Qantas Frequent Flyer - Qf6030 - 28oct09

Hi all, just wondering if any of you know any more details about QF6030 from MEL today which I believe was a charter by Emirates to get stranded pax to AKL?? Is Emirates' aura starting to lose its lustre?

Is Emirates' aura starting to lose its lustre?
Please explain?

Well firstly the tailstrike incident, now passengers stranded airside for many hours with the airline having to charter a plane from another airline. I have heard many people criticize QF for apparently not being able to match the service and safety quality of airlines such as EK, yet an increasing body of evidence would suggest that EK is maybe not as good some may think.

... yet an increasing body of evidence would suggest that EK is maybe not as good some may think.I would re-state this as: More people are now starting to see/experience the reality beneath EK's hype.

For example, my sister lives in DXB. For flying to/from London, she now prefers BA W to EK J.

EK is not a bad airline. It's just a little baffling how some have believed for so long that EKness is next to Godliness.

I don't doubt that EK can be very good, and I guess what the hype you refer to was sort of what I meant with the aura that the advertising exudes.

EK had a new fleet quickly obtained and has the most beautiful flight attendants ... quite eyecatching and a lot of publicity for EK. I try to stay at airport hotels used by EK :)

The reality was that EK had great F on part of the fleet (the prestige routes), ok F elsewhere, mediocre J and even more substandard Y. As the planes come up for D checks, they aren't shiny and new any more. EK doesn't have the systemic maintenance that some airlines used to have (and maybe still have, AA and QF come to mind). They use the SQ model instead -- churn the planes instead of maintaining them -- but now cannot churn in this market. So that may be giving some major grief to EK plans (along with the complete collapse of the DXB economy).

EK had a new fleet quickly obtained and has the most beautiful flight attendants ... quite eyecatching and a lot of publicity for EK. I try to stay at airport hotels used by EK :)

They are not really bound by any laws restricting them from hiring or firing just based on looks.

I once bought a EK/UA RTW in Biz ex BKK for about half the price it is now. I was all excited to step on the EK BKK-DXB flight but thought for a moment that I had been mistakedly put in a Y+ seat when it really was their Biz Class. And 7 across in an A330 Biz DXB-FCO was less than best. I actually preferred the UA Biz cabin layout and service (and that was even before their flat bed seats) - because at least you regularly saw the UA crew whereas the EK crew consistently hid in the galley as soon as the meal was put away. And their attitude was "one drinks service is probably one too many".

The service in F is impeccable. I've never flown J, but EK has some regional config planes that make the Oneworld regional-J diatribes look tame. Y+ indeed is a good way to describe it -- and for the majority of their fleet. Y is mostly Y- (with 1 extra seat per row in many of their planes, config is more charter standard than mainline -- perhaps understandable as Y was for bringing cheap labour into DXB during the boom years). An interesting business model that had a good run and gave QF a lot of trouble but now looks to be failing and not really a threat to QF.

EK crew don't party but do remember F pax on the ground :) Much better than Virgin girls.

Hi all, just wondering if any of you know any more details about QF6030 from MEL today which I believe was a charter by Emirates to get stranded pax to AKL?? Is Emirates' aura starting to lose its lustre?

I was on this flight. It was a replacement for the scheduled EK406. Which after three attempts at trying to take off had a "computer malfunction" that could not be fixed. So we circled the airport for almost 3 hours before they feed us the scheduled brunch on the ground as Melbourne airport was not in a position of cope with 400 odd passengers in their departure lounge. The charter had to be arranged and we took off around 7.30. Reaching AKL around 22.30. The time we should have arrived as 13.50. So all in all about an 9 hour delay!

If you want further details then just ask

Not the first time they have used a QF aircraft to get pax to/from NZ.

I have seen it happen in SYD a few times and even once out of BNE.

any airline can go Tech.

At least EK did make an attempt to get the pax to AKL as quickly as they could.

When you consider how big an airline EK is - and to the many and varied destinations EK flys to, its not suprising that they have the odd Technical issue.

So stop bagging EK, this happens to every airline, the only differential is how the airline handles it.

In this case - chartering an airline from another company.

I guess when you fly someone who does the route once a day, compared to someone who flies the route multiple times a day, long delays will happen.

Personally I would fly EK before I jumped on any of the Trans Tasman competitors, but that is my personal choice.

Adam

....So stop bagging EK, ....
The bagging is mostly about the airline in general rather than the way they handled the irrops.

Earlier this year a MEL AKL Pacific Blue flight was cancelled.

My 734 flight went from ½ full to chockers in a few hours. The shifted DJ passengers were generally quite exited about the complimentary booze ...

Did this make the papers? I would suggest that this would be headline news if QF needed to hire a plane from EK.

So a carrier had a tech failure in a foreign port, chartered a replacement from another company and managed to get the pax to their destination with only a 9 hour delay?

It sounds like EK did a bloody good job!

9 hours is a lot less time than it would have taken sending another EK aircraft from DXB. I give the airlines credit for sorting out all pax at once. I've been in situations before where Gulf Air, although overnight us in a hotel when a plan went tech, left us to constantly chase them through their call centre to find out details of the replacement flight. Those who didn't actually got left behind.

So a carrier had a tech failure in a foreign port, chartered a replacement from another company and managed to get the pax to their destination with only a 9 hour delay?

It sounds like EK did a bloody good job!

Agree. Doing this requires a lot of work and they have done this pretty well.

So a carrier had a tech failure in a foreign port, chartered a replacement from another company and managed to get the pax to their destination with only a 9 hour delay?

It sounds like EK did a bloody good job!

I forgot to add that any passengers who's final destination was not Auckland were put up into a hotel by Emirates and sorted out with their onward travel as well.

I only live 15 mins drive from the airport...hmms maybe I should ask for compensation? :D@:-)