Qantas passengers forced to sleep on floor of DFW

[Zanzara]

QF marketing spin will be in overdrive following the bad publicity of a cancelled flight and no arrangements made to accommodate apparently hundreds of passengers. 'Legacy' airlines such as QF used to put passengers up at hotels but maybe this has been jetstarised and is no longer policy?

Qantas apologises to hundreds of passengers left stranded at US airport

Travellers booked on Dallas to Sydney flight forced to sleep on floor after engineering issue causes delay

www.theguardian.com

Alan Joyce probably blaming the passengers for causing the delay and not having made their own arrangements.

 

[NamarrgonFlyer]

Pretty lame from Qantas.

FWIW, Jetstar at least used to book people's hotels here in Darwin if they were caught out by cancelled red eye flights. They contracted (maybe still do?) this company to do it for them: Travelliance

 

[BriarFlyer]

My sis-in-law, along with the rest of the passengers, was transferred to a LAX hotel and provided with meal vouchers when QF12 was delayed 24+hrs last week. They had been sitting at the gate long enough that many pax were already sleeping on the floor but I guess it takes some time to organise the logistics for an A380-load of people.

 

[jb747]

Not Jetstarised. Alanised. Remade in his image.

 

[Quickstatus]

Still, I disagree with the comment "$100 uber ride to the only hotel
There are numerous hotels within a $20 uber ride from DFW. Even with surge pricing I can't see a $100 fare

I guess it takes some time to organise the logistics for an A380-load of people.

Easy enough to get onself to hotel of choice.

Was on a QF74 SFO-SYD once. Flight cancelled (747 flight)
Got luggage back, then made a beeline out of airport, uber, and rang hotel back in SanFran where we checked out from earlier and asked for room. No probs. Better than queuing for airport desk, then queuing for bus, then travelling to some distant hotel miles away because its the one that the airliine booked, then queuing at hotel to checkin...

Another time QF94 (A388) was cancelled. As luck would have it my hotel was booked till the next morning because I wanted a very late checkout. We ubered back to hotel and got the room back because we didn't tell them we were checking out. We had put the key in the early drop off key box which had not yet been cleared - so from hotel's point of view we had not checked out.

Obvously reimbursements capped but hey less stress.

I get that some may not be able to afford the extra expense, but some can but just don't want to spend the extra $$.
I think travelling should include the possibility of cancellations and having a plan when it happens. The airline cannot quarantee it can bet you from A to B at the stated time. Maybe A to B at some point in time but not at the stated time.

Still nothing beats the SQ cash bribe when my SIN-SYD was overbooked and I could not get on. The airline pulled out wads of $$$ from a drawer and gave me $500 per passenger to take a flight 4hrs later. Total $2500 for a family of 5 plus some vouchers thrown in.......

 

[Austman]

IME, Qantas have only provided hotel accommodation for pax that were mid-itinerary (on an itinerary that Qantas could see in the booking).

Those pax are the ones that Qantas considered to be stranded. They told the rest to just "go home". Or, I suppose, "claim on your travel insurance".

 

[Quickstatus]

They told the rest to just "go home"

MH tried that on me once for a SYD-KUL flight. My hometown is SYD. I told them that I had given my house out to home sitters and could not go back and my house was 2hrs away . They gave me a hotel room nearby

 

[RichardMEL]

Horrendous. this appears so bad on so many levels.

they are at the hub of a major partner and couldn't seemingly get them to assist with Customer Service???? Prob very few actual QF staff at the outstation, but that shouldn't matter that much - specially at the AA hub imo.

 

[RichardMEL]

re Ubber cost.. remember it was well after midnight when QF eventually threw in the towel.. I am sure that would have impacted on uber avail and pricing potentially .. but I agree that hotels are very close to DFW (unless somehow all full??!)

 

[Quickstatus]

few actual QF staff

I hear they are contract staff. They pull out signs of the airline they are checking in at the time.

I don’t remember if they wore the QF uniform. If they do, does this mean they wear other airline uniforms when they do checkin for those airlines?

 

[UP4014]

Things can spiral and fall like dominos to mix some metaphors.

Engineering keep trying, the crew hours are ticking away until even if the problem can be fixed the crew will bust.

On the flip side making the call early to cancel won't win employee of the month award, however if the problem was known way early there is time to phone passengers and it's make your own arrangements and come back tomorrow and bring in another plane.

Lose, lose situation. If QF laid off Dallas staff 2 years ago they may all be new (QF did have job ads out for a Manager at Dallas less than 2 months ago) so maybe just not up to speed, junior staff decision paralysis.

QF has looked after me when my LAX flight was cancelled and then the aircraft broke down en route to Sydney and a 380 with a single customs staffer after the airport closed. But there is little point in being bitter if things don't go to plan, sometimes you have to suck it up and take responsibility for yourself.

 

[Quickstatus]

But coming back to original post. I don’t think most passengers were “forced to sleep on the floor”. I can’t imagine all the hotels nearby were full.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

My sis-in-law, along with the rest of the passengers, was transferred to a LAX hotel and provided with meal vouchers when QF12 was delayed 24+hrs last week. They had been sitting at the gate long enough that many pax were already sleeping on the floor but I guess it takes some time to organise the logistics for an A380-load of people.

Surprisingly it doesn’t really take time to organise hotels! There are specialist companies that handle these things… one call and the coaches, accommodation, meals, phone cards and ‘meet and greet’ are all provided. The companies in turn have real time information on coach availability, hotel room availability and everything else. Of course at a cost to the airline!

Many years ago JQ cancelled a flight ex HNL and it made the news because pax were stranded at the airport. The very next week the same thing happened, but this time JQ had contingencies in place. We were all picked up within a hour, ferried to a nice hotel, given a USD75 meal voucher, handed a phone card to use from the room, had the assistance of the staff from the disruption company in the hotel lobby on arrival and again in the morning, had a page with information on pick-up times etc slid under our doors.

 

[stm1sydney]

Can't believe some of the above posters are rushing to the defence of QF. It's not hard to arrange a hundred hotel rooms. Inexcusable. More media coverage here:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-in-the-firing-line-over-dallas-fort-worth-fiasco/news-story/f4b9fba8a919914556f49930645705dc

 

[encryptededdy]

This has been discussed in this thread Qantas Delays/Cancellations, but another big thing is Qantas supposedly told passengers to be back at 9am the next day, but at said time there was nobody at the airport expecting them. The flight eventually departed at midnight.

No hotels provided aside, I'd be pretty mad if I stayed overnight due to a delay and checked out of my hotel nice and early only to wait at the airport from 9am till midnight. At least if the delay was announced as 24h even in the morning (if they contacted everyone), people could at least make use of their extra day in Dallas.

 

[dajop]

Still, I disagree with the comment "$100 uber ride to the only hotel
There are numerous hotels within a $20 uber ride from DFW. Even with surge pricing I can't see a $100 fare

And many hotels within cooee of DFW would operate complementary shuttles to/from the airport, although maybe not 24/7 (several hotels suggested these were "on demand").

As a well versed traveller, with enough money in the bank to cover an extra few hundred dollars, I'd prefer to go on an app, book a hotel and be on my way than wait. But many wouldn't.

 

[encryptededdy]

Hopefully all the travellers who have domestic connecting flights after QF8D lands don't have to wait in a 100+ person queue to get their domestic flights rebooked by one of only two staff there who can do it, like passengers did today;

https://twitter.com/x/status/1537214157367681029

 

[RichardMEL]

And many hotels within cooee of DFW would operate complementary shuttles to/from the airport, although maybe not 24/7 (several hotels suggested these were "on demand").

As a well versed traveller, with enough money in the bank to cover an extra few hundred dollars, I'd prefer to go on an app, book a hotel and be on my way than wait. But many wouldn't.

there is usually a downtime for the comp shuttles when there are no real scheduled flights...

one time about 8 or so years ago I was on UA DEN-IAH delayed some six hours (a then new 787). ANyway arrived IAH around 0100 and everything was dead. No shuttles no nothing. I called the hotel and the sleepy clerk just said get a cab and they'll pay it (which they did).

I imagine for a few hundred people transport may well have been an issue at 0 dark 30.....

 

[lovestotravel]

Premium

 

[CaptJCool]

MH tried that on me once for a SYD-KUL flight. My hometown is SYD. I told them that I had given my house out to home sitters and could not go back and my house was 2hrs away . They gave me a hotel room nearby

Yeah the one time I got stuck In sydney having flown over on VA and flying home on the late QF flight was when there was a hailstorm which meant no flights for 2-3 hours then no seats left to get everyone home.

it was handled really well actually, as they could see they were running out of time.

jelped to be a WP as flying from sydney it was assumed I lived in sydney as all those folks were told to “go home”. When I pointed out “I didnt live there” it was a ticket on the bus and Ibis Darling harbour for the night, a rebooked flight the next night and reimbursement of taxi fares to get back.....

I vaguely recall a cancelled A380 flight ex Melbourne some years ago, it’s not a decision taken lightly - far preferable to hold and hope and hold and hope and hold and vainly hope because it’s a potential hotel room for 450-480 PAX but when the inevitable happens, then its a domino effect as PAX ARE rebooked into empty seats on flights the next day (knock-on effect means Full flights until the peak passes)

in this instance it appears an overly optimistic approach was adopted to bring back people by 9am and having them take two 15 hour flights - one flight of fancy biding time at the airport and the real flight!