After a difficult time checking in (1st check-in suite closed with ambiguous signs on the doorway and no one manning the J check-in counter) we boarded the early morning flight from MEL to AUK on Jan 7th for our holiday in NZ. We had taken advantage of a J sale PER to AUK and had scheduled an NZ internal flight down to WLG where we needed to end up that evening.
An hour after boarding all passengers were taken off the aircraft due to a technical fault (parking brake) which required a new part to be flown down from Sydney.
We were told $30 food vouchers would be provided and the flight would be re-scheduled later that afternoon. That meant we would miss our NZ connection by a few hours.
I discussed our situation with Qantas and they offered to re-route us to WLG via SYD. We kept our J seats on both the MEL/SYD and SYD/WLG sectors.
The folk back in the MEL first lounge were terrific, looking after us, phoning NZ on our behalf and also contacting the meet and greet car company we had arranged to pick us up in WEL from the AirNZ flight and rescheduling them to coincide with the new QF fight late in the evening.
We forfeited the NZ flight but ended up where we wanted to be a few hours late. All in all a good outcome.
So...we had two visits to the Mel 1st Lounge and one visit to the SYD 1st lounge a few hours apart.
Thank you Qantas and particularly the MEL 1st Lounge staff. I don't remember the gentleman's name but Red Roo if you could please pass on those thanks.
An hour after boarding all passengers were taken off the aircraft due to a technical fault (parking brake) which required a new part to be flown down from Sydney.
We were told $30 food vouchers would be provided and the flight would be re-scheduled later that afternoon. That meant we would miss our NZ connection by a few hours.
I discussed our situation with Qantas and they offered to re-route us to WLG via SYD. We kept our J seats on both the MEL/SYD and SYD/WLG sectors.
The folk back in the MEL first lounge were terrific, looking after us, phoning NZ on our behalf and also contacting the meet and greet car company we had arranged to pick us up in WEL from the AirNZ flight and rescheduling them to coincide with the new QF fight late in the evening.
We forfeited the NZ flight but ended up where we wanted to be a few hours late. All in all a good outcome.
So...we had two visits to the Mel 1st Lounge and one visit to the SYD 1st lounge a few hours apart.
Thank you Qantas and particularly the MEL 1st Lounge staff. I don't remember the gentleman's name but Red Roo if you could please pass on those thanks.
