If we're talking incompetence, how about someone who chooses to head overseas to a very important event one day early ON JETSTAR.
That's just asking for trouble. No sympathy from me.
It appears to have escaped the attention of professional pilots and some hangers on that the country issued QF and other airlines with an AOC on the basis that they were to provide
REGULAR public transport.
reg·u·lar
[reg-yuh-ler] adjective
1. usual; normal; customary: to put something in its regular place.
2. evenly or uniformly arranged; symmetrical: regular teeth.
3. characterized by fixed principle, uniform procedure, etc.: regular income.
4. recurring at fixed times; periodic: regular bus departures; regular meals.
5. rhythmical: regular breathing.
Somewhere around 1980 and during a credit squeeze/ recession, by my recollection, CASA's predecessor allowed Ansett and TAA to cancel flights that were not close to fully booked as a temporary cost saving measure. They did this at the time by turning a blind eye to the requirement that the airline use commercially reasonable endeavors to operate their aircraft as close as possible to a fixed schedule as required by their AOC.
On reflection this was a mistake. It was a mistake because it gave carte blanche to bean counters and management Prima Donnas to fcuk with the traveling public and infernally stupid morons like the management of Jetstar have now raised this to an art form.
Let me ask you stupid Sky Gods what would happen if the Melbourne and Sydney metropolitan railways started canceling trains like Jetstar? How many days would it take before there were riots on the platforms? How long would the government survive? Yet where airline travel is concerned, we are supposed to bend over and take it up the arse? Not only that, but congenitally idiotic pilots
then abuse passengers for unrealistic expectations of regular service?????? You should be ashamed.
We all understand breakdowns. What we don't like or understand is the cheese paring attitude of management that means there are no spare parts, spare crew or spare aircraft.
Your miserable behaviour in this matter cost me attendance at certain celebration in New Orleans and continues to cost me money. For example, to ensure that I catch the live aboard dive boat I often join at Cairns, I now have to travel the previous day and stay overnight in an hotel because I can't trust you miserable excuses for human beings to get me there from Melbourne with any certainty.
..One more bit of "sub optimisation" by Qantas - increase the travel time and costs of everyone just to save yourself a few bucks.