Massive QF Fail [Airline moved PAX to earlier flight-did not inform PAX]

[maninblack]

Massive QF Fail yesterday

It is a satisfactory financial outcome but was not a satisfactory situation in the first place.

 

[amaroo]

Happy Days! Another notch on the belt for RedRoo

 

[Princess Fiona]

Now that's what I call an example of service recovery !
Just brilliant Red Roo

 

[N860CR]

It's a shame it can't be consistent and the same level of service extended to all passengers.

 

[JohnK]

So in the end both the QF and VA flights are being refunded, and points and SC's for the original cancelled flight have posted to my account too, so I have ORC.

Good outcome.

My concern is would you have received the same outcome had you not whinged on AFF?

P.S. Are you claiming Velocity SCs and points as well?

 

[Welsh-Kiwi]

Well done Red Roo!

 

[maninblack]

Good outcome.

My concern is would you have received the same outcome had you not whinged on AFF?

Yes well that's a significant question. How Qantas reacts to very astute AFF forum members and how it treats others may be rather different. I'm not a fan of this 'service recovery' concept. That's just jargon in my book. It used to be called, 'doing your job'. (That you are paid for)

 

[N860CR]

Good outcome.

My concern is would you have received the same outcome had you not whinged on AFF?

P.S. Are you claiming Velocity SCs and points as well?

Agreed JohnK, and from experience, the outcome would have been very different.

 

[OzEire]

I will add to the chorus of appreciation for RR and the good QF outcome.

Noting we all seem to be in agreement that QF did well on this one, would anyone object to a suggestion that the thread title gets moderated to add [and good QF recovery] ?

 

[maninblack]

Massive QF Fail yesterday

would anyone object to a suggestion that the thread title gets moderated to add [and good QF recovery] ?

As you asked...yes I would. A fail is a fail, you cannot go back, you cannot recover the situation that had passed. They stuffed up. You can do your best to do the right thing by the customer after the fact, to repair the relationship as appears to have happened in this case. The service failing remains.

 

[Archphoto]

When will QF invest in the CX equivalent to NotiFly? (Do other carriers have something similar?) I'm not saying it isn't foolproof, but last time I flew with CX, I had notifications keeping me updated regularly regarding a flight delay - think I got 3 (one an hour) not including the original confirmation of the flight I was booked on.

If as others upthread have mentioned, other carriers keep them informed of delays/changes etc, why is it soooooo hard for QF to do likewise? QF seems to pride itself in being consistently inconsistent - I get the distinct impression they're resting on their "Worlds Safest Airline" laurels way too much these days, and don't care all that much about Customer Service as a whole.

In all my years of flying with QF (25+), I've had a phone call once, and that was for my folks who'd booked an Award ticket and the flight had to be changed. Never had advisories on delays, flight changes etc from them ever - and that almost cost me a missed connection. (All other delays and changes I've learned whilst being in the lounge - not really great if you're nowhere near the QP throughout the day.)

Only reason I learned of it, was because I was keeping tabs on seats opening up and noticed that the flight time had changed; sure they were pro-active with their flight ensuring I wouldn't miss it, but didn't bother to check that it worked with my connecting flight. Having to phone up at to organise a flight that worked for me whilst I'm trying to undertake a photoshoot is *not* acceptable, especially when they couldn't even be ***ed to advise me of the change in the first place and it was pure luck I stumbled onto it.

 

[Quickstatus]

The lessons We should all learn from this is to check your booking before departure more frequently as it comes closer to departure date.

add this to the lesson of always taking a screen shot of the prices of lower grade cabins when booking your Business or premium economy flights in case you get downgraded.

 

[footy99]

Great result MatF. Love to see more of this. Top work Red Roo - Schwarzer would be proud of that save!

 

[MatF]

The lessons We should all learn from this is to check your booking before departure more frequently as it comes closer to departure date.

I know what you're saying, but I don't really agree with this to be honest. If a flight changes, I'd expect the airline to let me know, particularly if it's as significant as a cancellation and rebooking to an earlier flight.
I don't think we should have to keep checking flight status on the chance that something has changed.

I don't know when the original flight was cancelled - I presume on the day. This particular example was a bit of a perfect storm in that regard - I couldn't have checked the booking (online, anyway), as the QF website wasn't working properly from the night before my flight until at least the time I left for the airport. It kept asking for login credentials over and over again, and wouldn't actually progress to the "manage your booking" page. I know this was an issue, because others on FB were having the same problem - I was trying to get in, because I was trying to OLCI.

Anyway, water under the bridge for me. I'm enjoying a nice single malt at the moment

 

[maninblack]

Massive QF Fail yesterday

Let's say you employ a caterer to cater your birthday dinner and he turns up an hour late, without any food or staff but he dials Nandos and hands you his mobile phone and says go for it, if you get in the car quickly you should have the chickens back here just as the guests arrive and anyway...see you later. The next day you ring the caterer and tell him you are pretty disappointed. He says yeah it wasn't meant to be that way so I won't charge you for the catering that never happened and I'll pick up the tab on the Nandos. Bonus. Would that be a service recovery UN humanitarian award winning performance?

 

[Quickstatus]

I know what you're saying, but I don't really agree with this to be honest. If a flight changes, I'd expect the airline to let me know, particularly if it's as significant as a cancellation and rebooking to an earlier flight.
I don't think we should have to keep checking flight status on the chance that something has changed.

I don't know when the original flight was cancelled - I presume on the day. This particular example was a bit of a perfect storm in that regard - I couldn't have checked the booking (online, anyway), as the QF website wasn't working properly from the night before my flight until at least the time I left for the airport. It kept asking for login credentials over and over again, and wouldn't actually progress to the "manage your booking" page. I know this was an issue, because others on FB were having the same problem - I was trying to get in, because I was trying to OLCI.

Anyway, water under the bridge for me. I'm enjoying a nice single malt at the moment

Being proactive of course does not absolve the airline of its complete responsibility to contact passengers of the involuntary change. However as with all travel either leisure or business there are downstream consequences that will never be covered by the airline. I understand obviously that the risk is that the airline will never learn if proactive checking by their passengers picks up their mistakes before they realise. While I would prefer the airline to listen to their customers and put in place systems that will minimise these failures, my interest is primarily my travel and the prevention of any downstream consequences.

 

[Himeno]

Since I started traveling overseas on my own, I've generally known about changes to my flights before any sort of notice from travel agent or airline.
Last year I had a planned CAE-PHL-LGA on US. Weather was creating delays to the point the connection would be missed. I had noticed and was heading over to ask US about it with an option to fix the problem by the time they noticed.
Their options were to overnight in CAE or PHL and get into LGA the next morning. I suggested CAE-CLT-JFK. Agent hadn't even noticed it was a possibility. A few minutes later I was rerouted.

 

[Quickstatus]

Since I started traveling overseas on my own, I've generally known about changes to my flights before any sort of notice from travel agent or airline.
Last year I had a planned CAE-PHL-LGA on US. Weather was creating delays to the point the connection would be missed. I had noticed and was heading over to ask US about it with an option to fix the problem by the time they noticed.
Their options were to overnight in CAE or PHL and get into LGA the next morning. I suggested CAE-CLT-JFK. Agent hadn't even noticed it was a possibility. A few minutes later I was rerouted.

A mark of an AFF member.

When passengers are rerouted and their checked luggage is in the system, do their luggage have to be manually retagged?

 

[Himeno]

A mark of an AFF member.

When passengers are rerouted and their checked luggage is in the system, do their luggage have to be manually retagged?

It was re tagged, yes.
Had a QF CBR-SYD-NRT in 2013 turn into QF/CX CBR-MEL-HKG-NRT due to weather in SYD. Bag had a new tag printed.
The US reroute had a hand written tag stuck over the printed tag.
One of my transits via SIN last year also got the bag retaged (also with a hand written tag stuck over the original tag). That was an extension to where the bag had been checked to originally. During my holiday last year, I had PEK-HKG-SIN-HND-ITM and ITM-HND-SIN-MEL-CBR.

Just don't do IB>BA baggage transfers in MAD. Every time I've done that, somethings happened. Either the bag got misplaced, or the system refused to check the bag past MAD.

 

[kevrosmith]

Agreed JohnK, and from experience, the outcome would have been very different.

Doesn't that just mean everyone should join AFF? (Hey admin, do I get a membership discount for giving a plug to the site? )