QF805 fail

[samh004]

Notwithstanding the flight is only around an hour (much less in the air), it still costs a pretty penny, up there with SYD-MEL. I think OP makes a reasonable point.

Agree with the OP, QantasLink is the way to go love flying with them!

What's mainline?

 

[harvyk]

I once asked why they didn't have softdrink on the CBR-SYD vv flights. The rather weak answer given was there wasn't time. Whilst I didn't say it at the time I wish I had replied "but there is time to serve beer / wine and a sandwich?"

I have found that it's very hit and miss in regards to the catering on CBR-SYD flights. Sometimes they will have full catering, other times they have the minimum to conform with the advertised "free beer and wine on all flights after 4"

Prob is that I'll usually have a G&T or two in the QP in SYD before flying back to CBR, and given I will typically have to drive on arriving in CBR it limits what I can drink in flight.

 

[doublecatered]

Hi there
Im a long time observer of this forum and ive decided to jump in and join the fray.

Im a domestic flight attendant of over 10 years and I feel this thread needs a bit of insight from the other side.
Basically, its all about sector length and what is able to be consistently delivered every time.
Im sure I speak for almost all of my colleagues in saying that we all want our customers to walk off happy. If we were able to give you
a lemonade or a ginger beer or an Appletiser on every flight, we would, but, on a full Canberra/Sydney sector, it simply is not possible without compromising the delivery of the service throughout the cabin. This sector is so quick, we struggle to get it done...factor in turbulence and well, it gets messy!
We offer this ammended service on the CBR/SYD i.e juice/water/beer/wine simply because its QUICK.
Once you get the soft drink component involved, its a whole new level of choice/availability that we simply do not have time for.
On some flights where we are not full, sure, crew are happy to oblige your request, but it is not part of the official service standards.
And dont get me started on charging for beer/wine on weekends!! Thats one thing we are all not happy with!!

 

[Keelan]

Hi there
Im a long time observer of this forum and ive decided to jump in and join the fray.

Im a domestic flight attendant of over 10 years and I feel this thread needs a bit of insight from the other side.
Basically, its all about sector length and what is able to be consistently delivered every time.
Im sure I speak for almost all of my colleagues in saying that we all want our customers to walk off happy. If we were able to give you
a lemonade or a ginger beer or an Appletiser on every flight, we would, but, on a full Canberra/Sydney sector, it simply is not possible without compromising the delivery of the service throughout the cabin. This sector is so quick, we struggle to get it done...factor in turbulence and well, it gets messy!
We offer this ammended service on the CBR/SYD i.e juice/water/beer/wine simply because its QUICK.
Once you get the soft drink component involved, its a whole new level of choice/availability that we simply do not have time for.
On some flights where we are not full, sure, crew are happy to oblige your request, but it is not part of the official service standards.
And dont get me started on charging for beer/wine on weekends!! Thats one thing we are all not happy with!!

I appreciate your input, however. The flight was less than half full. Also, I have flown this route many times and have never before not been offered soft drink (I am aware of the timings for beer and wine). I worked for many years in a customer service role so understand the limitations placed on service staff by company policies - and am sure the crew would prefer to be able to offer more. However, the service and demeanour on this flight was a tad churlish, which was disappointing when I am used to much better service and atmosphere on QF. But again, I appreciate your views. Cheers.

 

[serfty]

... but it is not part of the official service standards.

Thanks for your post and welcome to AFF.

There is one thing I have issue with (it does not ring correctly):
If the soft drink is indeed catered into the craft for each and every flight, how can service of said soft drink not be part of the "Official service Standards".

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Thanks for your post and welcome to AFF.

There is one thing I have issue with (it does not ring correctly):
If the soft drink is indeed catered into the craft for each and every flight, how can service of said soft drink not be part of the "Official service Standards".

I thought the poster was referring to the service standard for the CBR-SYD sector only since it might be a little different to the rest of the network due to the time available.

 

[doublecatered]

Hi Keelan
Not a problem. Absolutely understand your frustration with getting inappropriate attitude from your flight attendant that day.
Im of the opinion that you fine folk are the ones that pay my wages and i need to do my best (within reason lol) to ensure you are treated
with respect and given all that you are entitled to. Of course, amongst all that, we are only human, and we all have our days we would rather forget....

Amongst our ranks, we have crew that believe that we should only offer what is stipulated in the manual. This is probably a good idea as it promotes consistency (which is the one thing we are criticised for not providing) The downside of this is that in the current environment whereby we are trying to lift ourselves up and do all we can to impress our customers in the face of a new agressive competitor, we are doing things that are not standard, and only serve to confuse our customers...like you usually getting a soft drink whereby in the service standards, its only juice/water/beer/wine.
Combine this with crew from lots of different bases who half the time dont even know that soft drinks are not even meant to be offered on that particular
sector, you can see how things arent delivered according to specs.

Happy to help if you need anything else explained/clarifed

Hi serfty
Regarding your point about having soft drinks loaded, you are absolutely correct, they are loaded onto the aircraft on every flight (except for AM services where we have a very limited bar offering)
Basically, our caterers load an aircraft in a stock standard way. Our bar carts are loaded almost identically so that if we see a bar cart, we know 9 times out of 10 what will be in it. Qantas Catering have standardised the process clearly to save costs in assembly at the catering centre and to
achieve a really quick turnaround when an aircraft has arrived at a port and needs be turned around in 40 min!!
The rest of it is down to the sector and the specified Service Standards that are written up. There is a big, thick manual with EVERYTHING written up for every flight... and I mean everything
The service for each sector is designed to be achieved without an problems. But I can safely say, Canberra Sydney is the ONE sector that I have
trouble with. Call me old fashioned but I want to pass a snack/drink to my customers and look you in the eye when doing so. On this sector, all bets are off and Im practically throwing it at you before I have to ask you to hand it all back after 2 minutes cause we have to prepare the cabin for landing.
Well maybe its not that bad but you can see the point im trying to make.

Cheers

 

[Keelan]

Hi Keelan
Not a problem. Absolutely understand your frustration with getting inappropriate attitude from your flight attendant that day.
Im of the opinion that you fine folk are the ones that pay my wages and i need to do my best (within reason lol) to ensure you are treated
with respect and given all that you are entitled to. Of course, amongst all that, we are only human, and we all have our days we would rather forget....

Amongst our ranks, we have crew that believe that we should only offer what is stipulated in the manual. This is probably a good idea as it promotes consistency (which is the one thing we are criticised for not providing) The downside of this is that in the current environment whereby we are trying to lift ourselves up and do all we can to impress our customers in the face of a new agressive competitor, we are doing things that are not standard, and only serve to confuse our customers...like you usually getting a soft drink whereby in the service standards, its only juice/water/beer/wine.
Combine this with crew from lots of different bases who half the time dont even know that soft drinks are not even meant to be offered on that particular
sector, you can see how things arent delivered according to specs.

Happy to help if you need anything else explained/clarifed

Hi serfty
Regarding your point about having soft drinks loaded, you are absolutely correct, they are loaded onto the aircraft on every flight (except for AM services where we have a very limited bar offering)
Basically, our caterers load an aircraft in a stock standard way. Our bar carts are loaded almost identically so that if we see a bar cart, we know 9 times out of 10 what will be in it. Qantas Catering have standardised the process clearly to save costs in assembly at the catering centre and to
achieve a really quick turnaround when an aircraft has arrived at a port and needs be turned around in 40 min!!
The rest of it is down to the sector and the specified Service Standards that are written up. There is a big, thick manual with EVERYTHING written up for every flight... and I mean everything
The service for each sector is designed to be achieved without an problems. But I can safely say, Canberra Sydney is the ONE sector that I have
trouble with. Call me old fashioned but I want to pass a snack/drink to my customers and look you in the eye when doing so. On this sector, all bets are off and Im practically throwing it at you before I have to ask you to hand it all back after 2 minutes cause we have to prepare the cabin for landing.
Well maybe its not that bad but you can see the point im trying to make.

Cheers

Thanks again. Definitely see your point, as have been on fully loaded 738's on this sector and have seen some passengers at the back miss out as due to turbulence only about half the cabin could be served. Would be a difficult sector for crew on a full plane that's for sure! But I guess the problem as you point out are inconsistencies that become expectations. Regardless, you have demonstrated a commitment to your work and employer and professionalism in your responses that are a credit to yourself and the airline. I would say though from a customer perspective to qantas, if a flight is decontented due to air time the price should fall accordingly, as has been stated by others the cost on this sector is often not cheap, and in the face of an aggressive competitive play on the route, gives increased pause for thought.

 

[hdfb]

One could only hypothesise the price of a CBR-SYD flight if high speed rail were introduced.

Thanks to doublecatered for their 2 responses though. Great to hear from the inside and I personally appreciate the service I get on flights between CBR-SYD as I understand the turnaround is really quick but I still get much better service on the flight when compared with their "aggressive competitor" on longer flights

 

[Simo]

Hi there
Im a long time observer of this forum and ive decided to jump in and join the fray.

Im a domestic flight attendant of over 10 years and I feel this thread needs a bit of insight from the other side.
Basically, its all about sector length and what is able to be consistently delivered every time.
Im sure I speak for almost all of my colleagues in saying that we all want our customers to walk off happy. If we were able to give you
a lemonade or a ginger beer or an Appletiser on every flight, we would, but, on a full Canberra/Sydney sector, it simply is not possible without compromising the delivery of the service throughout the cabin. This sector is so quick, we struggle to get it done...factor in turbulence and well, it gets messy!
We offer this ammended service on the CBR/SYD i.e juice/water/beer/wine simply because its QUICK.
Once you get the soft drink component involved, its a whole new level of choice/availability that we simply do not have time for.
On some flights where we are not full, sure, crew are happy to oblige your request, but it is not part of the official service standards.
And dont get me started on charging for beer/wine on weekends!! Thats one thing we are all not happy with!!

Great first post.

Look forward to more

 

[harvyk]

Hi doublecatered

It's always good to hear from FA's giving another side to the story.

How exactly does the service become more difficult if you include a small selection of soft drinks, sure running back to the galley each time someone asks for one would take some time, but I don't see why throwing a coke or two, some lemonade and some ginger beer onto the cart is really going to slow things down. I'd probably even accept an explanation of we've run out if I asked for a coke and you didn't have any left on the cart and you couldn't get back to the galley.

 

[hdfb]

Going to take a stab at replying.

It would take extra time, even a few seconds, to mention soft drinks when asking water/juice/beer/wine, and then you would also have pax asking, what types of soft drinks? Again more time spent on mentioning Coke/Diet Coke/Fanta/Lemonade etc etc.

Also, giving the pax more choice also means they may take more time making their decision.

Larger variety of drinks on the cart also means less quantity of each beverage, so more frequent trips to the galley would be necessary if Diet Coke was a hit on the flight.

To be honest, I think QF crew offer great service in the time provided. On a CBR-SYD flight, they'll start collecting your rubbish as soon as they serve the last pax, which is understandable as the flight time can be as little as 25 minutes.

Contrast this with my recent MEL-CBR trip on VA, where they had 45 minutes, but had to start collecting rubbish as soon as they served the last pax.

 

[doublecatered]

Hi harvyk.
hdfb is exactly right in explaining re soft drinks. Can I also add that if we throw on a draw of "splits", (thats what we call soft drinks lol...no idea where that
term came from) crew being what we are, would like to accommodate your request...we actually don't like saying "No" so you'll get people running back and forth getting a can of Coke Zero from the galley wasting valuable seconds.

Also, if, as you say we carry a small selection of soft drinks and we don't have the choice you asked for, it would only add to the customers frustration. Better all around to just do what is do-able in the allocated time.

 

[Mattg]

I've been on a QF807 flight where the CSM had to apologise to J passengers that they had no time serve a meal!

 

[Keelan]

I've been on a QF807 flight where the CSM had to apologise to J passengers that they had no time serve a meal!

#compensationploise

 

[hdfb]

I've been on a QF807 flight where the CSM had to apologise to J passengers that they had no time serve a meal!

That's poor... Very surprised by that. Would definitely fill in a feedback form.

 

[RooFlyer]

Hi doublecatered

Great to have your perspective here - hope you have broad shoulders though

I haven't done SYD-CBR but did LST-MEL recently which is is only scheduled longer by about 5 mins I think. I've always thought it would be better to have "no catering" on flights of <60 mins (with commensurate price reduction!). 'Ring the bell if you need a glass of water' or maybe like they have on some Nth American sectors - the FA goes down the aisle with a bunch of plastic cups and a big bottle of water. But I guess that's been thought of already and discounted for whatever reason. And on CBR runs you do probably have a "certain demographic", even in Y.

Love to have an 'Ask the Flight Attendant' thread, like 'Ask the pilot'

 

[CaviAck]

Love to have an 'Ask the Flight Attendant' thread, like 'Ask the pilot'

We do, http://www.australianfrequentflyer....tions/now-boarding-chicken-or-beef-31399.html

 

[RooFlyer]

We do, http://www.australianfrequentflyer....tions/now-boarding-chicken-or-beef-31399.html

Aw shucks .. that's embarrassing! Thanks

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Hi doublecatered

Great to have your perspective here - hope you have broad shoulders though

I haven't done SYD-CBR but did LST-MEL recently which is is only scheduled longer by about 5 mins I think. I've always thought it would be better to have "no catering" on flights of <60 mins (with commensurate price reduction!). 'Ring the bell if you need a glass of water' or maybe like they have on some Nth American sectors - the FA goes down the aisle with a bunch of plastic cups and a big bottle of water. But I guess that's been thought of already and discounted for whatever reason. And on CBR runs you do probably have a "certain demographic", even in Y.

Love to have an 'Ask the Flight Attendant' thread, like 'Ask the pilot'

the time in the AIR on LST-MEL is quite a bit longer than SYD-CBR.

LST-MEL distance: 296 miles
CBR-SYD distance: 147 miles