unfortunately no they're up to even more slowdowns...read on
Hi there,
As yet-another unfortunate victim of Qantas' cruel joke of the wage dispute between the mechanics and management, I and many others suffered this first-hand Saturday when QF 11 went through a 20 hour ordeal at Sydney airport to get to Los Angeles. We as frequent-flyers stated receiving SMS messages 0900 Saturday of potential delays but to turn up anyway for our scheduled 1320 flight. Turning up at check-in, we were given the news that our flight was going to be "a few hours late" as the plane was in hangar. So we stupidly checked in and went through security. Upon getting to the gate, we were then informed that the flight had been put back to 1700, off the side "due to the problem with the mechanics". Come 1530, the flight was again delayed to 1730. Come 1630 the flight was then delayed to 1930. Come 1700 the flight was delayed to 2100. Come 1800 the flight was delayed to 2200, just before Sydney airport closing time which was 9 hours post scheduled time. No matter whom you spoke to from Qantas, regardless if you are a Qantas Frequent Flyer or ordinary punter, multiple stories were told from the staff at Sydney airport, and more infuriating was that upon checking between 2 people who would approach the SAME Qantas staff member, 2 DIFFERENT stories were frequently given on what was going on. There were no offers of booking you onto another Qantas flight, of course since the airline had known since 0900 the flight was doomed, Qantas deliberately did NOT put people onto one of their 3 other flights to Los Angeles or San Francisco, just stuck all of us with no good reason. For all the 10 hours of pain we endured, we were given a lousy $ 15 meal token -- accident and crime victims are given more compensation.
Onboard the staff were very surely and outright rude to the most part, smashing trolleys into seats, noisy, a very "here you go or else" type of attitude -- seems they must be learning from their American counterparts..
The flight landed almost 10 hours late to Los Angeles, where the fun really ensued as disgruntled Qantas/American Airlines staff hurriedly gave you a piece of paper with what your connecting flight now was. Upon trudging across Los Angeles airport with all your luggage to another carrier, where you were supposed to be grateful for a flight with them, you then found out that an essential code for reallocating passengers was NOT on the piece of paper Qantas had forced onto you. If you were successful, which some weren't, the other airline begrudgingly took you on.
Anyone who thinks that business travel for work is glamourous, figure that I spent 35 hours awake over the weekend to get to Las Vegas for a business conference and am waking up on Sunday AM (having had 2 Saturday's) completely wrecked. It is time for the government to step in and either put a bullet into Qantas' head, or force this dispute to be stopped. Passengers pay for the " privledge" of flying and being put through the inhumanity that Qantas is doing is criminal. In any other country outside of Australia, and the EU, significant financial penalties on a per-passenger basis would have taken effect at 4 and 8 hours of delay, just not here. We don't want to upset the precious Qantas apple-cart.
Demands for some form of compensation from Qantas have been ignored.
