Suck it up mate...

[777]

I find the hypocrisy on these forums verging on hilarious at times. Airline A business class meal is underwhelming and everyone screams as though it's a crisis. Airline B stuffs up it's priority boarding process and they are useless. Disabled guy is at the gate in time to be the FIRST ONE TO BOARD and is denied boarding and the response is "suck it up mate." Seriously, I have seen people complain about not having the flight held for them and getting more sympathetic responses than this.

Below I have place a convenient message that you can cut n paste in any thread when someone complains about anything less than this:

SUCK IT UP SOOK!

 

[juddles]

..is at the gate in time to be the FIRST ONE TO BOARD and is denied boarding ...
!

777, if there is another link to this story, please post it. The OP´s link appears to fairly clearly insinuate that the passenger admits he was in a toilet and failed to get a boarding call and this is how the situation arose. Whatever the procedures required to board him, it also appears that his failure to be at a certain place at a certaain time would have either delayed the flight and/or breached whatever procedures they have. If you deny that this is the case you must be assuming that some staff took it upon themselves to discriminate against him for an unknown reason and willingly endure the backlash that would inevitably arise. This version of events is hard to swallow.
If I ever managed to stay in a toilet, miss boarding call, and fail to be at gate at reqquired time, I would never expect Qantas to inconvenience everyone else for my benefit. I agree that people often whinge pointlessly, but in this case I suspect it is the pax who is the culprit.

 

[777]

777, if there is another link to this story, please post it. The OP´s link appears to fairly clearly insinuate that the passenger admits he was in a toilet and failed to get a boarding call and this is how the situation arose.

There's a difference between "failed to get a boarding call" and "failed to hear a boarding call." In the first instance the fault is with Qantas because it made little effort to contact him, in the second it's clearly with the passenger for not paying attention. The article very clearly says there was NO BOARDING CALL and the passenger clearly got to the gate under his own steam BEFORE general boarding started.

Sure there are plenty of variables in this scenario but i think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that you can go to the toilet while waiting for your flight. If there is a danger of being deboarded then i would hope that an announcement would be made. Have you ever been to an airport? In my experience its the norm for most airlines to make an announcement if a passenger is danger of missing their flight but that didn't happen in this case.

You can argue that on the balance of probabilities that Qantas acted reasonably. You cant argue that this passenger is being a lot less sooky than most of the people who air their grievances on this board.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

look at the rest of the animal kingdom we live in. If you're disabled. You die.

In the real animal kingdom the weak are often thrown out of the herd or nest so that the strong can survive

Yes and dogs eat excrement and sniff each others butts.........

At least one of the quirks we have that not all other species have is............humanity.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

All I can go on is the story, but it appears the pax stuffed up,

777, if there is another link to this story, please post it.

Eh? We must surely be reading different stories.

I see nothing in the OP story to suggest the pax "stuffed up". In fact, quite the opposite. He was watching flight times, well before any boarding call, he went to the toilet, as many of us do, then approached the QF staff to enquire despite no pages requesting his presence, only to be told sorry, you missed out and we've bumped you to the next flight!

Now if it turned out he was insistant on finishing 16 beers he'd lined up in front of him first, I'd have no sympathy at all, but in this case, I'm thinking they simply forgot about him. The fact they say they went to find him when he just happened to be in the toilet sounds like BS to me. Paging system didn't work??? His mobile out of range????? Even JQ has called me on my mobile once when I was running late for a boarding, seems perfectly reasonable that a) a personal page be made (airlines do that just about every flight) and b) failing that, phone the guy and ask him to hurry up out of the toilet......let's face it, there aren't too many wheelies per flight normally, a little bit of proactive helpfulness would have seen the flight board on time, with the wheelie.

No, they forgot about him I'd reckon.

 

[munitalP]

I find the hypocrisy on these forums verging on hilarious at times. Airline A business class meal is underwhelming and everyone screams as though it's a crisis. Airline B stuffs up it's priority boarding process and they are useless. Disabled guy is at the gate in time to be the FIRST ONE TO BOARD and is denied boarding and the response is "suck it up mate." Seriously, I have seen people complain about not having the flight held for them and getting more sympathetic responses than this.

Below I have place a convenient message that you can cut n paste in any thread when someone complains about anything less than this:

SUCK IT UP SOOK!

meh




..........................

 

[Sprucegoose]

I am sure this guy has complained previously to the media...recognise the name. I am so over whingers like this

Is that the bloke who was a sportsman and that shorten went into bat for a few years ago over some hoo haa at death star?.

 

[juddles]

Eh? We must surely be reading different stories.

...The fact they say they went to find him when he just happened to be in the toilet sounds like BS to me. ....-
No, they forgot about him I'd reckon.

I am getting confused. Where in the OPs link article is the ¨fact¨ that Qantas ¨went to find him¨? Again I ask, is there another article? All I see in thelinked story is some claims by the pax himself. As for the belief that all passengers deserve/should have personal boarding pleas made if they fail to get to the gate on time, thatt is a very very rare thing in the world these days.

 

[thewinchester]

I'm not going to read over this whole thread, because a lot of it is a case of tl;dr (not that my post below isn't that either - as disability and travel is a topic which gets me really ranty.

On Mr Crocker

Travel for disabled people is a big issue, but on the balance of what has been written about this specific case - I'm going to side with the carrier. This is also the first time I've heard of his name in respect of such issues (and have used my google-fu to check around just in case).

If Mr Croker is a frequent traveller, he should have known better. He knows full well there is a call for pax w/children, elderley and other impaired persons before the priority and general boarding calls.

If he had to avail himself of the bathroom in close proximity to departure commencing, given his specific circumstances and needs he should have approached ground staff and informed them of same so they could plan accordingly.

QF did everything reasonable to re-accomodate the pax on next available, and offered some form of olive branch in consideration for what happened (the latter being entirelly unnecessary IMHO).

<rant>

On disability/medical needs and air travel in general

Air carriers know that people with disabilites and medical needs will use their services from time to time, and they do everything reasonable and practicable to accomodate their needs. In some cases, they even go above and beyond the legal requirments for equal opportunity and access.

The flipside of this is that there are limits on what they can do, and a level of personal responsibility and cooperation falls on either the disabled/medical assist pax or their designated carer to work with the air carrier to achieve the best possible outcome.

Further, carriers make every effort to communicate this information to such persons ahead of time - through multiple formats, channels and even to relevant disability/industry groups to ensure every possible chance of pre-informing this cohort of customers.

If you are disabled or have medical needs, and fail to make contact with an air carrier a reasonable time before departure, they simply can't be expected drop everything to accomodiate your every need and desire.

Like anything in life, things take time to organise. Power points for CPAPs, medical oxygen, extra staff to assist mobility restricted pax on board, or safely stow important equipment can't be done with the click of the fingers. If you can't take the time to plan ahead and ask questions before you travel - than frankly neither I or the public at large should have any sympathy for your plight whatsoever.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

</rant>

 

[v8Statesman]

We can always trust thewinchester ​to put it eloquently! Well done!

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Where in the OPs link article is the ¨fact¨ that Qantas ¨went to find him¨?

OK remove the word "fact".

That was the only info in QFs favour. The rest is a pax who's done everything correctly. Those writing that he missed the page for boarding seem to be reading something not written. What is written is that he presented himself to staff before general boarding calls and that there was NO page for him or pax requiring assistance. Airport staff are experienced with boarding people requiring assistance and it takes just minutes. There was no reason to bump him and then to supposedly make amends by the bribe of a hire car......if QF were in the right, why entertain added expense due to a wayward or problematic pax?


This debate could go on forever without the real facts known, but I'll still side with the thought QF forgot about him and didn't have the lift ordered.

 

[juddles]

.....That was the only info in QFs favour. The rest is a pax who's done everything correctly... ...... What is written is that he presented himself to staff before general boarding calls and that there was NO page for him or pax requiring assistance........

..I'll still side with the thought QF forgot about him.....

It appears that the ¨info¨ is all from the pax himself.

I agree that there is no decent info to make an informed opinion on, but I respect your desire to blame Qantas, for whatever reason.

 

[openseat]

I've had experience helping wheel chair passengers before, and it can be very varied. Usually QF are very good, but sometimes. rarely thankfully, you strike staff who think that a wheelchair is a big pain and they do little to mask the fact and you get the feeling that they wish the person would just go away.

I'm a bit suspicious about the offer of a hire car, as getting a hire car with hand controls can be very difficult at short notice, at least in my experience. Also there would be the question of fuel, insurance and car return.

Obviously I don't know what happened for sure in this case, but I do know that travelling in a wheelchair is no fun and it isn't helped by an attitude of trying to wish a problem away as what seems to have happened here.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I agree that there is no decent info to make an informed opinion on.

Yet you seem hell bent on your decision that the pax is at fault!

I accept your possibly patronising quip to respect my opinion.......thank you, but I had no intention of changing it just yet.

 

[Moody]

In my opinion the passenger feels he has done nothing wrong and is aggrieved that the problem wasn't fixed on the spot, and the airline has possibly messed up and decided it was easier to say sorry and give compensation rather than inconvenience the other passengers and stuff up the schedule.


It is also my opinion that unless this is evidence of a pattern of behaviour by the airline, then it is a lot of hot air and not really worth all this angst on AFF.