Re: General Qantas Delays/Cancellations/etc. Discussion
While Thursday 14 May's QF18 from JFK to LAX only departed 'The Big Apple' 16 minutes late at 1901, arriving LAX 33 minutes late at 2213, the same number onward flight to SYD was not so fortunate, departing LAX 68 minutes late at 0103 today (Friday 15 May), with QF forecasting a 50 minute late arrival in SYD tomorrow morning at 0830. While gate allocations can change at short notice, at this stage it this B744 may be running QF11 (as a substitute for an unavailable A388 given the current shortage due to the hangar incident among other factors) and thus it is most unlikely to depart on time at 0950 on Saturday 16 May. Once again, the QF website fails to yet acknowledge this, although flights can often depart SYD late and still be on time into LAX if the departure delay is relatively minor.
By now QF staff must have the 'delay' PA announcements down pat for these long haul flights given the unfortunately common delays. As a percentage of QF's long haul flights (regarding flights that terminate or originate in Asia as 'medium haul', although HKG, PVG, NRT and BKK to or from Oz's east coast are examples that could either be classified as 'long' or 'medium' haul since they are mostly above eight hours), delayed flights are quite likely now to be among the highest of any airline operating out of Australia, although for smaller airlines competing such as CI, a few such delays rapidly skew the percentage. The fairly frequent aircraft substitution that many will regard as a downgrading (especially if a traveller was salivating at the prospect of being on board an Airbus A380 for his or her first time) cannot be good for QF's image. Safety is a given: next to that, passengers expect punctual 'as advertised' operation of flights including an A380 if that was what they were informed when they booked.
There is no word yet from any AFF contributor on when the A388 being repaired in SYD as a result of the 'hangar slip up' (or more correctly 'slip down', since gravity applies) incident will return to carrying passengers. The texts that QF is sending to AFFers indicating that their A388 flights will be replaced by a B744 give clues but are not sent many weeks in advance.