Ranga you had it right
They are the worlds oldest B744's
I just flew from LAX to SYD, and it was a disaster. First off, the flight was packed, because of the previous days cancellation. 5 hours into the flight, at 3am, a passenger in front of me started hitting the call button.
When the attendant got there, he was livid, and held up his laptop...it showed the flight had been cancelled due to a fuel issue. This is how we found out we were inbound to LAX.
There was a bunch of scurrying around, then the Capt announced that due to a fuel issue we were returning to LAX, so after 7 hours of flight time, we were back at the DEP.
I spoke with the attendant, she was much more forthcoming than she should have been, but the issue was that the flight had been cancelled the day before due to a fuel issue, and that 2 days before, it had stopped in HI to take on more fuel.
They were going to drop us at HI, but since it was a center tank issue, it would not have been able to repair the ac in HI, so back to LAX.
Back at LAX, they brought in a different 747, that left at 0130, which if you know LAX, it shuts down at 2300. The only good thing was the flight was empty becuase most people filled up the QUANTAS flight instead of waiting.
Once at SYD, they put me up overnight to get the next United 747 flight from LAX, to get to YMML.
Lonfg story short, these old 747 on this route seem to be always down for some reason...The ac is older than the attendants. Hopefully, United will expedite the 777 on this route...until then, roll the dice