AirKat
Member
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Posts
- 265
I thought I’d share a great service experience Mr AirKat and I had this week with Qantas and the P1 team. Long story, but helps to explain the state of mind we were in and why we were so grateful.
Mr AirKat’s grandfather passed away and we were headed to Canberra for the funeral on Tuesday. We live in Melbourne and were both in Sydney on the Monday for work, so booked flights for early Tuesday morning to Canberra for a 10:30 funeral. Our initial flight was to land in CBR at 7:35 so I felt safe we had left enough time in case things went wrong. We were to fly out that afternoon, me back to Sydney to attend a dinner before back to MEL on the last flight. Mr AirKat was on the 3pm flight back to MEL.
When we arrived at the airport in SYD I read the words CBR fog on the flight board and started to worry. But I’ve been delayed by this a few times already this winter headed into SYD, and always managed to arrive well before 10am. In the J lounge I asked the lady at the desk whether they had any idea of how long flights would be delayed, and what was the worst case scenario with CBR. She said midday, which I thought was ridiculous and we went to get a coffee and toast and wait. At 7am the announcement came that our flight was cancelled. I went and spoke to the same lady who put us on the next flight which was scheduled to land in CBR at 8:30 – still ok. I mentioned to her that we were going to a funeral so were quite anxious, and it would be helpful if she could let us know any changes.
Within 10 mins I was paged back to the desk and she had upgraded us to J. She also said they expected to board soon. We didn’t board until 8 but it’s obviously a very short flight so I was still feeling ok. We pushed back at 8:30 and the 30 min flight was underway. Unfortunately over an hour later we were still circling waiting for visibility. Close to 10am the pilot attempted to land and had to abort. I sighed wondering how long we would circle before trying again. That’s when the announcement came that we did not have enough fuel to try again and get back to SYD if we couldn’t land – so we would be returning to SYD now to refuel.
Mr AirKat and I looked at each other in a bit of shock, not quite being able to grasp that we were going to miss the funeral. We landed back in SYD shortly after and refuelling began as many passengers disembarked. I rang the P1 desk and spoke to the lovely Sue to explain the situation. I hoped to be able to scrap my CBR-SYD-MEL flights and push back Mr AirKat’s so that we could stay the afternoon with the family. All flights were red e-deals. Within 10 mins she rang back to say it was not at all a problem and had moved us to the 20:45 flight CBR-MEL.
We finally landed in CBR at 12:40pm. We spent the afternoon with family and arrived back at the airport at 19:10, just as the 19:30 was about to close. There wasn’t time to get to the lounge to ask if we could move flights so we quickly checked-in and headed to the service desk to ask. He made a quick phone call and moved us to the 19:30, which was already boarding, without a hint of concern.
I guess all of these were small things, but you can appreciate that this was a stressful and upsetting day for us both. Every time we dealt with QF staff they made the day a little easier and for that I really am so grateful. It enforced to both of us why QF has our loyalty.
And for those thinking I perhaps found a nice SC run – no extra credits for the SYD-CBR-SYD-CBR run
Mr AirKat’s grandfather passed away and we were headed to Canberra for the funeral on Tuesday. We live in Melbourne and were both in Sydney on the Monday for work, so booked flights for early Tuesday morning to Canberra for a 10:30 funeral. Our initial flight was to land in CBR at 7:35 so I felt safe we had left enough time in case things went wrong. We were to fly out that afternoon, me back to Sydney to attend a dinner before back to MEL on the last flight. Mr AirKat was on the 3pm flight back to MEL.
When we arrived at the airport in SYD I read the words CBR fog on the flight board and started to worry. But I’ve been delayed by this a few times already this winter headed into SYD, and always managed to arrive well before 10am. In the J lounge I asked the lady at the desk whether they had any idea of how long flights would be delayed, and what was the worst case scenario with CBR. She said midday, which I thought was ridiculous and we went to get a coffee and toast and wait. At 7am the announcement came that our flight was cancelled. I went and spoke to the same lady who put us on the next flight which was scheduled to land in CBR at 8:30 – still ok. I mentioned to her that we were going to a funeral so were quite anxious, and it would be helpful if she could let us know any changes.
Within 10 mins I was paged back to the desk and she had upgraded us to J. She also said they expected to board soon. We didn’t board until 8 but it’s obviously a very short flight so I was still feeling ok. We pushed back at 8:30 and the 30 min flight was underway. Unfortunately over an hour later we were still circling waiting for visibility. Close to 10am the pilot attempted to land and had to abort. I sighed wondering how long we would circle before trying again. That’s when the announcement came that we did not have enough fuel to try again and get back to SYD if we couldn’t land – so we would be returning to SYD now to refuel.
Mr AirKat and I looked at each other in a bit of shock, not quite being able to grasp that we were going to miss the funeral. We landed back in SYD shortly after and refuelling began as many passengers disembarked. I rang the P1 desk and spoke to the lovely Sue to explain the situation. I hoped to be able to scrap my CBR-SYD-MEL flights and push back Mr AirKat’s so that we could stay the afternoon with the family. All flights were red e-deals. Within 10 mins she rang back to say it was not at all a problem and had moved us to the 20:45 flight CBR-MEL.
We finally landed in CBR at 12:40pm. We spent the afternoon with family and arrived back at the airport at 19:10, just as the 19:30 was about to close. There wasn’t time to get to the lounge to ask if we could move flights so we quickly checked-in and headed to the service desk to ask. He made a quick phone call and moved us to the 19:30, which was already boarding, without a hint of concern.
I guess all of these were small things, but you can appreciate that this was a stressful and upsetting day for us both. Every time we dealt with QF staff they made the day a little easier and for that I really am so grateful. It enforced to both of us why QF has our loyalty.
And for those thinking I perhaps found a nice SC run – no extra credits for the SYD-CBR-SYD-CBR run
