Qantas A380 reliability issues creeping up again?

[Melburnian1]

There is no pressure, trust me, I have been involved in approvals in the past personally and not from the airline side as I have never worked for one.

You clearly don't understand politics.

Politicians are obsessed with maintaining their CL et al memberships. They want to be away from the hoi polloi, and CLs and similar give them the recognition and status they crave, even though many politicians (apart from senior office bearers) would be recognised by very few Australians were they in an 'ordinary' lounge or heaven forbid in the general seating area of an airport. The only exception is likely to be a rural politician waiting in a general area of a rural city/town airport, where because of the nature of their electorates - less anonymity - more locals would know who they are. Suburban-based pollies: usually only a tiny percentage of the electorate could identify them.

Having been in the CL a few times, I found it good in so far as it was quiet - no businessmen and women talking into mobiles at high volume, or worst of all, parading up and down the lounge while loudly having a smartphone conversation - but in the end, the CLs were repetitively boring, as on balance I prefer vibrant environments despite the quoted disadvantages, not a characterless morgue. where one perceives even whispering is against the unwritten rules.

CLs et al are a form of 'soft' corruption. 'Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'. We all love things in life that are 'free', and we love them even more when they make us feel 'special' or 'a member of an elite club'.

A number of dispensations granted in recent years don't appear to be following the guidelines I inserted in a previous post.

QF in particular fears the huge impact that high speed rail would have on its lucrative Golden Triangle' flights, so having CLs (as most politicians fly QF and not VA) is a great way to subtly convince politicians not to fully and/or expeditiously fund this essential infrastructure given our growing population.

@Feech La Manna and @torks are accurate.

 

[Melburnian1]

You might be surprised to know the delegate does not have access to either

Actually, the media has discussed at some length who has access to the CL et al. It made headlines.

Public servants can either read these articles or additionally, receive daily media clippings of interest to departments and agencies.

Upgrades are sometimes reported by politicians if they follow the Register of Members' (and Federally, Senators') Interests' stipulations. Ask a certain Anika Wells about why she received much negative media aboiut travel. She is far from alone.

 

[moa999]

Per the delays/ cancellations thread.

OQC is coming home. QF6012 later today

So hopefully that will end all the recent issues with the A380s with a proper spare on the ground.

would it prompt Qantas to do something about the poor reliability facing its A380 fleet,

In this respect I suspect not.

Qantas frankly went into the summer with a very conservative A380 schedule (seemingly 8 and a bit frames of 10 scheduled) with a full spare planned for SYD.
Unfortunately VH-OQC has been out for 35 odd days (other than for major incidents like QF32 that's pretty unheard of, particularly after months under maintenance)

While a EU261 equivalent can help some pax
(Eg. I once had AY shift me from AY VIE-HEL-HKG to QR VIE-DOH-HKG as the 2nd leg was showing a big 6hr+ delay)..

It more often brings out the ugly side of EU261 - the software the airlines use to minimise liability.
Rather than a single flight being delayed say 5hrs and liability paid, you instead see multiple flights delayed for 2hrs (under the 3hr threshold) with often thousands inconvenienced. And if you do have to pay compensation, you make sure it's a sub 1500mi flight as it's cheaper.

It's also much harder to find alternatives for the longer flights out of Australia so it probably just becomes a cost of doing business factor and all flights go up to cover an estimated cost.