Qantas Abandons Passengers Mid-Trip

When booking a series of flights on one ticket, you would expect to be looked after if the first flight was delayed and you missed your onward connection as a result. But this is not what happened to an AFF member who recently booked a Qantas ticket to Greece. In fact, Qantas abandoned the passengers mid-trip – leaving them thousands of dollars out of pocket.

AFF member papeto had redeemed Qantas points for two Business Class tickets from Sydney to Athens, flying via Brisbane and Doha. The first flight was on Qantas, with the international sectors to be operated by Qatar Airways.

One day before travelling, Qantas cancelled the Sydney-Brisbane flight that papeto and their travelling companion were originally booked on, moving them to another one departing three hours later. Despite calling the airline three times and requesting an earlier flight when checking in ay Sydney Airport, Qantas would not offer anything else. That later Sydney-Brisbane flight was then delayed, meaning they ultimately missed their connecting flight from Brisbane to Doha.

Qantas then abandoned its passengers

This missed connection was entirely Qantas’ fault, and all of the flights were booked on the same Qantas Classic Reward ticket. So, at this point, one would expect any respectable airline to simply rebook the passengers onto another flight. Instead, while Qantas did at least provide a hotel for the night, they then abandoned these passengers in Brisbane.

Qantas did not rebook them to Greece, and wouldn’t even fly them back home to Sydney. The airline simply offered a refund and wiped its hands of responsibility, leaving its passengers no choice but to buy expensive last-minute replacement tickets.

Papeto posted on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum:

At the airport we are told they will accommodate us in a hotel and provide new iteniaries in the morning. Qantas call centre will contact us. Next morning by 10 am no call, so we call the call centre. They inform us they can’t help us and will refund us. I point out there is availability on Qatar on Monday, but they say they can only book in the same fare class, so can’t help. Ask to escalate to manager, get a supervisor who tells me the same thing. They also state they won’t fly us back to Sydney, you have to book a new flight on your own and pay for it.

The replacement flights to Europe cost over $7,000 for both passengers. To add insult to injury, the new flights were in Economy despite the original ticket being for Business Class. Papeto also arrived three days late at their destination in Europe and had to cancel or change multiple other internal European flights and hotel bookings at additional expense due to the delay.

Papeto says that there were around 30 other passengers from the same delayed Sydney-Brisbane flight who also missed connecting flights that evening, and that all of them were similarly fobbed off by Qantas.

Qantas treatment was the same to all pax on that flight, irrespective of what tickets they had booked. We chatted to the other pax on the flight in the morning and they were all treated the same. Actually one of the pax had booked directly with Qatar directly and she was also referred back to Qantas. None were re-booked by Qantas or further acccommodated.

We did speak to staff at the airport, but it appears all ticketing has been moved online (there is no sales desk at the airports apparantly) and there is not much they can do. They were helpful in getting a delay letter issued and also web adress to where I should complain / claim, so lets see how it goes. The general impression I got was that staff was emphatic, but there hands were tied by management. Also got the impression, they have been dealing with this a lot.

Is this how Qantas customers should expect to be treated?

Clearly, this kind of treatment is not acceptable and not normal, especially for an airline like Qantas which calls itself a full service airline and the “spirit of Australia”.

Officially, Qantas’ policy where a flight is delayed or cancelled is to rebook customers on the next available flight – regardless of whether they paid in cash or points. If a suitable alternative flight can’t be found, and only then, Qantas would offer a refund. Where possible, Qantas also says it proactively re-accommodates customers onto earlier domestic flights to ensure they make their international connections.

I saw examples of Qantas staff proactively rebooking passengers to give them a longer international connection, and rebooking other customers with missed connections, at no charge, this morning at Melbourne Airport. But this is clearly not what has happened with the passengers stranded in Brisbane.

A Qantas spokesperson told Australian Frequent Flyer that papeto should have been rebooked at no cost.

“When there are disruptions our teams investigate all options to support customers, including pro-actively rebooking customers on the next available service to get to their destination or rerouting on other services where possible,” the Qantas spokesperson said.

“Unfortunately, in this instance our customer agent provided incorrect advice. The customer should have been rebooked onto the next available flight.

“We have reached out to the customer to sincerely apologise for the frustration and inconvenience this disruption caused and find a remedy.”

Papeto informed us that someone from Qantas did contact them after we got involved to ask them to submit a claim form, but said that the Qantas staff member did not apologise.

Not so easy to change to an earlier connecting flight…

Trying to avoid a similar fate, another AFF member, blackcat20, has been trying for weeks to change their domestic connection after a Qantas schedule change left them without sufficient time to make their international flight. This should be a simple enough request as there is award availability on earlier flights, but they’ve been stonewalled every step of the way by Qantas’ South African call centre and haven’t been able to reach anyone at Qantas’ Hobart call centre.

Other AFF members have reported similar problems with trying to change their flights – which they have to do over the phone as the Qantas website doesn’t offer the option.

Qantas has form in abandoning passengers

Last week, there was another highly-publicised incident in which Qantas abandoned an entire planeload of Wellington-bound passengers at Christchurch Airport in the middle of the night.

Flight QF163 departed Sydney too late to arrive in Wellington before that airport’s curfew, so the plane diverted to Christchurch where it landed after 2am. There were no Qantas staff on hand to assist passengers on arrival, and no hotels were provided, leaving passengers to sleep on the floor of the airport. (In this case, the flight did at least continue to Wellington at 8.45am the next morning – and the passengers weren’t charged extra for the privilege of being on board!)

Jetstar also made headlines last week after it cancelled a Hamilton Island-Sydney flight due to engineering issues. There were no hotels available on Hamilton Island, so Jetstar ferried the passengers to Airlie Beach… then just left them there.

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Flight delayed, missed connection and abandoned by Qantas

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.