Melburnian1
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2013
- Posts
- 24,673
The QF delays/ cancellations thread commenced five years ago. How time flies.
The level of interest will never match the AFF 'Ask the pilot' thread as latter is wonderful specialist advice. Hats off to those who give us that information. You know who you are.
Thank you to all contributors. The best contributions are typically from those at the airport who are delayed - in some cases, fascinating with some great insights. These can be beneficial as a guide to how an airline is likely to treat us if we are 'victim' to a flight cancellation or long delay.
I began the QF thread prior to all others, so that somewhat biases the number of views, while the number of separate contributions also has a bearing. Thank you to mannej for badgering me and rightly suggesting that the threads should be expanded beyond QF.
That said, it's clear that the views for QF delays (388,000 +) outnumber all other airlines combined.
I put this down to many AFFers travelling for work and being compulsorily placed on QF.
The level of interest in QF delays far exceeds its international market share ex/to Oz, and even its domestic market share (the latter including JQ is around 65 per cent.)
With international flights, of the east coast Oz airports for QF, BNE seems to have the best punctuality. MEL and SYD can both be bad, even though MEL is a much smaller port of call for QFi.
Number two ranked airline for delay/ cancellation views is JQ at above 67,000: not an airline that many who view AFF appear to travel on.
Third, unsurprisingly, is VA: 51,000 views and bringing up the (tiger?) tail is TT at 21000.
EK then follows at above 16000 (a QF partner), then CX hot on its heels, and SQ with almost 9,000. NZ, despite having a large presence TransTasman is only at 7600 but I tend to miss some of the TransTasman cancellations and delays, so that partly explains why.
AirAsiaX, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines and surprisingly Xiamen Airlines are others with a reasonable number of views.
The thread has highlighted the very poor punctuality (and many cancellations) on the Sydney - Melbourne route. Its performance looks to be worse than Sydney - Brisbane/Gold Coast. MEL to my mind is increasingly congested and handling delays poorly.
The other takeouts from five years' observations include just how many delays QF has internationally (surprisingly with its A333 and A332i fleets, not just headline grabbing A388s or ageing B744s) and JQ and TT have domestically.
In a crisis (really bad weather at say SYD), VA can often be worse than QF at 'recovering.' Do we put this down to VA having fewer spare aircraft, or less experience at handling "unexpected" huge problems? Certainly it was my experience on a couple of times with VA when there were storms that the staff had little idea what to do next, although in fairness they were under immense pressure.
Other lessons include how ZL is often quite unreliable, and how its Sngaporean owners appear to lack any plan to replace the SAAB340Bs - a subject that was covered a couple of years ago on AFF.
Again something I hadn't necessarily expected was generally how well many foreign airlines handle flights to and from Oz: very, very few cancellations and often punctual or early. Latter may be reflective of slack timetabling up to a point.
The threads also have gradually reflected the increased presence of mainland Chinese airlines in Australia. For instance, last week I had to establish a Donghai Airlines thread and had to look it up as I knew nothing about this airline.
The pages also show other airlines that have come to our shores in recent years, such as Cebu Pacific ex Sydney and soon Melbourne, and Sir Lankan Airlines ex Melbourne.
One continuing surprise is that we still only have one Indian airline with nonstops (indeed any own metal flights) to Australia, and no flights ex Oz by Australian-domiciled carriers to that busy nation that will apparently overtake mainland China as the most populous.
Again, thank you to those who when boarding is delayed or flights cancelled take time out to give us all updates and especially information as to bus transfers, time it took to arrange an hotel and check in at same, meals vouchers and the like. This information can be gold.
I wonder what the next five years will bring?
The level of interest will never match the AFF 'Ask the pilot' thread as latter is wonderful specialist advice. Hats off to those who give us that information. You know who you are.
Thank you to all contributors. The best contributions are typically from those at the airport who are delayed - in some cases, fascinating with some great insights. These can be beneficial as a guide to how an airline is likely to treat us if we are 'victim' to a flight cancellation or long delay.
I began the QF thread prior to all others, so that somewhat biases the number of views, while the number of separate contributions also has a bearing. Thank you to mannej for badgering me and rightly suggesting that the threads should be expanded beyond QF.
That said, it's clear that the views for QF delays (388,000 +) outnumber all other airlines combined.
I put this down to many AFFers travelling for work and being compulsorily placed on QF.
The level of interest in QF delays far exceeds its international market share ex/to Oz, and even its domestic market share (the latter including JQ is around 65 per cent.)
With international flights, of the east coast Oz airports for QF, BNE seems to have the best punctuality. MEL and SYD can both be bad, even though MEL is a much smaller port of call for QFi.
Number two ranked airline for delay/ cancellation views is JQ at above 67,000: not an airline that many who view AFF appear to travel on.
Third, unsurprisingly, is VA: 51,000 views and bringing up the (tiger?) tail is TT at 21000.
EK then follows at above 16000 (a QF partner), then CX hot on its heels, and SQ with almost 9,000. NZ, despite having a large presence TransTasman is only at 7600 but I tend to miss some of the TransTasman cancellations and delays, so that partly explains why.
AirAsiaX, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines and surprisingly Xiamen Airlines are others with a reasonable number of views.
The thread has highlighted the very poor punctuality (and many cancellations) on the Sydney - Melbourne route. Its performance looks to be worse than Sydney - Brisbane/Gold Coast. MEL to my mind is increasingly congested and handling delays poorly.
The other takeouts from five years' observations include just how many delays QF has internationally (surprisingly with its A333 and A332i fleets, not just headline grabbing A388s or ageing B744s) and JQ and TT have domestically.
In a crisis (really bad weather at say SYD), VA can often be worse than QF at 'recovering.' Do we put this down to VA having fewer spare aircraft, or less experience at handling "unexpected" huge problems? Certainly it was my experience on a couple of times with VA when there were storms that the staff had little idea what to do next, although in fairness they were under immense pressure.
Other lessons include how ZL is often quite unreliable, and how its Sngaporean owners appear to lack any plan to replace the SAAB340Bs - a subject that was covered a couple of years ago on AFF.
Again something I hadn't necessarily expected was generally how well many foreign airlines handle flights to and from Oz: very, very few cancellations and often punctual or early. Latter may be reflective of slack timetabling up to a point.
The threads also have gradually reflected the increased presence of mainland Chinese airlines in Australia. For instance, last week I had to establish a Donghai Airlines thread and had to look it up as I knew nothing about this airline.
The pages also show other airlines that have come to our shores in recent years, such as Cebu Pacific ex Sydney and soon Melbourne, and Sir Lankan Airlines ex Melbourne.
One continuing surprise is that we still only have one Indian airline with nonstops (indeed any own metal flights) to Australia, and no flights ex Oz by Australian-domiciled carriers to that busy nation that will apparently overtake mainland China as the most populous.
Again, thank you to those who when boarding is delayed or flights cancelled take time out to give us all updates and especially information as to bus transfers, time it took to arrange an hotel and check in at same, meals vouchers and the like. This information can be gold.
I wonder what the next five years will bring?
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