Groundfeeder
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2005
- Posts
- 652
Just out of the cab at ROK airport at 2.30pm and a text message from QP that my QF2307 ROK-GLA-BNE was now delayed from 4pm to 7.30pm departure. Also next (and last) flight to BNE was fully chockers. Thanks QF!!
Now there may be worse places than ROK QP to wait for delayed flights as it has 27 chairs, a self-service bar fridge and a TV (not in order of importance!) and despite the endurance challenge, I figured this was going to test me. The QP is normally standing room only for the last two flights as the entry restrictions (numbers of invitees in particular) are pretty lax. There is only so much wine and packet cheese one can/should devour and the generous offer by QF for us to obtain gratis packet sandwiches from the airport shop was hard to bypass.
Of course, the 7.30pm departure staggered back incrementally to 8.30 then 9.30pm until we got airborne. Factor in the GLA leg to collect more lost souls (without a QP) we landed in BNE about 11pm. I didn’t receive any explanation as to where our aircraft was lurking until 9.30pm and 5.5 hours late, but being on the final legs of a CNS to BNE milk run, it could have gone bad anywhere.
Strangely, the PIC chose runway 32 against the apparently active 19 so we got to run the full runway length before backtracking to waste what was left of the night.
Of course we were the only zombies alive in BNE terminal after 11pm and I feared for the absence of taxi’s at that hour, but was proved wrong. Also, should I tell you that my priority tagged bag came out at No. 40 on a 50 pax flight?? I won’t go into my cabbie fresh from Mumbai assuring me he knew how to get on the Inner City Bypass, which turned out to be a big porkie, with me coming thru my front door approaching 1am.
I am really hoping this is not the precursor to QLink cancelling QLD regional flights due to lack of tech crew as they have provided excellent service and reliability in the past years.:evil: :evil:
Now there may be worse places than ROK QP to wait for delayed flights as it has 27 chairs, a self-service bar fridge and a TV (not in order of importance!) and despite the endurance challenge, I figured this was going to test me. The QP is normally standing room only for the last two flights as the entry restrictions (numbers of invitees in particular) are pretty lax. There is only so much wine and packet cheese one can/should devour and the generous offer by QF for us to obtain gratis packet sandwiches from the airport shop was hard to bypass.
Of course, the 7.30pm departure staggered back incrementally to 8.30 then 9.30pm until we got airborne. Factor in the GLA leg to collect more lost souls (without a QP) we landed in BNE about 11pm. I didn’t receive any explanation as to where our aircraft was lurking until 9.30pm and 5.5 hours late, but being on the final legs of a CNS to BNE milk run, it could have gone bad anywhere.
Strangely, the PIC chose runway 32 against the apparently active 19 so we got to run the full runway length before backtracking to waste what was left of the night.
Of course we were the only zombies alive in BNE terminal after 11pm and I feared for the absence of taxi’s at that hour, but was proved wrong. Also, should I tell you that my priority tagged bag came out at No. 40 on a 50 pax flight?? I won’t go into my cabbie fresh from Mumbai assuring me he knew how to get on the Inner City Bypass, which turned out to be a big porkie, with me coming thru my front door approaching 1am.
I am really hoping this is not the precursor to QLink cancelling QLD regional flights due to lack of tech crew as they have provided excellent service and reliability in the past years.:evil: :evil:
Just the kind of thing you want to hear after I just booked a multistop flight on some Qantas Dash 8s. 
