During the days of the QF/AN duopoly, occcurances such as this would undoubtedly been better handled
Metro man,
Not necessarily, one of the most disgusting things I have ever witnessed in my more than 40 years in the Industry, and also very sad for all of us that tried to find a way around it, was back in the 1980s with AN Airline.
We had a B767 transitting BNE, had a fresh crew boarding to operate BNE-SYD-MEL-SYD-BNE and one flight attendant rang in sick at the last mnute, and they had no spares available.
It was a full flight ex BNE of paying pax, many with International connections in SYD, plus many others with needs apart from the high fares they had paid.
The remaining 9 f/a's refused to man the flight.
The Captain was very good, tried to placate them, he said he only needed 8 by regulations and was quite happy to go with 9, or even 8, with a full load of pax.
They still refused to go.
What really upset all of us other employees, not to mention the pax, was we were ordered to despatch this B767 to SYD with the 3 flight crew and 9 f/a's on board, but NO pax.
The B767 ferried to SYD with 9 f/a's on board.
