theblank, thank you for your comments and perhaps I did not get over the extent of the issue as this was my first post. In essence this was a series of mistakes by Qantas, not just a simple delay.
I'm trying to understand how there was a "series of mistakes made by Qantas" when there were no Qantas flight involved nor any contact with QF staff anywhere ie QF didn't book it nor would they have been doing the checkin at DRW. What was the flight number DRW/SIN - 3K or a QF codeshare - don't even know if QF codeshare with 3K?
In brief:
- When they got to Darwin her boyfriend was booked to London Gatwick not Athens. In addition they were not on the system after Singapore. However their bags were booked to Athens
- My daughter was given a boarding pass to Singapore only, whilst her boyfriend was given one through to Dubai. She was told that they would print her Dubai leg in Singapore.
- The plane departed late from Darwin and there were technical issue with the air walkway at Singapore. As a result, when they went directly to the check-in desk once off the plane, the desk had closed 3 minutes prior and could not board! They did not have a record of their onward flight, even though they were advised that they were already checked in from Darwin!
- The desk staff retained their now obsolete boarding passes because it was "an active boarding pass". How does this stack up?
- Their only solution was to provide them with a flight to Istanbul which included a wait of over 13 hours!
- No accommodation, meals, drinks or assistance was provided beyond access to the VIP lounge for 6 hours and a voucher for a "snack"!
- On going to the Turkish Airlines desk they again could not find us on the system. As a result they were reallocated to another flight to Doha, which extended their disruption to 24 hours.
This is not just a simple delay, this was down to terrible management and communication and should not go unacknowledged.
Thanks
Paul
When did the airline rectify the boyfriends booking and change it from LGW to ATH - sounds like that's how it was booked through Bestjet to begin with? What did the Bestjet itinerary say - Gatwick or Athens? It's a bit awkward saying you don't want to go to LGW if that's what your itinerary says.
There must have been flights in the system for your daughter to ATH otherwise 3K staff could not have through checked bags to ATH. She may have had a reservation, just not received a boarding pass. Only the person with a boarding pass for SIN/DXB was actually checked in - the other pax was not.
Which airline did the desk staff work for, EK, 3K or a ground handling agent for one of them? Wouldn't they have only retained one boarding pass SIN/DXB for the boyfriend as your daughter didn't have a boarding pass beyond SIN? In any case they probably took the EK boarding pass if they were making arrangements on another airline as they may have needed that to document the missed connection.
Was the first rebooking SIN/IST/ATH on TK then when that didn't eventuate SIN/DOH/ATH on QR? It would appear whichever airline assumed responsibility for the missed 3K to EK connection either didn't rebook it properly or told your daughter the flight details before the flights were booked hence TK having no record of them at that point.
So all up your daughter was out of pocket for one nights' accommodation in ATH? They didn't have to purchase new air tickets is that right? Not all airlines provide meals, certainly not alcoholic beverages if that's what you mean by drinks in a disruption. Sounds like they did okay getting lounge access and a snack voucher.
They could have always booked a nights' accommodation in SIN and paid for any food not covered by the lounge visit or the snack voucher then made a claim through their travel insurance.
