Now it is baggage issues for 'Sunrise'

[plainmaker]

Seems the Rat can't win a trick. Bit of a hit for the 'premium Service'

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/europe/i-ll-be-home-before-my-luggage-qantas-passengers-fury-after-being-left-in-britain-without-luggage-20220503-p5ai9y.html

[Rodney Rotorslap]

If you are going to receive an apology from your airline, which would you prefer?

(a) Sorry we can't operate direct today so we will have to make a tech call.
or
(b) We decided twelve hours ago to leave all the bags behind and not tell you until now.

[tossbag]

(a)

(filler)

[neville_nobody]

It's not like Darwin Airport just woke up and printed NOTAM for runway length reduction. These things are years in the planning and consultation.

[PoppaJo]

Head of something probably on holidays like the head of every other department at the moment. Begs the question who is actually running the joint at the moment?

[compressor stall]

It's not like Darwin Airport just woke up and printed NOTAM for runway length reduction. These things are years in the planning and consultation.
normally yes, but not in this case. Has been in the NOTAMs for a few days due damage. DRW also unseasonally hot and humid. Knock ‘em downs in force the other night,Well late.

[Soab]

Far more money in freight, than PAX baggage.

[Icarus2001]

Knock ‘em downs in force the other night,Well late. Can you translate that please?

[C441]

….DRW also unseasonally hot and humid. Knock ‘em downs in force the other night,Well late.
Late wet season thunderstorms. It's climate change I tell ya.

[blubak]

Head of something probably on holidays like the head of every other department at the moment. Begs the question who is actually running the joint at the moment?
They probably deserve a well paid holiday,after all 200 of them had to get out on the front line over easter to load all those bags they went everywhere except where they were supposed to.

[CVividasku]

If you are going to receive an apology from your airline, which would you prefer?

(a) Sorry we can't operate direct today so we will have to make a tech call.
or
(b) We decided twelve hours ago to leave all the bags behind and not tell you until now.
Both.
Sorry we can't bring you all to London today with your luggage.
You can decide to stay onboard, we will try to bring your luggage but no guarantee
You can decide to stay onground, if needed, with a refund or options to fly later.
(If you absolutely need some small thing from your luggage you can take it)
This is a one time decision.

If too many people decide to stay onground, available spaces (pax+luggage) will be given in economical order (highest paying passengers first)

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

All bags have now been re-accommodated on later flights
By off loading bags meant to be on those flights.

[Pavement]

Are operational issues at Darwin the reason why the change back to Perth has moved forward? McGowan announced it on his Facebook (the fount of all knowledge in WA).

[Capt Fathom]

If I was told my bags weren’t going with me, I’d elect to get off and wait for another flight,
Most airlines wouldn’t offer that because a lot of people would get off…. and that would cause a delay!
So let’s not tell them….!!

[Near Miss]

Reminds me of CX and their 350 out of EWR. Certain days of the week they would have to truck some of the luggage to JFK for the 777 to carry. Poor old pax had not been informed and then had to wait a few hours for the 777 to arrive. At least it was only a few hours and not days.

[Beer Baron]

If you are going to receive an apology from your airline, which would you prefer?

(a) Sorry we can't operate direct today so we will have to make a tech call.
or
(b) We decided twelve hours ago to leave all the bags behind and not tell you until now.
Think it through a little harder.

(A) This service is at the very limit of crew duty times. If they tech stop then the crew are going to be out of hours. They will get off and the pax will be stranded half way across the planet for 24 hours.

(B) You have to tell 200 people that their bags won’t make it on (because of Darwin Airport’s potholed runway), there is nothing they can do about it but get angry and you are about to supply them with booze for 16 hours. Now would you tell them at the start or the end of the flight? I know what I’d choose. Finding out 12 hours earlier won’t let you buy a new outfit when your at 36,000 feet.

[VThokie2]

Can you translate that please?

Many Ozzies love using phrases they know international audiences wouldn’t understand precisely for that fact alone.

[601]

What happened with the rule that pax baggage could not remain on a flight if the pax was offloaded?

[Troo believer]

It's not like Darwin Airport just woke up and printed NOTAM for runway length reduction. These things are years in the planning and consultation.

Incorrect. Last week it was announced mid flight mate. No one knew anything about runway works and a displaced threshold until it was too late. No NOTAMS. Nothing of the the impending works. Another joke, another stuff up from Darwin Airports. I’m glad to see the back of the joint.

[unobtanium]

Incorrect. Last week it was announced mid flight mate. No one knew anything about runway works and a displaced threshold until it was too late. No NOTAMS. Nothing of the the impending works. Another joke, another stuff up from Darwin Airports. I’m glad to see the back of the joint.

so your told of the runway works after you took off and left the bags behind?

[AerialPerspective]

What happened with the rule that pax baggage could not remain on a flight if the pax was offloaded?

They were offloading the baggage, not the passengers. That's the first thing. (I think you've got this the wrong way around - the baggage is only a problem if the passenger doesn't turn up at the gate, not the other way around).

Secondly, the baggage can be carried on another aeroplane, even if the passenger isn't on board, provided that the passenger was not aware of the the fact beforehand. Once they decided not to carry the baggage on the flight, all those pieces of baggage officially became 'mishandled' baggage and thus there is provision to carry on an alternative flight, provided that it has been designated as mishandled load.

It does raise the question though, if a passenger fails to board QF9 and their baggage has already been designated as mishandled and re-accommodated on another flight, should said baggage be offloaded from that flight?? (On the basis that their failure to board is for notorious reasons and thus any 'device' might 'go off' on the flight being used to repatriate the 'mishandled' baggage).

The whole idea of passenger and baggage match is that the passenger offloads, the bag doesn't fly.

[drshmoo]

so your told of the runway works after you took off and left the bags behind?

Old mate was obviously airborne en route Darwin when they punched out the notam for the runway works. The bags not being able to go is an ex Darwin issue.

Sounds like Darwin is perfectly on par with the usual rubbish you can expect from the likes of Willy & Townsville.

[bangbounceboeing]

The main runway in Darwin has been under emergency repairs on and off for the last bloody 10 months. It’s an obsolete bloody disgrace and often gets notamed with little or no notice. Does anybody know why the same repairs just keep going on and on and on.
id imagine it’s nearly impossible to get a 787 all the way to London with 2500m at 30 odd degreees ?

[Sunfish]

Well at least they had a great flight - until they were told about their bags.


The recently retired 65-year-old said they specifically paid more for their tickets to fly the non-stop Australia-to-UK flight to avoid baggage troubles.

“We chose to fly Qantas because we thought if we fly direct to England from Australia that will minimise our chances of getting COVID and reduce the risk of our luggage being lost during a stopover in Asia,” he said. “COVID was the number one reason, baggage problems was number two.”

But they said they were only informed about the delay about 20 minutes before landing when aircrew asked them to fill in some forms identifying their luggage.


https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/i-ll-be-home-before-my-luggage-qantas-passengers-fury-after-being-left-in-britain-without-luggage-20220503-p5ai9y.html

[compressor stall]

Many Ozzies love using phrases they know international audiences wouldn’t understand precisely for that fact alone.

Pot kettle, black. Many international folk probably couldn't tell you what a chinook (not the helicopter) is either.

For your benefit, the knock-em downs are short sharp thunderstorms that occur when the Wet (monsoon) season has finished. So called because tall (6 foot) grasses grow in the wet, then the cooler dry season winds hit (usually in early April) then the grass quickly dries and dies. Then a week later is normally a couple of days of storms that knock the grass over. Hence the name, and it's the short Bangkerring season - one of six distinct seasons in the Top End and the best time to visit.
The relevance of that is that this year it was at the very end of April which is later than normal, along with the humidity and heat which might have lead to less payload along with the runway works.

[parishiltons]

Both.
Sorry we can't bring you all to London today with your luggage.
You can decide to stay onboard, we will try to bring your luggage but no guarantee
You can decide to stay onground, if needed, with a refund or options to fly later.
(If you absolutely need some small thing from your luggage you can take it)
This is a one time decision.

If too many people decide to stay onground, available spaces (pax+luggage) will be given in economical order (highest paying passengers first)
Refund? Are we talking about the same airline?

[cessnapete]

This used to happen occasionally on Concorde services to the Caribbean when weather etc. required full tanks, and reduced payload. Luckily there was usually a scheduled 747 along later with the baggage.

[SimonPaddo]

Bit off topic, but many years ago, left wallet in the taxi at JFK returning to LHR. Driver called BA to let us know he would drop it off when he returned to the airport and they relayed the message to the lounge. He duly did and BA popped it on the later Concorde flight and it was handed back at the gate in London. That is good service. How things change!

[krismiler]

This problem has occurred before in Australia, IIRC a regional airline bought turbo props and found they couldn't take off with a full load of pax and baggage. The solution was to fly the luggage in a Baron which followed behind.

[Foxxster]

No problem , I hear they have Thule working on it .

[C441]

This problem has occurred before in Australia, IIRC a regional airline bought turbo props and found they couldn't take off with a full load of pax and baggage. The solution was to fly the luggage in a Baron which followed behind.
Sounds like Australian Airlines J31 operation out of Brisbane. Tillair's Conquest often took the baggage and arrived ahead of the J31 in Charleville and Roma. The punters had the opposite experience of the current situation. With the bags having arrived before them, they disembarked and collected their 'ports' that we'd lined up on the apron.

[big buddah]

I heard a story that the Cathay 350 flew to New York first then the 777 followed an hour later with all the bags.

[Capt Fathom]

So many good stories! :E

[Veruka Salt]

I heard a story that the Cathay 350 flew to New York first then the 777 followed an hour later with all the bags.

That story was perpetuated by CX 777 drivers alarmed at losing their hallowed ULH turf to the 350. The 350 is actually less payload limited on 16 hr JFK sectors than the 77W, especially the -1000.

[swh]

That story was perpetuated by CX 777 drivers alarmed at losing their hallowed ULH turf to the 350. The 350 is actually less payload limited on 16 hr JFK sectors than the 77W, especially the -1000.

esp since the A35K has a 7 tonne higher payload capability then the 77W and burns about 20 tonnes less fuel, with a shorter sector time.

[woodja51]

Heres an idea - for flights like this ( international ) - where often people have two bags , assign 1 with ‘need to travel ‘ priority and the other with less. That way if weight limited , the bag with wedding dress / suit essentials goes , and the other one follows - if necessary. Seems simple enough to me - just have to let pax know to pack accordingly. We all do it anyway with essential carry on ? .

[megan]

A passenger expects to arrive with his/her bags, if weight is such a problem get the pax to state their weight at time of booking, with attendant penalties for fibs :eek:, and limits on baggage weights. Yeh, I know it would never work, although it did in my area of drilling airborne holes.

[cessnapete]

A friend of mine recently travelled QF Darwin to London. . All of the pax bags were left behind in Darwin! 5 days later still awaiting arrival of one bag.

[73to91]

From ground, customer service agent at QF domestic terminal SYD.

QF had 6 baggage handling staff allocated to each flight. Outsourced role, now using 3 per flight.

Means, departures without baggage, irate pax abusing QF staff in arrivals due to no bag, irate walking to departure levels and surrounding QF staff and abusing them. Terminal management pleading with staff to stay back but after taking the abuse, now staff (customer service) are not working longer shifts.

Management of terminal management, hiding at the campus according to customer service agent.

[SixDemonBag]

From ground, customer service agent at QF domestic terminal SYD.

QF had 6 baggage handling staff allocated to each flight. Outsourced role, now using 3 per flight.

Means, departures without baggage, irate pax abusing QF staff in arrivals due to no bag, irate walking to departure levels and surrounding QF staff and abusing them. Terminal management pleading with staff to stay back but after taking the abuse, now staff (customer service) are not working longer shifts.

Management of terminal management, hiding at the campus according to customer service agent.

been happening since Easter, mate. Old news

[C441]

From ground, customer service agent at QF domestic terminal SYD.
…….Terminal management pleading with staff to stay back but after taking the abuse, now staff (customer service) are not working longer shifts……..
It started around the time of their last couple of EA 'negotiations'.

As a commuter, I knew many of the staff in the terminals.The adversarial industrial relations stance that Qantas took into the bargaining periods and the resultant poor outcome for the staff, meant that those who would previously go the extra mile or two to ensure the operation stayed on the rails during disruptions, simply felt that their management not only ignored their efforts but expected them to simply continue without any mutual respect. This has now extended beyond disruptions to normal operations where minimal support from management in every aspect of their job has led to the loss of that loyalty that was essential to the smooth running of the operation.

[megan]

Whats the saying C441 about knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing? Some things don't make it into the accountants ledger. Our pilot group once had a senior manager stand at the lectern and say (exact words), "we don't give a f... about you people", well, tell us some thing we didn't already know. The company reason for their attitude was because there was no turn over in personnel ie you guys obviously have it too good.

[blubak]

From ground, customer service agent at QF domestic terminal SYD.

QF had 6 baggage handling staff allocated to each flight. Outsourced role, now using 3 per flight.

Means, departures without baggage, irate pax abusing QF staff in arrivals due to no bag, irate walking to departure levels and surrounding QF staff and abusing them. Terminal management pleading with staff to stay back but after taking the abuse, now staff (customer service) are not working longer shifts.

Management of terminal management, hiding at the campus according to customer service agent.
Shows you just how much the idiots making these decisions actually know.
The anti union brigade keep popping up with their 'rorts' rhetoric but right now the only rort that stands out is the bonuses going into the pockets of these bean counters who dont understand what is required to get the bags unloaded & loaded in the timeframe given.
Maybe 6 people was too many but you dont have to have much between your ears to work out what is going to happen when you reduce the manpower by 50%.