Man dies on 'unbearably hot' flight

[Justinf]

it was also reported that the air france plane was on the ground full of passengers for 6 hours, no air conditioning and the temp outside was 35.

this was after the death was confirmed.
can anyone say why passengers are not permitted off in such conditions?
it seems inhumane, apparently no food or fluids were given.

lucky there were no other cases of ill health or worse.
why are not passengers treated better?
what are their rights in such situations?

flying is not what it was. i realise it is cheaper but there is not the service or care that was once commonplace.
sometimes we get good service but it is not consistent.
but when it comes down to health and safety issues it is becomimg more serious than what standard of wine/food is being served.

being held like that on a plane in the heat is not very good, but what can be done? can you insist in being let out if you feel unwell?
regards.

Perhaps the temp in the cabin mioght have been 35, but there's no way the temp outside would have been 35 in Paris at this time of year.

 

[Chicken or Beef]

The fact is he was on an Air France flight and ticket - there was no need to mention QF. AF codeshares with a whole lot of other airlines who were not mentioned in the article and thus not associated with the unfortunate death. Perhaps they thought the nationality of the pax was worthy cause to 'assume' he had bought a QF codeshare seat. Regardless, this is totally irrellevant. This is an Air France operated flight. AF problem, AF maintenance issues and possible AF compensation case.

 

[pully]

Perhaps the temp in the cabin mioght have been 35, but there's no way the temp outside would have been 35 in Paris at this time of year.

it was reported the plane was on the ground for 6 hours in bucharest.
regards.

but yes they left from paris after a delay and passengers said it was hot on the plane when they boarded too.

 

[Justinf]

it was reported the plane was on the ground for 6 hours in bucharest.
regards.

but yes they left from paris after a delay and passengers said it was hot on the plane when they boarded too.

fair enough. Thanks.

 

[medhead]

As for the News limited bashing which goes on here well this is a result of the level of effort which News Ltd seems to go into finding links back to QF so they can continue reporting QF in a negative light.

Or, as I mentioned, they report on things relevant to Australia and in particular Australian airlines

Why didn't News limited attempt to ask AF what happened? As they where the operating carrier and the ones who sold the tickets. It would have been very easy to at least contact AF as they have an Australian number (1300 390 190, which I got off their australian website in 10 seconds flat), plus it would have made a much better article as it would have had it from the horses mouth as to what happened rather than 2nd hand (eg the lawyer) or 3rd hand (eg the QF rep)

Don't know. Because they were interested in the Australian prespective on the story and were following up on information from people who purchased tickets from Qantas?

As for the Qantas bashing and all the outrage that it is an Air France issue, the story I read said nothing about qantas maintainence. It said nothing to bash qantas. It simply reported the facts. Which of the following statements is not true and which of them are qantas bashing?

1. Man dies on Qantas-affiliated flight.
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Well it is a codeshare and is operated under a QF flight number, seems affiliated to me. Not sure why Australian's would be interested if there was an AA affiliation. But QF being and Australian airline.....

2. onboard the Air France/Qantas flight.
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see comments above

3. Passengers were furious the Boeing 777
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I imagine they were furious, but no mention of being furious with qantas

4. hell of a fuss when they were told they would be waiting for seats to become available on any Qantas flight and the flights are all full
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Probably was a fuss, but this doesn't blame qantas for the fuss. Just states the fact that qantas flights were full.

5. The flight) happened to be handled by Air France as part of its relationship with other airlines but we'd booked the bloody thing through Qantas
​

Quote from a deluded pax, obvious News Limited qantas bashing?

6. A Qantas spokeswoman said the customer who passed away had booked the flight through Air France.
7. She said there were 46 Qantas CodeShare passengers on the flight who they were helping get home.
8. "It's an Air France flight so it's not a Qantas operated flight," she said.
9. "We have sold some seats on it for our customers but it's an Air France flight and an Air France aircraft."
​

Fully quotes qantas rep and outlines why this is an Air France issue. More Qantas bashing?

10. The man's brother, who was travelling with him, told family members Air France had requested the money yesterday.
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Well this is Air France bashing not Qantas bashing.

I can only suggest that certain anti News Limited bias has created a perception of non-existant qantas bashing. These perceptions are certainly ignoring the fact that this is a story of interest to Australians due to the Australian angle, being the QF codeshare arrangement, that is why it is there because that is what is relevant to the readers of an Australian paper. Personally, if an australian newspaper ran this story from a french prespective, I'd want to know why they fillled up my paper with irrelevant rubbish

 

[v8Statesman]

QF sold a product and should take responsibility for the delivery of that product in the same way that they if they had delivered the product themselves.

A relative of the victim state it was a QF sale, however QF deny this and state is was a AF ticket in the same article.

So, Until this is cleared up, it is all speculation as to who should be liable.

 

[samh004]

Nine late news didn't mention Qantas in the story other than to say some passengers were stranded on codeshare tickets.

 

[Danger]

As for the Qantas bashing and all the outrage that it is an Air France issue, the story I read said nothing about qantas maintainence. It said nothing to bash qantas. It simply reported the facts.

I don't think the issue is so much about disputing the facts as it is about stating what some might consider to be superfluous information. Personally, I think the fact the Air France flight codeshares with Qantas is quite irrelevant in this situation, provided the ticket was indeed purchased direct from AF and not QF. There are plenty of "facts" that weren't included (number of passengers, aircraft registration, IFE options) - like the fact the flight also codeshares with 'troubled Italian carrier Alitalia'.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Think about it...after planes land, turn off engines and air con goes off too it only takes a few minutes to start getting really hot and muggy. We've all experienced it!

My guess is that it was like that as they pushed back, taxied and nobody had the balls to speak up or thought it would be fixed etc...

 

[harvyk]

Or, as I mentioned, they report on things relevant to Australia and in particular Australian airlines

The facts here are not disputed. What I have a problem with (apart from the fact that a man died) is news limited selection of what facts they wish to present, and more importantly what facts they wish to present as relevant.

Yes it's a QF code share. But apart from selling tickets on this plane (which it turns out the pax probably didn't even buy his ticket from QF) they had no further involvement in the flight.

Lets assume that flight centre or harvey world travel sold some tickets for this flight as well, should they be dragged over the coals because AF decided to fly a faulty plane?

If they wanted to link the flight with it's code shares maybe they could have as a side note at the end stated that "Air France code shared this flight with Qantas and Alitalia", not have the first note point state "Man dies on Qantas-affiliated flight". I'd say most Australians would either know of Air France or could guess where Air France is based. Sometimes airline events happen and are reported on airlines I know nothing about, that doesn't reduce the events impact for me.

 

[Mal]

The facts here are not disputed. What I have a problem with (apart from the fact that a man died) is news limited selection of what facts they wish to present, and more importantly what facts they wish to present as relevant.

Indeed. The same clown organisation published articles yesterday stating something similar to "Jetstar stalker stood down". So much for natural justice - or does the media both chase, convict and publish their dirty stories? [I notice when I looked for the same media headline tonight, that it's been toned down to something less defamatory - perhaps nonews realises what they did publish. ]
Which brings me to another problem I have with nonews - the fact that they constantly change their online articles. It can say something one minute - the next, it has a new headline and changed text.

 

[OZMOZ]

I know it was not a Qantas plane...nevertheless mud sticks..

 

[serfty]

I know it was not a Qantas plane...nevertheless mud sticks..

Welcome to AFF OZMOZ

In this case the analogy does not work, as I can't even see it as Mud!

It's more like hot air - and that does not stick!

From the OP: "PASSENGERS on a Qantas-affiliated flight ..."

It would be more accurate to write "PASSENGERS on an Air France flight ..."

The deceased passenger appears to have been travelling on an AF flight number.

The passenger source quoted by the article seems to have been travelling on the Qantas codeshare flight number.

 

[Flashback]

When they talked about this on the radio yesterday, they said it was a man from WA ... maybe that's why it made news in our papers?

 

[drron]

Well it does seem the facts in this case may be in dispute-
Qantas | Air France | Australian man dies on flight
It certainly appears the plane was on the ground in Bucharest because the man had taken ill so the fact that the engine was turned off and the plane heated up was not a factor in his death.Supposedly the plane only left Paris 10 minutes late and the outside temp was 15C-you would think it unlikely people at that stage were sitting in as hot plane for hours.
My only doubt of the AF account is why did they have to send a replacement plane to Bucharest if there was not a serious problem with the plane?

 

[medhead]

The facts here are not disputed. What I have a problem with (apart from the fact that a man died) is news limited selection of what facts they wish to present, and more importantly what facts they wish to present as relevant.

Yes it's a QF code share. But apart from selling tickets on this plane (which it turns out the pax probably didn't even buy his ticket from QF) they had no further involvement in the flight.

Lets assume that flight centre or harvey world travel sold some tickets for this flight as well, should they be dragged over the coals because AF decided to fly a faulty plane?

If they wanted to link the flight with it's code shares maybe they could have as a side note at the end stated that "Air France code shared this flight with Qantas and Alitalia", not have the first note point state "Man dies on Qantas-affiliated flight". I'd say most Australians would either know of Air France or could guess where Air France is based. Sometimes airline events happen and are reported on airlines I know nothing about, that doesn't reduce the events impact for me.

Danger and you make some very fine points about the bits of my ramblings that you've quoted. But perhaps you missed my point about relevance of the story. It is only this so-called unfair linking of the story to Qantas via the codeshare thing, which makes the story relevant in Australia. I'm saying that it is very likely that the codeshare link is mentioned only to establish the point of the story. Further the story raises the complaints of Australian passengers that did buy the codeshare flight. Again this is relevant to Australians. The story also goes on to outline exactly why the complaints of those pax are not a QF problem.

My suggest is that the story has been reported because it has a link to Australia via QF and therefore Australians might be interested. This link to Australia would not be made if the story was about Air France without mention of QF. Remember journalists assume a year 6 level of education in their audience. They have to lead the reader by the nose. This story does exactly that, it is standard MO for journalists. It is not qantas bashing.

 

[straitman]

It is not qantas bashing.

Nor is it high grade journalism :!:

 

[oz_mark]

it was also reported that the air france plane was on the ground full of passengers for 6 hours, no air conditioning and the temp outside was 35.
[..]
being held like that on a plane in the heat is not very good, but what can be done? can you insist in being let out if you feel unwell?
regards.

This seems a not too uncommon eventuality. On domestic flights one can see that it would be fairly simple to let people out. On international flights, howeverm where you have to land in a different country to where you were headed you can run into some immigration issues. It is hard to know what options they had in Romania, but it may not have been feasible to let them off.

 

[medhead]

Nor is it high grade journalism :!:

Isn't that an oxymoron

 

[bachman]

I don't understand the problem with the reporting in this case. QF is associated with AF so they do share some accountability. Obviously the blame should and most likely will fall more to AF, but as QF is the Australian national carrier it is understanable that an Australian newspaper decided that its Australian readers would be more interested in the QF role, and have a right to know the affiliation.

The thing that bothers me is more the outrage at the death. It is sad that the man died but I have a feeling the passengers outraged by the lack of air conditioning would have been equally outraged by the 5 hour delay while the crews were fixing the airconditioning. Even if they knew the AC wasn't working and couldn't be fixed during the flight. Is 35deg temperature that extraordinary?