Qantas / Jetconnect unreliability

A break from my usual format to give an example of Qantas / Jetconnect unreliability. From my experience of hundreds of domestic flights in NZ, Qantas (or rather NZ subsidiary Jetconnect) is rather less reliable than Air NZ. If I have to be somewhere at a certain time, or connect to an overseas flight, I fly Air NZ or pad in several hours into the schedule to allow for delays. That isn't to say there are always delays. However, with Qantas there is a much, much higher chance of delay than with Air NZ (up to 50% QF vs under 10% NZ).

There are a few reasons I think. One is that Qantas only has a few aircraft flying domestic on any given day (roughly half their current fleet is utilised on secondary trans-tasman flights and the other half on domestic NZ flights). So any problems that arise have a tendency to compound.

Secondly, NZ's weather is such that from time to time disruptions occur. This affects Air NZ also. However proportionately there is a bigger effect on Qantas - not only less aircraft available standing by to take up any slack, but also Qantas has a higher proportion of their flights into / out of Queenstown which is the main problem airport. Queenstown airport is surrounded by mountains (flying in to Queenstown is one of the best routes anywhere as thread through the valleys on approach) and thus is restricted at night time and also when clouds are low. To a lesser extent the other airports served by Qantas (Christchurch, Wellington, Rotorua and Auckland) can be closed by fog, Wellington can be closed in severe winds, and Christchurch and Auckland in severe thunderstorms.

Enough of the background lesson. I was taking a round trip between Auckland and Queenstown. This was partly using up 2 flights held over from last year when on a trip Queenstown flights were cancelled (combination of weather and running out of crew hours). I had the choice of ridiculously low credit or refund (something like $10), or fly those sectors another time, which of course I chose. Unfortunately Qantas would only let me rebook in the original booking class (unless I applied it as the small credit)

As I arrive at the Auckland domestic Qantas Club I found out that earlier in the day Christchurch had some fog, which soon cleared. Nonetheless 2 aircraft were impacted (one from CHC the other from AKL). The one from AKL was unfortunately the one I would be later flying on (due to the small number of aircraft and flights it is relatively straight forward to track progress of an aircraft through the day, except when they swap equipment).

The online arrival and departure were showing this aircraft as flying AKL-(WLG unscheduled)-CHC-ZQN-CHC-ROT-CHC-ZQN-CHC-AKL. I was to fly the bolded bit. One thing that I find a bit silly with the online arrival and departure data is that delays are not propagating through the rest of the day. So have silly cases where can see an aircraft is due in to CHC say at 1100 and depart at 1040. Clearly not possible. But if not savvy enough with the schedules a first glance would make the second flight appear as on time.

So I see the aircraft is running about 1.5 hours late. I was booked on a different flight back from Christchurch, which I projected to be about 0.5 hours late (at this stage). This means either I'd misconnect or flight would need to be held for me and anyone else making that connection.

I asked the lounge agent if I could be rebooked onto the same aircraft's flight CHC-AKL in order to be protected. After some checking it seems the flight was full but I was put on waitlist. With my status, and the likelihood passengers would be shuffled between the 2 flights I was reasonably confident I would clear the waitlist. This later proved to be the case, with status passengers flying CHC-AKL (only) on the significantly delayed flight moved across to the less delayed flight, freeing up space for me to be moved in the other direction.

So far so good. As time passed (in AKL and again in CHC) I monitored the situation. The delays crept out. So the next question was whether we would get to Queenstown or fail to make the curfew. Qantas got all the passengers at the gate ready for a rapid turnaround, abandoned cleaning the aircraft and got everyone off the inbound flight and completed boarding for the outbound in under 15 minutes. There was an anxious few minutes while they completed paperwork. This took us right until the go / no go time I'd been told earlier.

We took off into the setting sun. We must have had more power applied than normal for despite there being no tailwind we shaved off several minutes from the normal flight time on this relatively short sector.

On landing at Queenstown there was a flurry of activity from all the ground staff - they are normally very laid back. Trying to beat the approaching darkness so we wouldn't be stranded there (I can think of much worse places to be stranded but I did really need to get back to Auckland that night). Murphy's Law prevailed. We had 2 wheelchair passengers and another with crutches - this at an airport that only has stairs so a slow process to deplane.

I had just enough time to pick up the stuff I'd come for, and back through security to the gate. Boarding had already started but I was glad I didn't hold up the flight.

The sun had already gone as we taxiied and I was a bit stressed that we weren't going to make it. (I had another trip to Queenstown where cloud descended while we taxiied and we ended up taxiing back to the terminal.) Turn at the end of the runway and immediately gunned back down it. As we climb the skies darkened - the Southern Alps and other surrounding mountains make for a short dusk. Phew just made it.

Coming in to Christchurch the city lights were partly obscured by dense fog patches. The fog from the previous night had settled off the coast during the day and returned with the cool of evening - albeit returning rather earlier than forecast. Would we be able to land? At this stage I wasn't too worried, thinking if we couldn't the alternative would be to fly to Wellington and head to Auckland from there (most likely first thing the next morning). Fortunately the airport runways were just clear enough to land - conveniently the thicker fog was over some taxiways and not the runway. This was surreal. Parts of the airport obscured and other bits clear, even over very short distances.

While in transit the fog thickened and delays continued (they finally cleaned the aircraft and recatered). So now wondering if we'll get out tonight. We had a very slow taxi out to the runway, during which the pilot comes on to announce the conditions are still just good enough to take off. The lights were on high - the fog glowing around us, yet still could not see much out the side windows other than the taxiway and side runway lights. Hopefully they could see more out the front!

So successfully completed my flights and less than 2 hours late. It could have been worse. The lounge staff were brilliant, even following up on the waitlist status for me and keeping me informed. Refreshingly they didn't BS about the delays, realising that I realised the expected arrival and departure times on the website and lounge monitors where a load of rubbish. Cabin crew were also good.

But, I checked out how Air NZ did on the same day. They had a few flights delayed an hour, but seemed to recover time during the day. Qantas generally lost more time as the day wore on (except the last flight was fast, as it often is and made up 20 minutes).

I've had lots of trips without significant delays, but my track record with Qantas domestic is not good. As shown in this little report, service recovery can vary between excellent (yesterday) and bad (the aborted trip referred to last year).