabin threat looms

Virgin Australia has struck a pay deal with its ground workers, ending the looming threat of industrial action....

www.canberratimes.com.au

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The point is, they are not investing in crewing. He it wages or recruitment, or retaining anyone.

When you are in a IPO audit period, which is this half, spending is cut and no extra funds are allocated.

Perhaps they should pull back the schedule? Again, in IPO mode, don’t want to destroy the numbers.

My VA flight this afternoon ex SYD cancelled due to crew shortage.

 

[RooFlyer]

When you are in a IPO audit period, which is this half, spending is cut and no extra funds are allocated.

Spending is not cut with an IPO in mind. The lead up to an IPO is like an aircraft coming in to landing - everything needs to be stable, so the forecasts have credibility. Professional investors won't be fooled with a dip in expenditure/commensurate (small) rise in profit in year -1. If anything, companies tend to put a gloss on prior to sale ('plumping up'); in fact if you think about it, most people do, with most things they are going to sell. Would you stop mowing lawns, doing maintenance prior to selling your house?

IPO may or may not go ahead next year. It will depend on the Qantas share price more than anything. Like I've said in other threads, no point selling into a tanking market, especially while the business is making (good?) money.

Noting the company has been in dispute with ground staff (until that news on the pay deal with ground staff was posted by bagpuss) I was wondering if Virgin was suffering a little bit of what Qantas was suffering up to 2011, when Joyce grounded the fleet to stop the death by a thousand cuts by the unions.

 

[elanshin]

I'd say it's likely they're running into the similar issues (or worse) as QF but aren't being scrutinized for every little thing. Just overall stretched fleet, crew with little margin for error while demand is sky high still.

Especially given QF's issues, a lot more people have jumped over to see if the grass is greener on the other side.

How VA chooses to deal with it in the short and medium term, who knows but they probably are hitting limits soon and the Aussie summer is coming up. Would be a bad look if they had a meltdown once Christmas Holidays kicks in.

(I'm surprised the media didn't really have a go at them for stranding a whole bunch of passengers for the Coldplay concert, just a few articles here and there).

 

[RooFlyer]

(I'm surprised the media didn't really have a go at them for stranding a whole bunch of passengers for the Coldplay concert, just a few articles here and there).

This over-looking is a product of the reputational damage consequences that I was banging on about at the height of the Joycean malaise at QF. If you tarnish the brand sufficiently, then every little thing afterwards will be magnified. This will be Optus for the next year. If anything, Virgin probably still has Qantas as a 'cover' as far as airline stuff-ups are concerned. Not fair and I certainly hope VA get touched up in the media where justified, to keep 'em on their toes, but that's how it goes sometimes.

 

[bcworld]

My VA flight this afternoon ex SYD cancelled due to crew shortage.

I'm quite curious to know what sort of demand there is for VA cabin crew positions.

I have recent experience of a new cabin crew member that makes me think they'll offer a job to almost anyone!

I don't really want to say too much more about it right now...I will let the dust settle for a bit before I think about telling the story!

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I would say, if the F100 starts its first flight of the day late, it will be bad by evening.
Due to
1.weather.
2.crew issues, if a pilot or co pilot goes off ill, then thats one flight out.
3.plane going techno.
Flightaware is good for chasing data on "incoming flights", once one flight is late, every flight with that plane is late, till it meets a city with curfew, then it gets cancelled.

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

I would say, if the F100 starts its first flight of the day late, it will be bad by evening.
Due to
1.weather.
2.crew issues, if a pilot or co pilot goes off ill, then thats one flight out.
3.plane going techno.
Flightaware is good for chasing data on "incoming flights", once one flight is late, every flight with that plane is late, till it meets a city with curfew, then it gets cancelled.

You could say that about most airlines and most flights - delays get compounded by the hour (or by the flight) and there is rarely the ability to catch up.
FWIW I flew VA BNE-MKY on Friday and then QF return on Sunday afternoon - both flown by Alliance. The BNE-MKY was 50" late without any real tell as to why on the inbounds with QFLink being ontime...however the interesting bit about the QFLink flights was that the tail wasn't uploaded into Flightradar24 etc until probably 30 minutes before its' departure from BNE on the northbound sector, whereas most times you can see this information 12-24 hours prior to flying (i.e. pre-loaded). Found that to be an interesting point that I hadn't seen before.

 

[A321]

however the interesting bit about the QFLink flights was that the tail wasn't uploaded into Flightradar24 etc until probably 30 minutes before its' departure from BNE on the northbound sector, whereas most times you can see this information 12-24 hours prior to flying (i.e. pre-loaded). Found that to be an interesting point that I hadn't seen before.

FR24 is a strange one for this.
VA (and flights operated by QQ) update the tail numbers roughly 48hours before departure.
JQ and QF only update really once the flight boards, apart for OOL flights for some reason these are displayed 24 hrs out on JQ.

If you use Flight Aware, you can track the inbound aircrafts right from the morning of. Strange data exclusions.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

My take… VA is missing a trick here. Instead of routinely cancelling four or five flights a day between MEL and SYD each way, why not offer a reduced schedule, but actually fly on time?

Reliability would be far better than frequency.

 

[RooFlyer]

FR24 is a strange one for this.
VA (and flights operated by QQ) update the tail numbers roughly 48hours before departure.
JQ and QF only update really once the flight boards, apart for OOL flights for some reason these are displayed 24 hrs out on JQ.

If you use Flight Aware, you can track the inbound aircrafts right from the morning of. Strange data exclusions.

Same experience using the Flighty app, under 'where's my plane', which tracks up to the past 9 or 10 flights of your plane, even from the day before, noting late/early times with each - interesting to see how delays can compound. Not so much in this example, though.




One thing I've also noticed is that Qantas craft are usually only 'assigned' tail numbers until relatively late (so it won't appear in other apps 'find my plane' feature either). My last flight from MEL didn't appear on any app until I could see the aircraft taxiing into the gate. VA birds, on the other hand, assigned much earlier ... or at least the assignment 'sticks'. Same with flight plans (flight path) that Flighty picks up.

Reliability would be far better than frequency.

This goes back to the old 'they are hoarding slots (Sydney)' debate between airlines and the airport. Story in today's ABC on-line here.

"The idea of slot hoarding is that you put out a schedule that you really know you're never going to fly, and you might not even have all the resources to fly, but you publish it and you maintain these historical slots that you've had maybe for 10, 15 years," Dr Douglas says.

"And then you selectively cancel certain flights during the season, being very careful not to ever cancel more than 20 per cent of them."

The ACCC's August allegation claimed that between May and July 2022, more than 15,000 Qantas and QantasLink flights were cancelled, representing around 22 per cent of their scheduled flights for that period.

But I agree - I cannot see why there is any advantage to the airlines (let alone customers) in scheduling and selling so many flights where their current circumstances mean that they can't/won't be flying them all.

 

[Must...Fly!]

I don't disagree about the unreliability.

I disagree it's based around so much as an IPO, they have just literally signed off on the new deal with the ground staff (cabin crew yet to be done)

Virgin signs deal with ground staff, cabin threat looms

Virgin Australia has struck a pay deal with its ground workers, ending the looming threat of industrial action....

www.canberratimes.com.au

That's good news, very pleased to hear it. Hopefully the other workgroups aren't too far away.

One thing I've also noticed is that Qantas craft are usually only 'assigned' tail numbers until relatively late (so it won't appear in other apps 'find my plane' feature either). My last flight from MEL didn't appear on any app until I could see the aircraft taxiing into the gate. VA birds, on the other hand, assigned much earlier ... or at least the assignment 'sticks'. Same with flight plans (flight path) that Flighty picks up.

This is just a quirk of the different systems.

 

[RooFlyer]

This is just a quirk of the different systems.

A bit o/t so I'll quickly slide this in here. Which different systems? I've been wondering where Flighty accesses this info from, and also the 'flight plan' that often appears in the app not long before departure, and then the proposed flight route plots within the app.

Might Flighty access the 'tail number assignment' info directly from the different airlines, or might this be in, say, an airports' system that is accessible by the app?

 

[RooFlyer]

THE AFR on-line has a story about the latest BITRE report on airline arrival timeliness.

One-third of domestic flights on Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin still late

Some 73 per cent of Qantas Group, including its regional carrier QantasLink, arrived on time compared with 68.8 per cent of Virgin Australia’s network, including its regional airline, according to the figures released by the Bureau of Infrastructure Transport Research Economics on Tuesday.

but then this

Virgin achieved the highest level of on-time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at 68.6 per cent, followed by Jetstar at 68 per cent and Qantas at 66.6 per cent. The overall cancellation rate was 3.8 per cent, nearly double the long-term average before COVID-19 of 2.2 per cent. Before the pandemic, airlines averaged about 81 per cent on-time performance.

I guess that means that QantasLink props up the Qantas Group figures - also for cancellations; see below. Mainline VA has fewer cancellations than mainline QF. So on the main trunk routes, on average you are still better off taking VA.

From the BITRE report:



So, @Saab34 , looking at previous reports, it appears that VA is not getting worse wrt cancellations and delays and in fact is improving for cancellations.

 

[MooTime]

Nice work @RooFlyer . Solid research.

We can be a harsh mob here on AFF, yet so enlightening other times.

So many here fly so regularly that the circa 4% cancellation rate across the board can seem like 40% at times.

Note; like your point of virgin IPO hinders on QF share price, so true for the sector!

 

[Sleepy Sloth]

On a day of flight cancellation what hotel would be offering a room for 200 dollars? Very few if any I suspect ...

Correct. None! And after 5pm on a Saturday? GOOD LUCK!!! (we also never got offered or received any food vouchers, after 6 hours of being at the airport after the original flight was cancelled)

 

[MooTime]

Not as bad as being sold tickets on non existent / cancelled flights.
Fighting for the refund for hours on the blower and then only being able to use the credit on more expensive flights.

Now that's ordinary.