hey folks,
In the last three weeks, I've had 5 trips, 3 with Virgin and two with Qantas and all of them had had schedule changes or cancellations.
Qantas: Melbourne-Brisbane-Auckland, the first flight was a cancelled causing a misconnect and the only alternative "option" was the late evening direct flight that arrives after midnight. Needless to say, I cancelled.
Qantas: The departure from Auckland-Melbourne was schedule changed to arrive too late to make the Melbourne- Adelaide connection which resulted in me having to cancel the entire trip.
Virgin: Adelaide to Melbourne, flight cancelled and changed to a later, unsuitable flight, but had no choice but to take it.
Virgin: Darwin-Brisbane-Melbourne, second flight cancelled and brought forward an hour, cutting down the required connection time to attend a meeting and no option to remove the now unnecessary stop and change to the direct flight.
And this last flight takes the cake......
Was looking at flying Melbourne to Darwin on Sunday for a friends Birthday. Direct flight would have been ideal at $275, but by the time I got around to booking, it had increased to $479 so I looked at other alternatives and found a flight via Brisbane in business class that departed 2 hours earlier but arrived basically at the same time for about $650 so I booked it.
Virgin has now decided to cancel the Sunday morning flight to Brisbane and has put me on a flight at 16:10 on SATURDAY expecting me to pay for the overnight in Brisbane which would then cause the NT authorities to consider me a Brisbane arrival rather than a Melbourne one, meaning i'd also have to quarantine in Darwin for the entire time. Because it was booked through an agent, Virgin says they can't move me to the direct flight on Sunday, which as my luck would have it, is now back down to $275.
So my question is..... what the frig is going on with Australian domestic airlines scheduling? I know all about the conditions of carriage etc, but this is getting out of hand and as far as I can tell clearly breaches Australian Consumer Law.
Im sick of having my travel plans being upended because the airlines sell a flight that ultimately doesn't have enough passengers, so they break the law and inconvenience every one of those passenger to protect their bottom line, but god forbid that your plants change or you miss checkin by 1 minute, then all bets are off.
How is this imbalance allowed to continue??
In the last three weeks, I've had 5 trips, 3 with Virgin and two with Qantas and all of them had had schedule changes or cancellations.
Qantas: Melbourne-Brisbane-Auckland, the first flight was a cancelled causing a misconnect and the only alternative "option" was the late evening direct flight that arrives after midnight. Needless to say, I cancelled.
Qantas: The departure from Auckland-Melbourne was schedule changed to arrive too late to make the Melbourne- Adelaide connection which resulted in me having to cancel the entire trip.
Virgin: Adelaide to Melbourne, flight cancelled and changed to a later, unsuitable flight, but had no choice but to take it.
Virgin: Darwin-Brisbane-Melbourne, second flight cancelled and brought forward an hour, cutting down the required connection time to attend a meeting and no option to remove the now unnecessary stop and change to the direct flight.
And this last flight takes the cake......
Was looking at flying Melbourne to Darwin on Sunday for a friends Birthday. Direct flight would have been ideal at $275, but by the time I got around to booking, it had increased to $479 so I looked at other alternatives and found a flight via Brisbane in business class that departed 2 hours earlier but arrived basically at the same time for about $650 so I booked it.
Virgin has now decided to cancel the Sunday morning flight to Brisbane and has put me on a flight at 16:10 on SATURDAY expecting me to pay for the overnight in Brisbane which would then cause the NT authorities to consider me a Brisbane arrival rather than a Melbourne one, meaning i'd also have to quarantine in Darwin for the entire time. Because it was booked through an agent, Virgin says they can't move me to the direct flight on Sunday, which as my luck would have it, is now back down to $275.
So my question is..... what the frig is going on with Australian domestic airlines scheduling? I know all about the conditions of carriage etc, but this is getting out of hand and as far as I can tell clearly breaches Australian Consumer Law.
Im sick of having my travel plans being upended because the airlines sell a flight that ultimately doesn't have enough passengers, so they break the law and inconvenience every one of those passenger to protect their bottom line, but god forbid that your plants change or you miss checkin by 1 minute, then all bets are off.
How is this imbalance allowed to continue??