This new aircraft appears to have had a little teething problem yesterday ...

My sister flew on the 10.10am QF 615 BNE/MEL flight yesterday and after pushing back at a reasonable time, the plane got ready for takeoff but then moved off the runway and continued to travel around in a circular direction. The captain come on and advised there appeared to be a problematic noise coming from down below but the problem seemed to rectify itself and they were about to get ready for another takeoff. On the second go, the noise returned and inability of the engineers to come to the plane to inspect it and then waiting for a gate, the plane returned for almost an hour.

When engineers came and inspected the plane, it turned out to be a relatively minor issue with something to do with the normal way that air was travelling through a valve which had no impact on the performance of the plane. After consultation with engineers in Sydney and Airbus, the plane left again and arrived in Melbourne at 3.05pm nearly 2 hours behind schedule.

My sister did say that she was highly impressed by the performance of the crew and the Captain, who at all times, kept people informed and assisted people who were going to have issues with connecting flights. With the added perils of the loss of the hour due to daylight saving, it was a shame that the original flight was only offering a refreshment service, as it was after 3pm when she hungrily arrived in MEL.

The other interesting thing she mentioned was that the crew were not happy Airbus campers, citing the name "plastic fantastic" for the Airbus aircraft and of the general acceptance that when things go wrong, they go wrong with Airbus.