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A disruptive Qantas passenger has inconvenienced hundreds of people after his actions forced Qantas flight QF9 to return to Perth on Saturday night. The Boeing 787 turned back to Perth around 2 hours into the 17-hour flight bound for London. The flight, which originally departed at 6.45pm on Saturday, was then unable to take off again until 12.30pm the next day. Passengers were sent to hotels overnight as the crew had run out of hours, and no replacement crew was available in Perth.
The QF9 delay has had extensive flow-on effects for Qantas’ international network as the airline does not currently have any spare Dreamliners. Sunday’s QF10 from London to Perth has been delayed by at least 11 hours.
It’s also the bigger picture that needs to be taken into consideration such as the days worth of network delays and passenger inconvenience, today’s QF9 MEL-PER is already being operated by a A332 which means they can’t turn around the incoming QF10 -ZNF to operate last nights delayed QF9 and then ferry -ZNC back to the east coast.
So -ZNC will have to operate last nights QF9D this arvo and then -ZNF will operate tonight’s QF9 after turning around.
Puts a massive dent in their operation and will no doubt affect LAX and SFO flights.
Meanwhile, Qantas has been using Airbus A330s and Boeing 737s in place of Dreamliners on the Melbourne-Perth legs of QF9 & QF10 over the past few days. These aircraft do not have Premium Economy seating and the Boeing 737 Business Class seats are far inferior to the Qantas Dreamliner Business suites. In fact, the Boeing 737 used on yesterday’s QF10 service to Melbourne was not even fitted with seat-back in-flight entertainment.
I note that QF have managed to slip a few 73H aircraft onto QF10 for the PER-MEL leg (even before the issue noted by the OP). QF10 on 07SEP18 was a 73H according to FR24. Same is scheduled tonight. Not much of a downgrade if travelling in Y but J and PE pax would be in for a shock…
Qantas passengers on the QF9 service that had to return to Perth have praised the actions of the Qantas crew. The safety-first approach cannot be faulted. Unfortunately, Qantas’ lack of extra aircraft will result in passengers continuing to be inconvenienced for several days.
The consequences of sweating the assets will be felt in situations like these…
Passengers on the delayed QF10 service from London to Perth will be entitled to EU261 compensation as the delay is more than 4 hours.
Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: QF9 turnback 8/9/18
