Safety Category ?
 

Supposedly 12 months ago the FAA were behind a private push to have Australia downgraded to Cat 2 due to 'Qf issues' that were never ending and the FAA had lost faith in Australia's ability to oversight the nations number 1 carrier.
Does the latest round of issues again raise the issue of a possible downgrade ?
For the record, I am not advocating anything here or taking sides, simply putting the question out there ?

The airline needs to return to being run by Pilots and Engineers who have a clue about the industry and have an inherent safety culture.
Short sighted accountants and greedy bonus driven executives have FAILED!!!:=
It really is time to wake up. :ugh:

<<then we were met by all the fire engines and fire brigade, there were reams and reams of them>>

Isn't a ream 500?

SQ was a security issue, not a problem with the aircraft.

If this was Ansett CASA would have issued a show cause by now.

So SQ's security issue that resulted in an unscheduled landing and return does not warrant any comment or media reporting at all? For all they knew, SQ's passengers could have been at greater risk than the punters on QF17?

Ken's got a point about media selectivity. Brisbane had several overnight diversions the other day due to bad weather in Sydney, including an Emirates A380, couple of different 737s and a Qantas 747. The local media wrote it up as '200 Qantas passengers stranded in Brisbane' with nary a mention of the other carriers.

I don't think it's a foreign airline immunity, more of a non-Qantas immunity. If the media decides Qantas FUBAR stories sell, every time they run out of loo paper it will end up on the front page. Media perception is just as capricious as public perception with the added factor being that they want to sell papers. The more Qantas FUBAR articles, the more damage to the brand occurs. Even if the issues are relatively trivial the average person knows so little about aviation that it doesn't matter. I've had several friends ask me about Qantas being in trouble, I'm sure you all have too. This is damaging their reputation with Australians.

I wonder if they've ever costed the value of that brand? The Australian airline, the world's safest airline, the airline flying more Australians that any other, etc. etc. It's served them well when competing against SQ, EK and the like. If they lose their reputation for safety and Aussieness, they will surely see an impact on ticket sales, being a relatively small carrier that mainly sells to Australians. It's also difficult (if not impossible) to buy a reputation back once you lose it.

Decent PR should be able to mitigate recent events, but they seem to be cost cutting with that as well. Bunging the Pet PR Poppet on the 6 o'clock news to be condescending, inarticulate and poorly informed* doesn't begin to address the widening credibility gap between their reputation and the perceived recent reality.
*IMHO

That the media know about. What we have here as previously mentioned is media selecting what they want to publish, to meet their own agenda. "Qantas Bashing" is becoming a sport. Yes, they have issues, as do many carriers, and yes, there are things which do need to change within Qantas- all which have been discussed in depth on other threads.

However the point made about other carriers not getting a mention is very relevant. I recall that during the last round of QF-centric media attention (circa QF 72) there were numerous incidents concerning DJ (a couple of slides blown, bird strike necessitating engine change etc etc) that never even made it to press.

Whether that's down to the media hounding QF, or QF's crap PR department, I'm not sure. However as a CC I do agree that sometimes the pilots give too much information. In this day of the "instant internet expert" the pax have all Googled the terms on their iPads and then get freaked out over things that in the scheme of things aren't going to bring a plane down, but have in movies. So they email the media (SMH being a big offender with their "Know someone on this flight? Call us on 1800-hysteria" tagline) and tell them about something which would otherwise have gone unmentioned in the media.

I think it's only going to get worse in this digital age. Does anyone know if QF have ever gone after any of the pax posting stupid "Drama in the skies" videos of incidents on YouTube? Many of them clearly show landing phases of flight and use of electronics like mobiles is not permitted. No mention by the media of those people pontentially endangering the flight and/or breaking laws there, oh that's right without thsoe vids they've got no hysterical stories!!! :ugh:

I've read all the posts and the first one that made me stop and think was the one that said 'no coverage of the overseas airlines delays due to the weather'. The simple solution to that is that noone cares if a foreign airliner is delayed due to weather. By-and-large, when it comes to news in the domestic section of the newspaper, they mainly report on news that has an impact on Australians and Australian companies.

Then I read the bit on this thread about how several other internal carriers had issues recently and they weren't followed up as much as Qantas were. This made me think further from what I learnt of the media.

The fact of the matter is that newspapers have to make money. They have to come out with these sorts of stories. Sure the 'terrified passengers carryon' is a bit over-the-top but if one paper decides 'right, were going to treat all airlines fairly' then they will rapidly lose market share. People like reading this sort of thing.

So it's not really a case of newspapers hounding airlines down, it's a reflection on what people what to read. A reflection on society.

And believe me, it's not just airlines they go after. An incident of a drunk doctor will see the spotlights put on doctors' behaviour for months, charities will get the heat if one is exposed as fraudulent. And it goes on. Perhaps some perspective is needed.

Qantas isn't helping themselves with 4 turnbacks in 10 days though. I certainly don't think it is a sign of a media 'agenda' (whatever that might be).

Why doesnt anybody give Olivia a brush?!

What about a naughty Golfer wielding his nine iron after midnight ??

Yeah i can see the qantas bashing, but dj has not had bits fall out the back of any of their donks, holes in the sides of the jets, computer glitch dives, smoke in cockpits, explosions and gas leaking out the flagship and grounding the whole entire fleet type. Surely their should have been one major problem for dj in the same period of qantas's 6 or 7 big ones.

So how can every say that qantas is the safest airline in the world because the stats aren't matching up.

So I would suggest that qantas is no longer the safest airline in the world. Or even Australia.

how much is this all costing Q, money must be pouring out the door with the disruptions with the a380, probs with the 747s etc.

Forget the brush. Give her a collar and a leash.
Woof

Seriously guys, just check out this website:

avherald.com

Every airline has INCIDENTS all the time, yet it only seems one has theirs plastered over every news bulletin!

Possibly because a couple of slides blowing and a bird strike that required an engine change are on a slightly different scale to flap tracks fairings falling into some back yard, a complete electrical failure and return to land on standby instruments and battery power alone (imagine that half way between HNL and LAX), an explosive decompression from an oxygen bottle in the cargo hold just feet from passenger seats, a catastrophic uncontained engine explosion that severed several primary flight systems and has now grounded an aircraft fleet, smoke in the cockpit (I think the consequences of this are not fully appreciated in light of the UPS 744 in DBX) and a miriad of engine failures that "would surely happen hundreds of times to airlines all over the world" or so says Allan.

Turn it up mate, everyone has bad runs in the press due to things that us crew know are less than critical and rarely newsworthy (I think we had one of the 73's nose wheels "roll off and away on the taxi out in SYD - now thats a great look :p), and I am try to be as unbiased as anyone, but CUMMON! What the HELL is going on over there... I don't think we can ENTIRELY blame the media (as biased and hysterical as they often are) for reporting serious occurences that really shouldn't be happening to any airline.

Short of some monkey backing a trippler in to a hanger door (twice! lol), a few human error ground instances, a cracked flight deck window about 8 years ago, oh and the runaway wheel, it ain't happening to us mate. I'd take bad jokes and expensive pringles anyday over what you poor buggers are dealing with at the moment. Fingers crossed it stops happening soon!

It's getting a bit silly! It's getting a bit scary!

For sure, I don't think they all get together in a Mr Burns style bunker and discuss how to stuff Qantas around. I've met journos and they're not that organized :}.

However, if you whinge about the media picking on you they tend to heap even more manure your way, because it's entertaining. Far better to get your PR machine, advertising and credibility cranked up and run some counter-spin so that people believe your story rather than the media's. They're not doing that, and it shows. Even more far better to make sure your product's as good as you say it is, but that's another story from a galaxy far, far away. :ugh:
It's the Gen Y hair flicking and eye rolling that are starting to get to me, along with the 'like, you know, there were heaps of fire engines and stuff, and like, the passengers are wrong and stuff...' It's about as credible as Britney's latest leaf-turning exercise and arguably more irritating.

A simple statistical set of tests, which QF should be doing as a matter of course every month to every fleet will settle the question of QF's reliability and safety once and for all.

If they aren't doing that and examining the results, then God help them.

Would I be correct in saying that only 4 engined aircraft would operate this route due to the lack of available alternates for a 2 engine aircraft on ETOPS??

Thanks in advance

Old Fleet
 

All,

A typical graph of airframe reliability on the vertical scale and time on the horizontal is reflected in what's going on. A new typw, (A380 with QF or 777 with CX, back when they got them, E190 VB), will always have troubles in the first few years.

After a while they settle down and become much more reliable as design fixes come in and experience grows(E190 with VB for example).

After about 20 - 30 years the reliability begins to fall away, despite the engineering regime, cycles etc.

The QF 747 fleet is old. 20 to 30 years.

S70IP

SQ was a security issue, not a problem with the aircraft.


So if it was a security issue, why did they require fire tenders to enter the runway after landing, SACL cars conducting a runway inspection, and finding FOD, requiring a QF 747 to make a missed approrach?:confused:

The oldest aircraft in the fleet is 22. The 744ERs are less than 10. Going Boeing or one of the other QF drivers may be able to source you more accurate information.