Qantas refused guide dog and stranded blind woman

[Dual ground]

@ ozbiggles


"Other passengers from the Tiger flight were processed at the Qantas check in. BECAUSE she had a guide dog she was told she had to ring reservations and deal with them"

Was this said in the interview with Ms Purcell? I admit the only thing I have to go on is the original article. But as I asked before, is it not possible that the pax who were boarded had already contacted reservations by this point and been accepted? Maybe the Purcells just "missed the boat" so to speak?

@ fritzandsauce

"The counter staff are used to everything being booked in advance and the special service request for the dog being organised prior, however if they can't process it themselves why didn't the counter staff call reservations direct and ask them to process the booking for Ms Purcell ... To me that would of been customer service."

Yes it would, however don't you think the counter staff had enough to do with processing all the pax originally booked on the flight? I also would hazard a guess that the Purcells were not the only Tiger pax trying to get on the flight. The counter staff have to prioritise and quite rightly, in my opinion, the priority lies with pax who have originally booked with Qantas. For everyone else the "you have to contact reservations" seems to me to be perfectly fair and reasonable.

@ inandout

It seems to me that you refuse to see the bigger picture here. The only bit of the article you seem to have read is "blind" and perhaps "her seeing-eye dog, Hetty, a three-year-old black labrador on a special diet."

Why was it necessary to include the dogs name, age, breed and medical condition in this report? Answer, to suck in people like yourself and make the issue emotive and not rational.

@ RedTbar

I suggest you are the one wearing blinkers. Re-read my original post and the original article. Did I not mention that the Reservation staff maybe were not aware that the dog was a guide dog and not a pet? The staff were not "too scared to make a decision" as you suggest, but in fact "did not have the authority to make the seat allocation" as stated by the Qantas press release.

And once again I ask, at what point was it expressly stated that "we will not allow you on this flight because you are blind and have a guide dog"?

Answer, nowhere. So why does the journalist state categorically:-

"QANTAS left a blind woman distressed and stranded interstate at night because the airline would not allow her guide dog on a flight."


I accept that everyone is entitled to their own point of view and so for the record here is what I think:-

Qantas have been done over by a sensationalist piece of garbage posing as journalism. The villain of the piece, Tiger, has pretty much gotten off scot free. In the article it mentions that Tiger gave her grief on the outbound sector but everyone is latching on to the apparently misleading headline. Qantas flew her the next day, probably on the first available flight. Before the story hit the paper.

Qantas have apologised and offered expenses. What have Tiger done? Taken the money and run. You notice that Tiger didn't fly her the next day, Qantas did. And yet people are still bashing Qantas. What ever happened to the "fair go" principle?