V Australia late and cancelled flights??

[extracta]

Does anyone know why there has been quite a number of late flights and a cancelled Melbourne-LAX flight in the last month.?
Late flights have included but are not limited to LAX-BNE, BNE-HKT, HKT-MEL, MEL-JoBurg.
In some cases the flights have been over 12 hours late.

 

[anat0l]

Beats me. I rely on NoNews to tell me the reason.

 

[straitman]

Beats me. I rely on NoNews to tell me the reason.

But as it is not QF it is obviously not news :!:

 

[Saab34]

A 777 went tech in HKT for nearly a day and the flow on effects were pretty bad seeing they are on a extremely tight schedule.

To get back on time they still flew the JNB run 20hrs late, and cancelled the MEL-LAX-MEL service that was to follow so they are back on schedule now.

 

[sampson]

But that was well after the changes in March 2010. In March 2010 our flight was changed from 11pm to about 10.20pm and then became 8.50pm.

Also, in March the ACCC said they were looking into sales of flights last year which, shortly after sale, were rerouted via Sydney. There was some talk about filling flights to LA with perople from NZ, Melb, Brisbane and Emirates.

So can you really say the change was only because one plane in Hong Kong was under repair?

Just add at least $US500 to their price in coach class to allow for the first and last day being wasted in LA.

 

[anat0l]

In March 2010 the ACCC said they were looking into sales of flights which, shortly after sale, were rerouted via Sydney. Now I just add at least $US400 to their price to allow for the first and last day being wasted in LA. I better make that $US1,000 because our stay was in a 4 star place with a rather nice dinner on our last night with a movie exec and others.

I don't know how to read that: is that a good ending or a bad ending?

 

[dajop]

In March 2010 the ACCC said they were looking into sales of flights which, shortly after sale, were rerouted via Sydney. .

Relevance to this thread? Separate issue. This thread about late flights and cancellation due to operational reasons (aircraft going US), not rerouting via SYD well in advance of travel due to a commercial decision to defer MEL-LAX launch.

 

[mannej]

So can you really say the change was only because one plane in Hong Kong was under repair?

Two things, V Australia don't fly to Hong Kong (HKG), but I think you are looking for coughet (HKT)

With only four planes in their fleet, V Australia have to get their fleet utilisation perfect as they don't have much leeway in regards to their scheduling.

 

[extracta]

Have found out that another problem occurred during a cyclone in Nadi.

This flight was delayed and this caused a flow on effect to LAX - BNE - HKT (coughET) - ......

Due to the tight schedule they were not back on time again for days.

A lot of people had travel plans disrupted due to V Australia's poor or non-existent contingency planning.

 

[extracta]

Relevance to this thread? Separate issue. This thread about late flights and cancellation due to operational reasons (aircraft going US), not rerouting via SYD well in advance of travel due to a commercial decision to defer MEL-LAX launch.

In regards to the latness of this flight I do not believe it was a technical issue (the planes are brand new) but a crew issue in coughet.

 

[anat0l]

With only four planes in their fleet, V Australia have to get their fleet utilisation perfect as they don't have much leeway in regards to their scheduling.

QF have more planes than that in their fleet but whatever supposed leeway appears to be missing.

 

[dajop]

In regards to the latness of this flight I do not believe it was a technical issue (the planes are brand new) but a crew issue in coughet.

That may well have been the case, but brand new planes does not necessarily equate to no technical issues (ask QF about the A380??).

QF have more planes than that in their fleet but whatever supposed leeway appears to be missing.

I guess if things go pear shaped at QF, they might not have leeway with schedules, but do have leeway with multiple flights to many destinations. So they can attempt to move their high value pax around a bit, if they have spare seats (eg ex east coast Aus, most days 4x daily to LAX and 4xdaily to LHR plus 2 BA codeshares and various combinations in between). For VA, they can only do that to/from LAX, which is what they have done - cancelling MEL-LAX, and pax I imagine moved to other VA services from SYD or BNE or to the codeshare on DL.

 

[markis10]

In regards to the latness of this flight I do not believe it was a technical issue (the planes are brand new) but a crew issue in coughet.

I have to wonder if you knew that then why post the original question or at least post an answer to your own question as soon as you knew it for the benefit of all that are reading, perhaps it was just the timing but I get the feeling some questions are asked here when answers are already known :shock:.

Late flights happen to all airlines, and as consumers we dont want to pay extra in our airfares to have an aircraft on standby, an occasional inconvenience is the price we do pay for lower airfares!

 

[markis10]

I guess if things go pear shaped at QF, they might not have leeway with schedules, but do have leeway with multiple flights to many destinations. So they can attempt to move their high value pax around a bit, if they have spare seats (eg ex east coast Aus, most days 4x daily to LAX and 4xdaily to LHR plus 2 BA codeshares and various combinations in between). For VA, they can only do that to/from LAX, which is what they have done - cancelling MEL-LAX, and pax I imagine moved to other VA services from SYD or BNE or to the codeshare on DL.

JQ also have the option to "charter" a QF aircraft to get them out of trouble as well, as they did almost on a weekly basis a few months ago with the HNL flights.

 

[extracta]

I have to wonder if you knew that then why post the original question or at least post an answer to your own question as soon as you knew it for the benefit of all that are reading, perhaps it was just the timing but I get the feeling some questions are asked here when answers are already known :shock:.

Late flights happen to all airlines, and as consumers we dont want to pay extra in our airfares to have an aircraft on standby, an occasional inconvenience is the price we do pay for lower airfares!

Well Sherlock since the original post I have been able to gain some information through other means.

What is at issue here is not a couple of mildly late flights but significant flight delays and cancellations on more than one occasion.

I would be interested to hear from any of the travellers who were affected by these delays/cancellations and how they were treated by V Australia.

I would also like to know the chances of the delays repeating as I have a number of flights booked with them.

If you have travelled I am sure that you would understand the importance of arriving at approx the time the airline has said you will arrive. You would also be aware that when booking a flight and choosing a carrier that it is worth knowing how reliable the airline is at meeting its scheduled timetable.

The above information would be valuable to other users of this forum especially if they are thinking of booking with V Australia.

As the post from the person at LAX shows, delayed flights can be very costly.

I would be very interested to hear your comments should you have anything difinitive to add, but it is probably a good idea to do a bit of research first.

 

[markis10]

I would be interested to hear from any of the travellers who were affected by these delays/cancellations and how they were treated by V Australia.

If they were ill treated I would have imagined we would have heard about it by now, even with the current leaning by the press to reporting only bad things with QF group .

I would also like to know the chances of the delays repeating as I have a number of flights booked with them.

If you have travelled I am sure that you would understand the importance of arriving at approx the time the airline has said you will arrive. You would also be aware that when booking a flight and choosing a carrier that it is worth knowing how reliable the airline is at meeting its scheduled timetable.

The above information would be valuable to other users of this forum especially if they are thinking of booking with V Australia.

As the post from the person at LAX shows, delayed flights can be very costly.

I would be very interested to hear your comments should you have anything difinitive to add, but it is probably a good idea to do a bit of research first.

I have traveled often enough to know that airlines are like the stock market or other investments, "past performance is not a guarantee of future performance", and to understand the importance of travel insurance should "costly delays" occur, this is very clear in the inconsistencies seen in this graph of Australian airlines over the past 12 months:

Would you have been happy with having bookings with QF last year given they had 4% of their flights cancelled in Feb 09??

You can do your best to guarantee that you will arrive on time but reality often means its out of your hands and often the airlines as well.

 

[serfty]

Such graphs don't always tell the true picture; is that graph for these cancellations on the day or some time in advance?

For example I know that Qantas regularly cancel flights between MEL and SYD between 72 and 114 hours out on days where bookings are low; this 'de-scheduling' happens most frequently on Saturday and Sunday. They contact as many affected passengers as they can and move them to a flight ±½ hour different to that originally booked. Those they can't contact get moved on fronting at the airport.

I post this, as a 30 minute change on a SYD-MEL flight would normally have a lot less drastic flow on than a 6 hour variance to a transpacific flight.

 

[oz_mark]

Such graphs don't always tell the true picture; is that graph for these cancellations on the day or some time in advance?

For example I know that Qantas regularly cancel flights between MEL and SYD between 72 and 114 hours out on days where bookings are low; this 'de-scheduling' happens most frequently on Saturday and Sundays. They contact as many affected passengers as they can and move them to a flight ±½ hour different to that originally booked. Those they can't contact get moved on fronting at the airport.

BITRE count anything that is cancelled or rescheduled less than 7 days before the flight.