QF trip from hell

[yarpos]

pity the poor people that went through this:

Loo paper rationed on bummer of a diversion - Travel - theage.com.au (http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/toilet-paper-rationed-on-24hour-qantas-flight/2008/11/15/1226319003374.html)

Personally I like QF but the lack of initiative dispalyed in support the passengers and crew while stuck on the ground is appalling. I guess there may be reasons they couldnt be supplied with basics (quarantine, security?) but its not clear at the moment

[RedTBar]

For a start I have my doubts about the accuracy of this story because the media have shown time and again their willingness to exagerate in order to make headlines.

But if the story is true it shows how little imagination some people have to do their job especially when it comes to the service industry.

I would think that there is a 7/11 or some other 24 hour shop in Canberra somewhere.It would not take much for someone in charge to give an employee $200 and send them to the shop or several shops and buy toilet paper and nappies even fresh milk for children and baby food are easy to buy.

It is not fair to blame QF for the weather but you can think outside the box in these situations and come up with a solution and by showing some initiative turning a negative situation into a positive from the customers point of view.

[max autobrakes]

Just another "Experience" on the Worlds most experienced Airline!:eek:

[tjc]

This sort of thing happens often at places like JFK, escpecially when the weather turns bad.
I seem to remember some bad press in the states for JetBlue (?) a while ago involving no water, small kids and full toilet tanks, nasty.
Time for the authorities to relax the rules a bit!!!!!!

[Shazz-zaam]

I wonder if the CSM would have ticked "service standards met" on their Blackberry in order to comply with their KPI's and keep the team manager in the office happy.
Where are the team managers when the ****e hits the fan?
Pun intended.:E

No backup, no support, no suprise . SNAFU.

[VAFFPAX]

Rainboe, in those days that was probably still possible.. these days you'd probably get shot and detained as 'illegal immigrant'.

S.

[Morrissey]

So the unhyped truth.

Start descent and told arrival will be at 19:45 to Sydney
Told arrival delayed to 20:00 due to weather
Told diversion to Canberra and on the ground around 20:15 - taxi over to RAAF Fairburn stands - opposite side of the field to the terminals.
20:30 - need to rustle up 23,000 Kg of fuel " a big order for this airport" and that five other planes have been diverted.
23:15 fuel truck arrives
23:40 - reason we did not go to Melbourne is there is a concert on and no hotel rooms, there are 500 people sleeping on the floor at Brisbane so did not want to send us there. Plan is now to getsome buses.
00:30 - everyone is being bused to Sydney but we only have one immigration officer who has to work her way around the airport and will not be here until 01:30. Get some doors open at the rear of the aircraft. vegatarian diabetic nearby is suffering and a call goes out for some food.
01:20 - told they cannot find any buses
01:45 - two chocolate cookies and a bottle of water are forthcoming
02:15 - tetchy announcement asking that passengers do not try to second guess the flight crew - does not go down well
02:30 - a clear,concise announcement of all that has been tries and why we are still on the plane - first clear anouncement of the night.
02:30 - immigration officer is working her way down the plane with a couple more who are in civvies and obviously called in from home
03:10 - disembark aircraft - unfortunately they do not have steps long enough so there is a two foot hop down from the door.
03:30 - processed at RAAF Fairburn and sent in a taxi outto a hotel. I was seated in the forties, guess those in 60+ were around for a while longer. Personally I'd have liked the Titanic approach, women and children first - but it was strictly by seat row

We can all understand delays for weather, however the passengers on this flight were, from what I can see, generally well behaved in the circumstances. Thanks to those staff that were up all night to book hotels and generally process the chaos.

Sting in the tail.
Flight due to take off the next day at 11, delayed until 12 as the plane had not been cleaned :ugh:

Nice short take-off from Canberra
Given domestic passes to get through Sydney and immigration / quarantine / customs effectively waved everyone through without any delays / queues / checks :D


Quantas corporate - this experience sucked. The sequential risk management of the process was poor. From a passengers perspective each piece of incompleted information or change of plan acts cumulatively. It appears Canberra is not set-up to accept 747's. Raised a complaint on their website and am still awaiting a response - just a letter of apology would be terrific.

[Rollingthunder]

I was on this trip....

Maybe I missed something?

Why was all this Qantas's fault?

[Bullethead]

I had just finished a NRT-PER sector a week ago and I was chatting to the CSM as the last of the passengers were disembarking when a rather stocky, angry looking passenger approached us and said,

"That's the last f*cking time . . . " we thought we were in for an earfull, "I ever fly Jet* or Virgin. You guys do it so well"

We try, but when you are trodden on from above it makes it a little difficult.

Regards,
BH.

[Mark1234]

I don't see anyone saying it's Qantas's fault - however it's their responsibility to deal with it, and manage the situation, which it seems they didn't do well. When your car dies, it's not likely to be the dealer's fault, but you still expect them to fix it, minimise the inconvenience etc.

What the airlines (not just qantas) generally do badly is to inform and manage such situations. From the SLF end of things, it appears there's a real 'need to know' mentality - well, we need to know. To take 6+hours to give a decent announcement is unacceptable, as is keeping folks on the plane for so long.

If those are the rules, then, to put it simply someone needs to fix them! There does seem to be a distinct lack of scope for common sense and judgement to be applied these days. Thank you america...

[capt.cynical]

OK Mark 1234 tell us how you would have liked it to be handled. We await your wisdom.:)

[FairlieFlyer]

...and thats the exactly the attitude why Qantas has such a poor reputation:ugh:

[TightSlot]

Seems to me that this could be a useful learning opportunity. Using the post by Morrissey as a template, what specifically (given the constraints of immigration, accommodation, fuel etc.) should have been done, or could have been done to improve the situation.

I ask because such an event is something that I shall quite possibly have to deal with as a crew member, and it seems sensible to try and learn something.

To start with - although weather closure of the airfield is beyond the control of the airline, it is an event that could conceivably be foreseen as a possibility: Should or could more robust procedures be considered for such an event or is this a one-off?

[Scumbag O'Riley]

Frequent and honest updates. No lies.

[Morrissey]

Thanks for your replies - hopefully my timeline of events helped to inject some realism into the somewhat sensationalised newspaper story. I don't know if the loo paper run out, but only the loos on the right hand side were flushing as we were on auxiliary power.

I'd suggest the following:-

Not sure what crisis communication staff obtain but it would be good to, after the first hour or so, set a timetable for communication ie "I'll be in touch again in 30 minutes with an update or sooner if we have something important to tell you".

Write down what you are going to say before you say it - you've got 300 passengers who might rememeber your last announcement better than you.

Find out if there are any passengers with medical conditions at an early stage so you can react to any specific problems they may have.

When disembarking after a prolonged wait get families with children off first.

By the time we arrived in Sydney it was Saturday afternoon - someone, somewhere, could have rustled up a letter of apology to hand to people as they disembarked - for many of us this would have been an acknowledgement that things were not up to scratch.

Use it as a case study when reviewing your risk management procedures - weather + fuel + tow truck + stairs + no crew + curfew +.... unlikely but as many banks are finding to their cost it's the unlikely events that cause the biggest pain.