Qantas Offloads Bags, Passengers from Darwin-London Flights

Qantas 787 Dreamliner
Qantas flights from Darwin to London are being significantly weight restricted. Photo: Qantas.

Qantas has been forced to offload passengers and bags from its Darwin-London flights over recent days due to repair works taking place on the main runway at Darwin International Airport.

Numerous passengers have been bumped from flights QF1 and QF9 in recent days, often with little warning. One Qantas passenger, for example, was sent an email the night before they were due to fly containing a new ticket for a flight on Emirates via Dubai.

Bizarrely, Qantas had rebooked this passenger without their consent on a new Emirates flight arriving more than two days later than originally booked. This customer then had to call Qantas multiple times, waiting a long time on hold, to eventually get rebooked onto a more suitable alternative flight with Qatar Airways.

As a result of this situation, Qantas has also stopped selling new seats from Darwin to London over the coming days. At the time of writing (Saturday 30 April), the next available seat for sale on any Qantas flight from Darwin to London is next Tuesday.

Qantas has also been advising passengers booked to fly from Sydney, Melbourne or Darwin to London over the coming days to pack important supplies such as medicine in their hand luggage, as some checked bags will need to be carried to London on alternative services and may arrive a day later.

Qantas has told passengers that this is due to the flights being “weight restricted”.

Why are Qantas’ Darwin-London flights being weight-restricted?

Unfortunately for Qantas, there are currently asphalt repair works in progress on runway 29 at Darwin International Airport. Most of the runway is still serviceable, but the available length has been temporarily shortened by 995 metres.

With less runway length available, Qantas has therefore had to restrict the takeoff weight of its ultra long-haul flights to London so that the plane is able to safely get off the ground.

It’s an unfortunate situation but is not Qantas’ fault. The only real alternative would be for Qantas to add an extra refuelling stop between Darwin and London – an option that would cost the airline a lot of money and add several hours to the flight time.

The problem is slightly exacerbated by the longer flight path Qantas is now using between Darwin and London which avoids Russian airspace. The longer flight path means Qantas needs to carry extra fuel, which in turn reduces the weight available to carry passengers and baggage while remaining below the reduced maximum takeoff weight.

The runway repairs were due to be completed by Saturday evening. A Qantas spokesperson confirmed that flights were no longer being weight restricted from Sunday 1 May.

“An issue with the runway pavement at Darwin Airport resulted in temporary additional weight restrictions on our flights to London last week and unfortunately that meant we weren’t able to carry some passengers’ bags on their flight,” the Qantas spokesperson said.

“Bags were reaccommodated on later flights and are couriered directly to customers as soon as we’re able to confirm the correct address. We apologise the inconvenience this has caused our passengers and thank them for their understanding.

“We’re advised that the pavement issue causing the weight restriction has now been fixed.”

The return leg from London to Darwin is not affected.

Australian Frequent Flyer reached out to Darwin International Airport for comment.

Qantas flights continue via Darwin until 19 June 2022

Qantas is currently operating both its daily Sydney-London and Melbourne-London flights via Darwin. But QF1 from Sydney to London will revert to its usual Singapore stopover from 19 June 2022. (From this date, it will also switch from a Boeing 787-9 to an Airbus A380 service.)

Qantas will resume running QF9 from Melbourne to London via Perth, instead of Darwin, from the same date.

 

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Qantas last minute QF9 cancellation / bumping

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.
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the terms and conditions are the ‘next available qantas service’. Nothing more. (or a refund, but they would take out the one way and refund almost nothing)

We have no protections here in australia. If this had been in reverse EU protections would have applied.

I would press for routing on another carrier, no harm in asking, or an earlier flight.

Reply 2 Likes

Well here's an update: 1h15m on hold, picked up, gave agent the PNR, they said they'd look into it and put us on hold... 5 minutes later they hung up on us. Lovely.

I suspect tonight will be a late night.

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Try asking to be rebooked on QR which flies direct to BER...

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Looking at tomorrow's QF9 on EF, the inventory has been zeroed out but flight not formally cancelled yet.

Those Amadeus itinerary e-mails are triggered by a human after they've made changes to a PNR, which is probably why you're not seeing the accept changes button in MMB. Also the details with it coming from "Qantas Commercial Operations" looks like the change is the handy work of somebody in the operations centre (usually it will say "Qantas Contact Centres" if triggered by a call centre agent).

Some speculation on what has happened:

* The flight is about to be officially cancelled but they're mopping up some of the PNR's first before pulling the trigger
* They may need to shed some weight due to expected weather
* Oversold

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* The flight is about to be officially cancelled but they're mopping up some of the PNR's first before pulling the trigger

Putting @Melburnian1 at notice regarding QF9 tomorrow - might be something to report about.

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QF1 is zeroed out as well, suspect they are saving room to accommodate people from QF9 if it is cancelled

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I would say severely weight restricted out of DRW.

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I would say severely weight restricted out of DRW.

This has been happening for months with people being rebooked on ek at the last minute to reduce weight if conditions are unfavourable

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Try asking to be rebooked on QR which flies direct to BER...

Thanks for this excellent suggestion. Qantas kept wanting to put us on Emirates, which was suboptimal due to it arriving too late for work.

Was able to push the agent to put him on QR MEL-DOH-BER on Saturday, arriving midday Sunday. My friend hung up before the e-tickets were issued which caused my heart to skip a beat (since he saw the flights show up in MMB and thought that was good enough). Thankfully the e-tickets issued successfully a few minutes later.

Looks like Qantas paid for full fare Economy (Y) tickets :p - that means free exit row seating!

View image at the forums

I understand the need to change flights sometimes but jeez, a fresh e-ticket out of the blue (for 2 days in the future!) the night before the flight really isn't the way to do it.

I assume my friend would be eligible for a nights accommodation and meal voucher for the extra night he has to stay in Melbourne as per Qantas Policy, since he was informed less than 72h before his flight? Hopefully it's not too much trouble getting it...

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That's a pretty decent outcome all things considered! Curious - do you know which call centre the agent was from?

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