Family blames Qantas for spoiling holiday after Brisbane airport delay

[VHOEJ]

I think the moral of this story is the Courier Mail needs some actual news - I know this is a slow time of year but surely you could fill your paper with actual news. Why not interview all the other passengers from the same flight? And guess what, I am sure somewhere today a flight was cancelled or delayed, it is not news and never will be.

 

[Storyteller]

Next year Werner and his weeners should try taking a flight out of ORD in early January, then see if he complains as it's not unusual to be delayed several hours in the terminal due to weather. When it happened to me (several times) I never thought of blaming the airline

Took me 4 hours to get through immigration in ORD in September. LH delivered us up to the gate a couple of hours late due to weather in MUC & then pilot in FRA refusing to accept delivery of the plane he was given. On the other hand, QF delivered me on time into DFW & 4 minutes after stepping onto the jetway I was through immigration plus bag drop & collect new boarding pass, and walking along the concourse.

Sorry, I digress.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people are living their own reality TV show. Who took the photo? Some handy journalist they had phoned / phoned them, & /or did they send their story plus pic in for some news station to pick up? Should we all have a pic on standby of unsmiling faces in the doorway just in case?

I'd be feeling for folk who were in transit, but then these would probably have been put up in a hotel for the night. Havn't heard a peep so far....

 

[straitman]

Classic no news, there were lots of people affected by the storms, including the QF DRW MEL flight that landed at East Sale!

My cousin was on that flight. I was a little surprised when she reported she was sitting on the tarmac at RAAF Sale. They got into Melbourne ten hours late complete with lightning strike on the aircraft on the way from Sale.

Richard.

Interesting that they got into MEL ten hours late when the a/c was at the ramp at ESL for 3.5 hours. Add a bit for taxi time but certainly less than four hours.

 

[Simo]

Someone trying to get a bonus from a big company.

Slow news day and a bit of airline bashing as well.

Seriously if you are so worried that the voucher doesn't cover the cost of the meal, don't go on holidays.

 

[rwatts]

Interesting that they got into MEL ten hours late when the a/c was at the ramp at ESL for 3.5 hours. Add a bit for taxi time but certainly less than four hours.

On re-reading her Farcebook posts, I see she did use the word "later" rather than "late" and so was probably referring to the total trip time. Her first post included "Waiting for fuel but the airport is closed for Xmas!". Her "arrival" post was just over 4 1/2 hours later.

I wouldn't have thought Sale was a first choice for diversion - would it be reasonable to assume it was dictated by their fuel situation ? Could that also suggest some time in the air before the decision to divert was made ?

Relevant to this thread however is that my cousin does a great deal of business flying and apart from a throw-away line - "Might think about driving back to Darwin. Had enough flying!" there was not a word or hint of complaint in her posts. To her it was just one of those things that happens when flying (cyclone Grant had looked like interfering with her plans before even leaving Darwin).

Richard

 

[Sprucegoose]

I'm sure the Duty Manager had nothing better to do that evening with flights cancellations and delays than wonder whether a meal voucher covered the cost of a stir fry. The airline doesn't control the opening & closing hours of the food outlets but eateries do close down at BNE Airport early. I can't believe a family wouldn't be eating before they left for the airport as even if it was a dinner flight you don't generally get fed until an hour after take-off which would have been around 2100!

An airline doesn't just call the AFP for no reason at all. It's only happens when it gets to a point that the staff feel that they or other passengers have been threatened whether verbally or physically by the actions of a passenger(s).

Sadly it's becoming an all too frequent occurrence. Just recently a staff member in BNE was physicallly attacked by a passenger because they refused to believe they weren't travelling with a particular airline & refused to go to the airline they were booked with.

It seems we have our very own easy jet riff raff alive and well here in Oz!!

 

[BAM1748]

I much prefer sitting out poor flying weather by sitting on the ground and being late. Just this thing I have about self preservation. :mrgreen:

Matt

 

[straitman]

I wouldn't have thought Sale was a first choice for diversion - would it be reasonable to assume it was dictated by their fuel situation ? Could that also suggest some time in the air before the decision to divert was made ?


Richard

The reason that ESL would be higher up the list than many is because it has full facilities. Very few airfields have the necessary fire services, controlled airspace and the necessary refuelling facilities for an RPT aircraft.

Being Christmas and during a base stand down period it would have been a scramble to get the airspace back and enough fire services online.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

The only criticism that I would make is sometimes it is obvious that the flight will be cancelled, as it won't make curfew at the destination airport, but they delay letting passengers know.

At BNE domestic it does surprise me how many of the food places are shut early. During summer time I usually land at 7pm looking across at the food court on the way out most of the places are shut or are closing down at that time. Hungry Jacks is certainly closed. I think I know the asian place they are talking about, I think it is "Wok on Air". It does tend to have more expensive prices, but not much more than the airport average.

In this case I don't think Qantas did anything wrong in the way they handled this case

Sometimes crew hours can be extended with a dispensation provided the crew agree to it. Ops would need to speak to the crew scheduled to operate that flight however this wouldn't happen until they arrived in BNE from their inbound flight (from MEL) & ask if they were prepared to extend & if not the flight would then be cancelled.

This would account for the 'late' cancellation. Although it may appear otherwise, sometimes there isn't a lot of notice given but often pax jump to conclusions which in turn is usually reported by the media as fact if the end result is negative press for the airline concerned.

It seems we have our very own easy jet riff raff alive and well here in Oz!!

Yeah, I can't help thinking people watch these shows & then think they have the right to behave like that because someone else has set a precedent.

Who know's maybe Werner has SMS - 'small wiener syndrome'. Think it's about time sometime reminded him who won the war!!

 

[dfcatch]

Think it's about time sometime reminded him who won the war!!

Twice.....

 

[BadgerBoi]

I think everyones missing the point here.....its xmas! That means things that wouldnt normally be worthy of a mention make news because QF stole someones xmas. Of course none of the other 176 people on the same flight suffered any similar loss of xmas cheer did they? Or maybe they didnt have any kiddies to photograph looking suitably glum? If anyones interested I'd like to be the subject of an article on a flight cancellation for next easter, when I'll claim that my flight cancellation caused me to miss my dying mothers final words. Heck! I'll even cuddle some strangers kidlet for photographic purposes....:mrgreen:

Werner Junior isn't really looking glum enough, in my opinion. Dad should have threatened him with taking his IPhone away to get the right reaction. Amateurs!

 

[N860CR]

It does seem like the family in question have had a bit of a cry... however that said, what are the chances that they were met with a less than pleasant response from the QF ground staff and that only made the situation worse? While QF staff are generally ok, I've found that if you step outside of what they think is an acceptable request etc, they can get their back up quite easily (and given this happened in BNE where I've seen some pretty average ground staff, I can't say I'm totally surprised).

It's not Qantas' fault that weather delayed the flight, however it's not the passengers either. A little compassion is probably what was needed (from both sides) however for whatever reason it didn't happen.

I'm fairly thick skinned, so I do a good job of tollerating service staff when they get unpleasant - but not everyone does. There were significant delays in BNE on Xmas eve as well and I ended up just making my flight to SYD after a late connection, however my bag didn't. QF did a good job overall and I got a TXT on landing in SYD that my bag hadn't made it and I should see the baggage services staff. I wandered up and said "Hi, I've just had a text that my bags gone missing, can we sort something out here?" to which the rather bored looking lady snapped "well if you got a text it's not exactly missing is it???". I dealt with her the way I usually do (smiling and being overly pleasant) and walked off a few minutes later with a case number and a nice set of PJ's, however that little snap could well be enough to really annoy a passenger who would be spending Xmas morning without their bag.

I could be way off and the staff were pleasant and did everything they could to help out in this case, however I do see how it could have gone the way it did (and how easily it could potentially have been avoided).

 

[drron]

Maybe the family was affected by the poisons from the chemtrails!:shock:

 

[straitman]

Maybe the family was affected by the poisons from the chemtrails!:shock:

Nah.

The chem trails are mainly from QF64 and near MEL :!:

 

[harvyk]

I wandered up and said "Hi, I've just had a text that my bags gone missing, can we sort something out here?" to which the rather bored looking lady snapped "well if you got a text it's not exactly missing is it???".

Whilst I wasn't there, sometimes that sort of response is given by someone to try and lighten the mood a little.

As for the family who got stuck in BNE, boo hoo. I've had many a flight get disrupted and I haven't gone crying to the newspapers each time.

Of course the newspaper has gotten all the right words in there including "ordeal" and "unbelievable", and complete with a photogenic bogan family to put on the front.

 

[JohnK]

This must have been last Tuesday. I managed to get on a flight SYD-BNE 1 hour earlier than my original flight and even this flight was delayed. My original flight was delayed even more.

Delays are not fun at all and can be extremely frustrating especially when one has been waiting for a while. Sure it happens but it does not make it any easier.

And I believe that airlines do not communicate delays to passengers consistently. I have lost count of the number of times I am sitting in the Lounge and boarding was supposed to be 30 minutes ago and no communication at all.