Why it pays to speak clearly and politely to checkin staff

[ggm]

Using the airline to whom this FF belongs, I indistinctly indicated I would not be adverse to an earlier flight out of Brissie. I neglected to notice the checkin was harrassed, and dealing with a burnout in an earlier flight, and mass rebookings. I wasn't asking for an upgrade or a freebie. I was just making idle chat. Maybe being platinum made him think I was owed some effort, but he re-routed me... into the bad place.

What I got, was a seat on the broken backed lunker, which failed take off twice. 1 hour holdback before cancellation. During which, my Syd connect decided to leave without me.

What I got, was to miss my connect in Sydney, re-route via Frankfurt, miss my connect to Lisbon, my bag went awry and I lived for 3 days on the sink cleanings of last nights undies and being grumpy. Thank god for that rolled up tee/socks/nix in the carryon. Be paranoid!

Now, I can't sheet this home to the checkin. He was busy, and I was anything if distinct, clear and polite. I wasn't sh**y, but I could have made their life easier. The golden rule is: don't distract them. Let the keypresses take priority. Pay attention.

The Travela gent is of course, very sad: they wanted the company business and I can assure you its hard to rank highly a ticketing which manages to miss connects, missing bags, and fail to account for it afterward (I don't intend hassling Q about this, why whine. I'll be on another flight, stuff happens)

So the moral of the story is, be alert, and recognize when your checkin is possibly unable to be super-nice, but needs to focus on your ticketing needs (if they'd left me on my original flight I'd have made connect)

 

[FL360]

I think the moral of this story is not to use that airline again,

unless your company pays for your (business) flights,
and you gained a lot of these status which you feel proud about...

anyway, on my recent flight with JQ from SIN to DRW,
it was an red eye flight, and the crew decided to lock the front toilet (1 of 3) for their exclusive use, and let the full load of pax use the only remaining 2 toilets only for the 4.5 hrs flight.

God, I accept the fact that you get what you pay for... until I realise that
a significant portion of the pax was booked a QF flight no. and travelling from SIN=>DRW=>BNE....

 

[samh004]

I think the moral of this story is not to use that airline again,

unless your company pays for your (business) flights,
and you gained a lot of these status which you feel proud about...

anyway, on my recent flight with JQ from SIN to DRW,
it was an red eye flight, and the crew decided to lock the front toilet (1 of 3) for their exclusive use, and let the full load of pax use the only remaining 2 toilets only for the 4.5 hrs flight.

God, I accept the fact that you get what you pay for... until I realise that
a significant portion of the pax was booked a QF flight no. and travelling from SIN=>DRW=>BNE....

Something like that should be documented and then made available to the media. I’d use my iPhones camera or audio recorder and ask why I couldn’t use the toilet… if it was just so they could use it, SMH here I come

But the toilet might’ve been broken you know

 

[Dave Noble]

Im confused here. Unless I am missing something, It seems that you asked for an earlier flight and he rebooked you on it

the aeroplane then had problems which caused misconnection in Sydney ( which was then handled by staff in Sydney )

The aeroplane is hardly something that he would know is going to happen

Dave

 

[ozbeachbabe]

FL360

God, I accept the fact that you get what you pay for... until I realise that a significant portion of the pax was booked a QF flight no. and travelling from SIN=>DRW=>BNE....

What's that got to do with anything??? People are people whether their flight number begins with a "JQ" or "QF". Or do you mean people who had booked a "QF" flight number should be able to use the forward toilet and those who booked a "JQ" flight number should be forced to use the aft toilets only?

Think about it, how would you "police" the situation if you were a flight attendant when a passenger is heading towards the forward toilet? "Excuse me sir can I see your itinerary"....."sorry but as because you have a JQ flight number on a Jetstar itinerary you'll have to use the aft toilet".

As there is no Jetstar one plane through service SIN/BNE flight via DRW that codeshares with QF, I'm assuming pax were booked on JQ58 or JQ62 SIN/DRW then JQ82 DRW/BNE.

If you read your itinerary you would notice that under any QF flight number operated by another airline will say "operated by Jetstar Airways" or whoever the airline is.

Furthermore looking at the QF website under "timetable" and even "availability" it doesn't show any "QF" flight number for Jetstar flights eg a SIN/DRW availability shows either JQ58 or JQ62. Similarly a DRW/BNE availability either shows JQ82 or QF825 -the latter flight being operated by Qantas. May be a new initiative to clear up any confusion.

Other airlines may block off the toilet exclusively for crew use for part of the time but not for the entire flight.

 

[MelUser]

I must say this is all very confusing.

Things like airline name, flight origin and destination and class of travel are all useful so that others can clearly understand the point of the post.

 

[dajop]

Im confused here.

+1 .......

 

[FL360]

ozbeachbabe,

I think I should express myself more clearly.

1. A320 is designed with three toilets, and given there was a full load of pax all three toilets should be used. However JQ did not do so, and reserve one toilet just for the crew themselves, that's bad business practise I think. and yes they block off that toilet for the whole flight.

2. some pax actually booked through QF and on a QF number flight, and yes there are QF codeshare flights, try to search via the Changi airport site, QF272 = JQ 58 (Cairns via DRW) and QF278 = JQ62 (MEL via DRW).
it is a matter of knowing what you should expect for these pax.

FL360


What's that got to do with anything??? People are people whether their flight number begins with a "JQ" or "QF". Or do you mean people who had booked a "QF" flight number should be able to use the forward toilet and those who booked a "JQ" flight number should be forced to use the aft toilets only?

Think about it, how would you "police" the situation if you were a flight attendant when a passenger is heading towards the forward toilet? "Excuse me sir can I see your itinerary"....."sorry but as because you have a JQ flight number on a Jetstar itinerary you'll have to use the aft toilet".

As there is no Jetstar one plane through service SIN/BNE flight via DRW that codeshares with QF, I'm assuming pax were booked on JQ58 or JQ62 SIN/DRW then JQ82 DRW/BNE.

If you read your itinerary you would notice that under any QF flight number operated by another airline will say "operated by Jetstar Airways" or whoever the airline is.

Furthermore looking at the QF website under "timetable" and even "availability" it doesn't show any "QF" flight number for Jetstar flights eg a SIN/DRW availability shows either JQ58 or JQ62. Similarly a DRW/BNE availability either shows JQ82 or QF825 -the latter flight being operated by Qantas. May be a new initiative to clear up any confusion.

Other airlines may block off the toilet exclusively for crew use for part of the time but not for the entire flight.

 

[dajop]

ozbeachbabe,
1. A320 is designed with three toilets, and given there was a full load of pax all three toilets should be used. However JQ did not do so, and reserve one toilet just for the crew themselves, that's bad business practise I think. and yes they block off that toilet for the whole flight.

It does seem odd. Do you know if there anything else wrong with the toilet? I was recently on a QF A330 flight where one of the toilets were blocked off. However, prior to landing the crew let me use it (as long as no use of toilet or basin - and I soon noticed the door didn't close properly or lock. So I imagine it could have been used as a toilet, but at the risk of door being opened midstream so to speak!

 

[FL360]

I was at 5c for the whole trip, that toilet seems to be functional,
during the flight the captain and FO used it, so did the other two cabin crew (you can hear the toilet flush etc..)

This is not the first time with JQ, three years ago I was on their SYD=>HNL A330 flight and the Thai crew did the same thing...

The only reason is that they are trying to have less toilets to clean...

:evil:

It does seem odd. Do you know if there anything else wrong with the toilet? I was recently on a QF A330 flight where one of the toilets were blocked off. However, prior to landing the crew let me use it (as long as no use of toilet or basin - and I soon noticed the door didn't close properly or lock. So I imagine it could have been used as a toilet, but at the risk of door being opened midstream so to speak!

 

[NYCguy]

The only reason is that they are trying to have less toilets to clean...

:evil:

No, I imagine that they want a crew toilet that they don't have to share with passengers, thus saving themselves from pee on the seat and the floor, tissues discarded all over the place, hair in the sink, etc etc etc.

 

[ggm]

Im confused here. Unless I am missing something, It seems that you asked for an earlier flight and he rebooked you on it

the aeroplane then had problems which caused misconnection in Sydney ( which was then handled by staff in Sydney )

The aeroplane is hardly something that he would know is going to happen

Dave

No. handled by Brisbane. I stood for 45 minutes listening to them reroute via Frankfurt (and btw, I missed a direct from Brisbane. If they'd deplaned on failure instead of holding us on the craft for an hour...)

The plane he booked me onto was a far earlier flight which failed, (he told me this, now I think about it) which caused the mass of re-bookings. he clearly knew he was booking me onto a re-scheduled plane known bad from earlier in the day, what he couldn't know was it was going to fail hard the next time round and then cause a second round of problems. -It was the day of the Sydney Rugby finals, I think they were focussed on dealing with a mass of angry fans, and domestic in brisbane don't seem to understand interconnection to international as well as you'd want. I mean if you had a platinum making a tight connect in Sydney, and it was local chaos, what would you do? I'd have stuck to the known good seating.

The thing is, once it all went a bit strange during initial booking I tried to back off, say 'can we stick to the original routing' but sometimes, saying "no, please don't" isn't enough to stop this kind of madness. Now, I take a more placid stance with desk staff. I wait for things to happen rather than trying to chat.

I know I caused this. Thats the moral of the story. Sometimes, it pays to let the booking stand.

 

[ggm]

I must say this is all very confusing.

Things like airline name, flight origin and destination and class of travel are all useful so that others can clearly understand the point of the post.

Q, BNE domestic to meet Syd-LHR. J class. Reroute via FRA, missed connect to Lisbon by a country mile. Bagloss forced delivery via FRA (follows PAX is the rule) even though LHR would have been quicker.

The point of the post is to vent. No, seriously, the point of the post was to suggest that idle chat at busy ticket counters carry risks. It pays to be more certain what you want, or don't want, and reflect on whats going on around you.

The last time I had a failure on a returning flight from LAX to BNE I was offered a potential re-route via MEL but with downside risks (stuck in Mel, uncertain class of seating) or the overnight in the hotel and I took the overnight. The relief on the desk staff face was palpable. They had counter-thumpers knee deep demanding special treatment. And I have to say I got good service the next day too. So maybe what goes around comes around.

 

[dajop]

I mean if you had a platinum making a tight connect in Sydney, and it was local chaos, what would you do? I'd have stuck to the known good seating.

I'd probably tried to get you out of BNE ASAP under those conditions, on first available flight. Even if aircraft had issues earlier in the day, would assume they had been fixed, thus wouldn't factor that into decision.

Also, I don't mean to be picky, but some of the confusion relates to your terminology. Here on AFF, for most "good seating" would mean to 4C (or 1A!) instead of 27B (or 57J). I think you mean in this context "known good aircraft".