ghostboy
Jan 10, 06, 4:58 pm
Cross-posted from Qantas Frequent Flyer forum
Based on mixed experiences by myself and others on this forum relating to the QF6 SIN-SYD service (specifically an overall inconsistent level of service – heard it all before I know….yawn!) I was planning, and did commit on this forum, to writing a trip report following our flight to SYD on Dec 23rd.
In light of the course of events which took place last Friday & Saturday (QF5 SYD-SIN-FRA cancelled service), I decided for my inaugural trip report for Flyertalk there was significantly more “meat on the bone” there.
Background
We planned (“we” being my wife, Amy & I) to spend Christmas 2005 in Brisbane with my family; I have a brother & sister who live in Morningside – my folks would make the trip down from Rockhampton (where I grew up), and my other brother was also making the trip from Singapore (we live about 15 minutes from each other – small world huh?).
I booked award tickets back in Jan 2005; originally found availability on the QF52 SIN-BNE direct service, then having confirmed with my family we were definitely on for Chrissy, logged in the following morning to book the seats – BUT, no more seats on QF52 so had to settle for SIN-SYD(QF6)-BNE-SYD-SIN(QF5). S$560 in taxes & 100k points later, we were all sorted!
Fast forward to Dec 23rd 2005
It would be remiss not to at least provide some observations from the QF6 service SIN-SYD; I had called Qantas (in Melbourne; I prefer to bypass Qantas Singapore Customer Service) the week before to specifically request a row of 2 down the back – was told they could only put in a request, so didn’t hold much hope since the flight was originating from FRA. We arrived at Changi around 5.15pm (for a 7.55pm departure). Check-in was efficient; the agent was a bit cold (standard for SATS) and we did snare the seats requested (70J/K). I did request the same seats for our return flight (QF5 – 6th Jan……err, I mean 7th Jan……stay tuned :) ).
We did manage to get a solid 1½ hours in the QP; must say, very ordinary beer selection – Tiger & Carlsberg. Better selection in the Domestic QP’s in Oz. Food was your standard nibbles & pizza which appeared around 6pm IIRC. I finished up a status report for a project I’m running, cleaned out a few e-mails, & then called it a day – Amy went & bought a book (Ben Elton, “Past Mortem” – dud ending she reckons). All that’s missing from the lounge is a tarmac view; unless I missed it completely?
Overall, flight was better than expected (VH-OJJ – Captain Gary Duggan) – the crew were understandably in good spirits being Xmas Eve “Eve”; I’ve always adopted an “expect the worst” approach with QF red-eye flights, and I can say this flight did exceed (very low) expectations. Dinner was a choice between fish & vege pasta; both fair. I was pleasantly surprised the crew didn’t spring the lights on at 4am as they’ve normally done for the breakfast service; in addition, the brekky service was efficient & non-intrusive (meaning for once the crew decided just ‘coz they were awake, didn’t mean everyone else should be – nice!). Both meal services seem to be well coordinated; I haven’t seen this on QF Intl for a long time. Perhaps some re-training has been happening in this area?
We cleared Immigration in about 2 mins (love the APEC card!), declared some tea to ensure a fast-track through the red channel & avoid luggage scan (works everytime!), and headed to the Domestic Transfer. We made it to the Domestic QP with enough for some more brekky, and met up with my brother (Singapore based) who had been in Sydney for work. He told me (on the quiet) he had tried to redeem his last upgrade credit for a seat up front; and if it comes through he would give it to Amy. Definitely mixed emotions from my standpoint; “... - what about me???” to “Yeh, fair ‘nuff she’s had bugger all sleep and her sinuses are playing up”– needless to say Amy had a pleasant ride up front with full brekky service. My bro’ occasionally pulls random acts of kindness like this; and buys the best birthday presents too!! Last year he gave me a pair on Sennheiser PXC250 Noise Cancelling headphones – they rock…….but I digress.
Fast forward to Jan 6th 2005
We came back from AKL on Thu 5th to spend another night with my family (sans parents) before flying home to SIN the following afternoon. Around 11am on Friday morning, Qantas called me at my sister’s place to advise QF6 was late arriving and the departure time had been revised to 1800hrs. We were fine with that, as our connection/transfer to the Intl terminal was always going to be tight and would result in very little QP time – bonus I thought!
Immigration was a bit of a zoo, however we fast-tracked through the APEC queue and waltzed into the QP around 4.15pm; in time to see Punter hit the winning runs in the 3rd Test vs South Africa! As I was about to head to the bar for a vino (still miffed about the tap beer & lack of selection) & a cuppa for Amy, there was an announcement that QF5 would be delayed until 9.30pm due to a late release from Engineering Maintenance.
IIRC only 1 other previous flight on QF5 has been personal (holiday), so in light of the fact that neither of us had to work the next morning we resigned ourselves to the QP being our drinking hole for the next 4 hours – could’ve been a lot worse I said to Amy. We could be without lounge access at all, or even worse, still too dusty from last night’s festivities and not in good form to murder the QP bar; that said, I’ll admit I was still feeling worse for wear! Nonetheless, there was a Peach Absolut vodka promotion happening – I wandered over the have a squizz and the barman asked if I was on the delayed Qantas service to Frankfurt to which I replied “Absolutely” (crack me up!). He passed me a flyer which had about 8 cocktails on it, and asked if there was anything I’d like. I went for the Mohito & asked for a Cosmo for Amy; he asked where we were sitting and said he’d being them over to us……10 minutes later our drinks arrived, and both were very nice ^ . We both agreed we could easily polish off a few more of these – alas, not long after I saw the barman wheeling his trolley through the Staff Only door. Ah well, all was not lost. I’m not sure I the promo was a one-off or something the QP is doing on a regular basis, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.
The QP desk had announced there were food vouchers available for pax on the delayed QF5 service; we decided we should head downstairs and get something a bit more substantial than snacks, although Amy would’ve been more than happy to have another 37 dolmades!! So off we went armed with our 2 x A$15 meal vouchers, and upon finding we were far from spoilt for choice, settled on Wagamama – asked for takeaway as the seating area was quite full. Amy had the chicken teriyaki & I went for the tuna & avocado salad; both were fine although in terms of value for money (had we been paying), not sure I’d go back.
So we settled back into the QP, had dinner & a few more drinks – we both read for a while & plane spotted to kill some time; pleasantly surprised with Amy’s knowledge of respective airline’s livery and general interest in the activity going on outside. I thought for a moment she was beginning to adopt a similar interest in aviation; I shared my thoughts only to get a roll of the eyes. Ah well, I can take comfort that she respects my hobby/obsession which is one of the many reasons I married her . Anyhoo, finally an announcement came around 9.30pm* that the aircraft has been released by Engineering and was now being catered & loaded. A further boarding announcement would follow shortly. I commented to Amy they’d better pull finger otherwise the curfew would kick in and we wouldn’t be going anywhere.
* Disclaimer: times are best guesstimate by this stage following several vinos, then several more…..well, the clock was getting blurry :o
One of the other pax then made a comment that the dep time for QF5 was now reading as 0800; an announcement had not been made yet and at this stage must have been close to 10pm. Then, the news that everyone was dreading – the service had been cancelled and all pax (not living in SYD metro) would be put up for the night. We were asked to head back down to Immigration around 10.20pm, collect our bags, and make our way outside the terminal where we would be met by a Qantas agent.
We made it outside to be greeted by the SYD Intl Zoo, without a Qantas representative to be seen – obviously there must have been someone from QF up the front of the queue directing traffic; about 20 mins later we’d made our way to the front (all this time no-one knew what the heck was going on, and pax were understandably getting a bit shirty). There was some entertainment though; one of the buses trying to reverse had a shocker and reversed into the awning structure – no damage, but a lot of pax were yelling (some banging on the door) when we could all see what was about to happen. The driver got off with a “what’s all the fuss about” look – bizarre!
We finally made it to the QF agent; she was flustered but doing a wonderful job considering the circumstances. What is it with people who despite being asked to form a single queue take it upon themselves to form several only to add to the congestion and ultimately slow down the entire process? Idiots!
The QF agent asked me for our boarding passes, and then allowed us to board the bus. I made sure to tell her she was doing a fantastic job which brought a smile of relief – she wished us better success tomorrow. We got away a few minutes later – still not knowing where we were going. There were 2 couples sitting in front of us who we got chatting to and collectively were making light of the whole situation. I made a comment (I think it was the red wine talking) that it was just like a mystery flight; all on a journey to nowhere but excited about the prospect of going somewhere you’d never been……and it turned out to be just that!! Welcome to the Novotel Brighton Beach! I’d only ever driven through the area (Brighton-Le-Sands) when we were living in Sydney up to 2002, and all I knew about this hotel was it’s the hotel of choice for travelling sporting teams – and needless to say there’s been plenty of well publicised shenanigans over the years from such guests! (Note to self: stop digressing)
We got our bags and lobbed up to the check-in counter; 2 very friendly gentlemen were assisting pax and I was extremely impressed with the manner in which they were handing the situation – all room keys were already in envelopes with the number on the front of the envelope. They simply asked for pax to write their surname on a sheet of paper; asked us for our room preference – I asked for a queen bed. He handed us an envelope for room 527 & we were on our way….well done Novotel! We were told we had to be out the front tomorrow morning at 6.30am, so we asked for a 6am wake-up call. The room itself was not dissimilar to an Embassy Suite room (part of the Hilton chain in the US); spacious lounge room, bathroom (great shower), and decent size bedroom with a queen size bed.
The next morning we made it downstairs right on 6.30am; in hindsight, should’ve got down there earlier as there was a queue of approx. 100 pax. Assuming we had to travel back to the Intl terminal on the buses provided by QF, expecting they would be checking people who were getting on the bus etc. we waited patiently in the queue (again that no-one had any idea what was going on – whether or not another bus was on the way; we assumed so). One of the Novotel employees finally came out at about 7.00am to advise Qantas had just called and another bus was on the way. All the while, other pax were getting in taxis and making their own way back to the airport. As it turned out, there were no checks and basically a free-for-all when the bus did turn up so in hindsight we should’ve grabbed a taxi and made our own way.
By the time we made it to the terminal, it was absolute chaos. Our flight had been rescheduled to 9.00am; we counted no less than 10 QF flights departing in the next couple of hours which explained the 100+ pax in the Business/First check-in queue (D). There was an elderly gentleman (SYD Airport employee – yellow jacket) who was doing his best to direct Y traffic to the “E” check-in area but seriously the line snaked as far as the eye could see; absolute pandemonium! From my observations, I think people were beyond caring anymore and sucked it so apart from a couple of hissy fits the crowd was quite well behaved. We finally checked-in (managed to keep the same seats – 70J/K), shared a few laughs with the check-in agent, slipped through immigration quickly via the APEC line, and hit the QP for some brekky – normal spread; toast, fruit salad (excellent – fresh, not canned), bread rolls, tea/coffee, juices.
As the time approached 8.30am-ish, I said to Amy there must be another delay as they would’ve called us by now if we were going to take-off on time. Essentially, subsequent announcements were not made about delays but we were finally advised the aircraft was ready for boarding around 10am. Pretty much as soon as we were seated, the captain greeted us (his name escaped me) & advised there were pax still checking in, so we weren’t going anywhere soon. He also apologised for not being able to speak German, French, or Spanish – now that’s a first!
We finally got away at 10.50am; both the captain & In-flight CSD made further announcements and again apologised for inconveniences caused following last night’s cancellation. Within approx. 30 minutes after take-off, the in-flight entertainment system was cranked up – Amy noticed an announcement in the guide that although the plane was equipped with AVOD, it wasn’t yet functional. My system was playing up initially; I called the FA to ask he re-boot my system – he commented they’ve been having all sorts of problems with the new systems! Re-boot worked for about 15 minutes before it stopping working again; then an announcement from the CSD they were going to have to restart the entire system again. Again, mine was being temperamental but after a couple of minutes fixed itself!
Not long after the breakfast service was finished, I spotted the captain wandering down the opposite aisle in the next cabin – long way to go for a leak I initially thought only to realise he was doing to PR-thing. Kudos to him; I’m not sure of the protocol in these types of cases – i.e. whether or not QF expect the captain (weather conditions prevailing) to walk the cabin and grease the pax. That said, I thought it was commendable on behalf of him & Qantas to make the effort. When he came passed us, I asked what had happened last night. He said there was a problem with the gearbox (?) and although they did fix the problem & could have got away last night, but “one guy in Canberra wouldn’t let us go”. He then proceeded to say they bailed for the hotel around 9.30pm. I asked if it was the same plane & crew; different plane (VH-OJA was the offending bird last night), and apart from about 4-5 crew – same. I resisted the urge to ask him "so, if you're the captain then who's flying this puppy?" - last thing he needed was a smart alec :mad: ! I also overheard him telling another pax he was retiring in 6 weeks; I asked if his roster had since been changed and he replied he was now going to LHR instead of FRA which he wasn’t too happy about since he’d arranged to catch up with friends in FRA before he retired. Me thinks he can probably squeeze an employee fare before he leaves for good....unless QF is strict & only allows employee fares during service.
Lunch followed (chicken or beef – I had the beef, Amy the chicken; not too bad). Touched down into Changi around 3.00pm; after taxiing for a while we disembarked around 3.20pm. A little over 7hrs flying time; we were in cloud pretty much from the west coast of Oz thru to SIN which made the flight quite bumpy.
Overall, I think Qantas handled the situation as well as could be expected – with the exception of a lack of QF representatives last night when we were queuing for the bus as well as this morning both at the hotel & once we arrived at the terminal; it’s critical to keep people well informed at all times. Even a regular announcement once in the terminal reminding people on the QF5/5D/8005 flight where they need to be etc would have helped. We were asked probably no less than half a dozen times by pax where to go. The efficiency of check-in/out at the Novotel last night & this morning was impressive; I expected that was where the bottlenecks would be.
In Summary
Has QF’s Y long-haul product improved? Absolutely.
Would I/we fly them again? Likely.
Would I have said “likely” 6 months ago? Not a hope.
Would I/we have been as forgiving had we not had the luxury of time/being on holidays? Probably not.
Are QF & SQ still worlds apart in their respective Y products? Not as much; get AVOD deployed & working properly & they’ll have a comparable product.
Good luck to them; it was obvious to me they’ve made an effort to improve their Y product in particular – my most recent biz class experience was in September which I was very impressed with, at the time I thought was better than my last biz sector several years prior, although the aircraft then didn’t have AVOD nor the Skybeds. The FA’s did take good care of my Krispy Kremes as well :D
Well, that it’s for my 1st trip report – thanks for those who've persevered. Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I’ve done writing it. Now with #1 under the belt, I'm feeling more optimistic about rolling a few more out in the future.
Cheers, Simon.
Based on mixed experiences by myself and others on this forum relating to the QF6 SIN-SYD service (specifically an overall inconsistent level of service – heard it all before I know….yawn!) I was planning, and did commit on this forum, to writing a trip report following our flight to SYD on Dec 23rd.
In light of the course of events which took place last Friday & Saturday (QF5 SYD-SIN-FRA cancelled service), I decided for my inaugural trip report for Flyertalk there was significantly more “meat on the bone” there.
Background
We planned (“we” being my wife, Amy & I) to spend Christmas 2005 in Brisbane with my family; I have a brother & sister who live in Morningside – my folks would make the trip down from Rockhampton (where I grew up), and my other brother was also making the trip from Singapore (we live about 15 minutes from each other – small world huh?).
I booked award tickets back in Jan 2005; originally found availability on the QF52 SIN-BNE direct service, then having confirmed with my family we were definitely on for Chrissy, logged in the following morning to book the seats – BUT, no more seats on QF52 so had to settle for SIN-SYD(QF6)-BNE-SYD-SIN(QF5). S$560 in taxes & 100k points later, we were all sorted!
Fast forward to Dec 23rd 2005
It would be remiss not to at least provide some observations from the QF6 service SIN-SYD; I had called Qantas (in Melbourne; I prefer to bypass Qantas Singapore Customer Service) the week before to specifically request a row of 2 down the back – was told they could only put in a request, so didn’t hold much hope since the flight was originating from FRA. We arrived at Changi around 5.15pm (for a 7.55pm departure). Check-in was efficient; the agent was a bit cold (standard for SATS) and we did snare the seats requested (70J/K). I did request the same seats for our return flight (QF5 – 6th Jan……err, I mean 7th Jan……stay tuned :) ).
We did manage to get a solid 1½ hours in the QP; must say, very ordinary beer selection – Tiger & Carlsberg. Better selection in the Domestic QP’s in Oz. Food was your standard nibbles & pizza which appeared around 6pm IIRC. I finished up a status report for a project I’m running, cleaned out a few e-mails, & then called it a day – Amy went & bought a book (Ben Elton, “Past Mortem” – dud ending she reckons). All that’s missing from the lounge is a tarmac view; unless I missed it completely?
Overall, flight was better than expected (VH-OJJ – Captain Gary Duggan) – the crew were understandably in good spirits being Xmas Eve “Eve”; I’ve always adopted an “expect the worst” approach with QF red-eye flights, and I can say this flight did exceed (very low) expectations. Dinner was a choice between fish & vege pasta; both fair. I was pleasantly surprised the crew didn’t spring the lights on at 4am as they’ve normally done for the breakfast service; in addition, the brekky service was efficient & non-intrusive (meaning for once the crew decided just ‘coz they were awake, didn’t mean everyone else should be – nice!). Both meal services seem to be well coordinated; I haven’t seen this on QF Intl for a long time. Perhaps some re-training has been happening in this area?
We cleared Immigration in about 2 mins (love the APEC card!), declared some tea to ensure a fast-track through the red channel & avoid luggage scan (works everytime!), and headed to the Domestic Transfer. We made it to the Domestic QP with enough for some more brekky, and met up with my brother (Singapore based) who had been in Sydney for work. He told me (on the quiet) he had tried to redeem his last upgrade credit for a seat up front; and if it comes through he would give it to Amy. Definitely mixed emotions from my standpoint; “... - what about me???” to “Yeh, fair ‘nuff she’s had bugger all sleep and her sinuses are playing up”– needless to say Amy had a pleasant ride up front with full brekky service. My bro’ occasionally pulls random acts of kindness like this; and buys the best birthday presents too!! Last year he gave me a pair on Sennheiser PXC250 Noise Cancelling headphones – they rock…….but I digress.
Fast forward to Jan 6th 2005
We came back from AKL on Thu 5th to spend another night with my family (sans parents) before flying home to SIN the following afternoon. Around 11am on Friday morning, Qantas called me at my sister’s place to advise QF6 was late arriving and the departure time had been revised to 1800hrs. We were fine with that, as our connection/transfer to the Intl terminal was always going to be tight and would result in very little QP time – bonus I thought!
Immigration was a bit of a zoo, however we fast-tracked through the APEC queue and waltzed into the QP around 4.15pm; in time to see Punter hit the winning runs in the 3rd Test vs South Africa! As I was about to head to the bar for a vino (still miffed about the tap beer & lack of selection) & a cuppa for Amy, there was an announcement that QF5 would be delayed until 9.30pm due to a late release from Engineering Maintenance.
IIRC only 1 other previous flight on QF5 has been personal (holiday), so in light of the fact that neither of us had to work the next morning we resigned ourselves to the QP being our drinking hole for the next 4 hours – could’ve been a lot worse I said to Amy. We could be without lounge access at all, or even worse, still too dusty from last night’s festivities and not in good form to murder the QP bar; that said, I’ll admit I was still feeling worse for wear! Nonetheless, there was a Peach Absolut vodka promotion happening – I wandered over the have a squizz and the barman asked if I was on the delayed Qantas service to Frankfurt to which I replied “Absolutely” (crack me up!). He passed me a flyer which had about 8 cocktails on it, and asked if there was anything I’d like. I went for the Mohito & asked for a Cosmo for Amy; he asked where we were sitting and said he’d being them over to us……10 minutes later our drinks arrived, and both were very nice ^ . We both agreed we could easily polish off a few more of these – alas, not long after I saw the barman wheeling his trolley through the Staff Only door. Ah well, all was not lost. I’m not sure I the promo was a one-off or something the QP is doing on a regular basis, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.
The QP desk had announced there were food vouchers available for pax on the delayed QF5 service; we decided we should head downstairs and get something a bit more substantial than snacks, although Amy would’ve been more than happy to have another 37 dolmades!! So off we went armed with our 2 x A$15 meal vouchers, and upon finding we were far from spoilt for choice, settled on Wagamama – asked for takeaway as the seating area was quite full. Amy had the chicken teriyaki & I went for the tuna & avocado salad; both were fine although in terms of value for money (had we been paying), not sure I’d go back.
So we settled back into the QP, had dinner & a few more drinks – we both read for a while & plane spotted to kill some time; pleasantly surprised with Amy’s knowledge of respective airline’s livery and general interest in the activity going on outside. I thought for a moment she was beginning to adopt a similar interest in aviation; I shared my thoughts only to get a roll of the eyes. Ah well, I can take comfort that she respects my hobby/obsession which is one of the many reasons I married her . Anyhoo, finally an announcement came around 9.30pm* that the aircraft has been released by Engineering and was now being catered & loaded. A further boarding announcement would follow shortly. I commented to Amy they’d better pull finger otherwise the curfew would kick in and we wouldn’t be going anywhere.
* Disclaimer: times are best guesstimate by this stage following several vinos, then several more…..well, the clock was getting blurry :o
One of the other pax then made a comment that the dep time for QF5 was now reading as 0800; an announcement had not been made yet and at this stage must have been close to 10pm. Then, the news that everyone was dreading – the service had been cancelled and all pax (not living in SYD metro) would be put up for the night. We were asked to head back down to Immigration around 10.20pm, collect our bags, and make our way outside the terminal where we would be met by a Qantas agent.
We made it outside to be greeted by the SYD Intl Zoo, without a Qantas representative to be seen – obviously there must have been someone from QF up the front of the queue directing traffic; about 20 mins later we’d made our way to the front (all this time no-one knew what the heck was going on, and pax were understandably getting a bit shirty). There was some entertainment though; one of the buses trying to reverse had a shocker and reversed into the awning structure – no damage, but a lot of pax were yelling (some banging on the door) when we could all see what was about to happen. The driver got off with a “what’s all the fuss about” look – bizarre!
We finally made it to the QF agent; she was flustered but doing a wonderful job considering the circumstances. What is it with people who despite being asked to form a single queue take it upon themselves to form several only to add to the congestion and ultimately slow down the entire process? Idiots!
The QF agent asked me for our boarding passes, and then allowed us to board the bus. I made sure to tell her she was doing a fantastic job which brought a smile of relief – she wished us better success tomorrow. We got away a few minutes later – still not knowing where we were going. There were 2 couples sitting in front of us who we got chatting to and collectively were making light of the whole situation. I made a comment (I think it was the red wine talking) that it was just like a mystery flight; all on a journey to nowhere but excited about the prospect of going somewhere you’d never been……and it turned out to be just that!! Welcome to the Novotel Brighton Beach! I’d only ever driven through the area (Brighton-Le-Sands) when we were living in Sydney up to 2002, and all I knew about this hotel was it’s the hotel of choice for travelling sporting teams – and needless to say there’s been plenty of well publicised shenanigans over the years from such guests! (Note to self: stop digressing)
We got our bags and lobbed up to the check-in counter; 2 very friendly gentlemen were assisting pax and I was extremely impressed with the manner in which they were handing the situation – all room keys were already in envelopes with the number on the front of the envelope. They simply asked for pax to write their surname on a sheet of paper; asked us for our room preference – I asked for a queen bed. He handed us an envelope for room 527 & we were on our way….well done Novotel! We were told we had to be out the front tomorrow morning at 6.30am, so we asked for a 6am wake-up call. The room itself was not dissimilar to an Embassy Suite room (part of the Hilton chain in the US); spacious lounge room, bathroom (great shower), and decent size bedroom with a queen size bed.
The next morning we made it downstairs right on 6.30am; in hindsight, should’ve got down there earlier as there was a queue of approx. 100 pax. Assuming we had to travel back to the Intl terminal on the buses provided by QF, expecting they would be checking people who were getting on the bus etc. we waited patiently in the queue (again that no-one had any idea what was going on – whether or not another bus was on the way; we assumed so). One of the Novotel employees finally came out at about 7.00am to advise Qantas had just called and another bus was on the way. All the while, other pax were getting in taxis and making their own way back to the airport. As it turned out, there were no checks and basically a free-for-all when the bus did turn up so in hindsight we should’ve grabbed a taxi and made our own way.
By the time we made it to the terminal, it was absolute chaos. Our flight had been rescheduled to 9.00am; we counted no less than 10 QF flights departing in the next couple of hours which explained the 100+ pax in the Business/First check-in queue (D). There was an elderly gentleman (SYD Airport employee – yellow jacket) who was doing his best to direct Y traffic to the “E” check-in area but seriously the line snaked as far as the eye could see; absolute pandemonium! From my observations, I think people were beyond caring anymore and sucked it so apart from a couple of hissy fits the crowd was quite well behaved. We finally checked-in (managed to keep the same seats – 70J/K), shared a few laughs with the check-in agent, slipped through immigration quickly via the APEC line, and hit the QP for some brekky – normal spread; toast, fruit salad (excellent – fresh, not canned), bread rolls, tea/coffee, juices.
As the time approached 8.30am-ish, I said to Amy there must be another delay as they would’ve called us by now if we were going to take-off on time. Essentially, subsequent announcements were not made about delays but we were finally advised the aircraft was ready for boarding around 10am. Pretty much as soon as we were seated, the captain greeted us (his name escaped me) & advised there were pax still checking in, so we weren’t going anywhere soon. He also apologised for not being able to speak German, French, or Spanish – now that’s a first!
We finally got away at 10.50am; both the captain & In-flight CSD made further announcements and again apologised for inconveniences caused following last night’s cancellation. Within approx. 30 minutes after take-off, the in-flight entertainment system was cranked up – Amy noticed an announcement in the guide that although the plane was equipped with AVOD, it wasn’t yet functional. My system was playing up initially; I called the FA to ask he re-boot my system – he commented they’ve been having all sorts of problems with the new systems! Re-boot worked for about 15 minutes before it stopping working again; then an announcement from the CSD they were going to have to restart the entire system again. Again, mine was being temperamental but after a couple of minutes fixed itself!
Not long after the breakfast service was finished, I spotted the captain wandering down the opposite aisle in the next cabin – long way to go for a leak I initially thought only to realise he was doing to PR-thing. Kudos to him; I’m not sure of the protocol in these types of cases – i.e. whether or not QF expect the captain (weather conditions prevailing) to walk the cabin and grease the pax. That said, I thought it was commendable on behalf of him & Qantas to make the effort. When he came passed us, I asked what had happened last night. He said there was a problem with the gearbox (?) and although they did fix the problem & could have got away last night, but “one guy in Canberra wouldn’t let us go”. He then proceeded to say they bailed for the hotel around 9.30pm. I asked if it was the same plane & crew; different plane (VH-OJA was the offending bird last night), and apart from about 4-5 crew – same. I resisted the urge to ask him "so, if you're the captain then who's flying this puppy?" - last thing he needed was a smart alec :mad: ! I also overheard him telling another pax he was retiring in 6 weeks; I asked if his roster had since been changed and he replied he was now going to LHR instead of FRA which he wasn’t too happy about since he’d arranged to catch up with friends in FRA before he retired. Me thinks he can probably squeeze an employee fare before he leaves for good....unless QF is strict & only allows employee fares during service.
Lunch followed (chicken or beef – I had the beef, Amy the chicken; not too bad). Touched down into Changi around 3.00pm; after taxiing for a while we disembarked around 3.20pm. A little over 7hrs flying time; we were in cloud pretty much from the west coast of Oz thru to SIN which made the flight quite bumpy.
Overall, I think Qantas handled the situation as well as could be expected – with the exception of a lack of QF representatives last night when we were queuing for the bus as well as this morning both at the hotel & once we arrived at the terminal; it’s critical to keep people well informed at all times. Even a regular announcement once in the terminal reminding people on the QF5/5D/8005 flight where they need to be etc would have helped. We were asked probably no less than half a dozen times by pax where to go. The efficiency of check-in/out at the Novotel last night & this morning was impressive; I expected that was where the bottlenecks would be.
In Summary
Has QF’s Y long-haul product improved? Absolutely.
Would I/we fly them again? Likely.
Would I have said “likely” 6 months ago? Not a hope.
Would I/we have been as forgiving had we not had the luxury of time/being on holidays? Probably not.
Are QF & SQ still worlds apart in their respective Y products? Not as much; get AVOD deployed & working properly & they’ll have a comparable product.
Good luck to them; it was obvious to me they’ve made an effort to improve their Y product in particular – my most recent biz class experience was in September which I was very impressed with, at the time I thought was better than my last biz sector several years prior, although the aircraft then didn’t have AVOD nor the Skybeds. The FA’s did take good care of my Krispy Kremes as well :D
Well, that it’s for my 1st trip report – thanks for those who've persevered. Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I’ve done writing it. Now with #1 under the belt, I'm feeling more optimistic about rolling a few more out in the future.
Cheers, Simon.