jarinzfin

Saturday 28 Feb 2004 QF39 MEL – AKL

Coming back from a week of business in MEL, I decided to stay an extra day for shopping and return home to AKL on Saturday evening. At around 2pm Saturday, I checked the Qantas website and noticed that the flight departure had been changed from 19.30 to 23.55. I called Qantas and asked about this and got a reply that due to the weather in Auckland this is the case. I asked if there are other options to get to Auckland and was told no. I then asked if there is any compensation for this delay and was told no.

Since I had nothing else to do in Melbourne I got to the airport around 7pm in the hope that Qantas might provide an alternative for the delay. Check-in was fast since there was no-one there (my sequence# was 206 though!). I was told about the delay and was offered no alternatives. I then asked if they could at least give some vouchers or something at which point they gave me a $14 meal voucher to be spent at the airport.

The flight was further delayed and finally left Melbourne 6 hours late at 01.30. I was home at 8am Sunday, dead-tired, slept a couple of hours, forced myself to get up and wasted the rest of the day trying to get back to a normal rhythm. Thanks Qantas!

Fact is that before the scheduled departure, Qantas had at least 5 hours to provide alternative arrangements, and 11 hours before the actual departure, to do so. They chose not to do anything to help passengers and expected us to accept this with the excuse that ‘it is out of our hands’.
Am I unreasonable to expect that a full service airline with ample time and opportunity to do something to take the matter into their own hands, would actually do so? Does Qantas only have 1 plane capable of flying this route? Was it impossible to re-route passengers through Sydney? Is it impossible to compensate passengers, as they do in Europe and USA, for inconvenience caused by a long delay?

The irony is that I’ve always flown Air New Zealand on this route before and the last two times they were an hour late departing Melbourne so I chose to try out Qantas for the first (and if I can help it, also the last) time. Needless to say, on this day Air New Zealand’s 6.30pm MEL-AKL left right on time and they seemed to have no problems with the weather, making Qantas’ reasoning sound even lamer.

I will send them a letter but I’m not really expecting anything to happen based on this experience.
Rant over and I’m back to flying NZ next time!

GoldFlyer

I don't think there was anything Qantas cold do. A/c were being diverted all over the place from AKL so even if they did take off you may have found yourself somewhere other than AKL. It's my understanding that the weather was terrible on Saturday.

What good would it have been for them to fly you to Sydney as they would have been under the same constraints?

It seems a bit harsh to blame Qantas for the ****ty weather in AKL but then you're not flying QF again so enjoy your NZ flights in the future

og

From reading "other" bulletin boards, AKL weather was filthy (called a cyclone). Flights were trying to get into AKL but being diverted to CHC. Then taking off again from CHC, doing a lap around AKL and then retuning to CHC. Not pleasant. No doubt the delays were testing max crew hours too.

It is totally unreasonable to blame QF for the weather delays. In Greenland, the airline (Greenland Air) makes it clear that they do not compensate for weather delays - even if for several days - they happen so often.

From your description, I do think, however, that QF may have been more proactive with issuing a meal voucher. My main concern would then be whether there was a shop still open in the airport to give a meal in exchange for the voucher!

It would be interesting to see how they handled different class passengers.

jarinzfin

Yes the weather may have been bad, but when I looked at the AKL departures on Saturday afternoon, there were only 2 delays, QF to MEL and Air Pacific to Fiji, all others, including QF flights were on time! So I don't believe QF gave us the full story and anyway I never blamed them for the weather, only the way they handled things.

NM

What was the reason for the delay? Was is that AKL was closed due to the poor weather conditions? Or was it that QF's aircraft for the service was unavailable?

If AKL was closed due to poor weather, then you have no claim for compensation, and QF would not have been able to re-route you on another flight. No airline compensates people for such weather delays - that is why we pay for travel insurance.

However, many airlines will compensate if the delay is due to them being unable to provide a suitable aircraft to operate the service (due to late arrival of inbound aircraft or mechanical problem). Indeed, in some countries the airlines are required to provide such compensation.

Were any flights to Auckland (on any airlines) departing between the time your flight was scheduled to leave and when you finally did depart?

As always, if the airline does not provide you with what you deem acceptable compensation, then you can always make a claim against your travel insurance. But I doubt many travel insurance policies will kick-in for a 6 hour delay.

Kiwi Flyer

AFAIK AKL wasnt closed at any time - although the weather was indeed very bad at times so it may well have been.

While there seemed to be few cancellations (other than domestic with planes stuck at various places around the upper North Island), there were numerous delays both international and domestic.

The cyclone referred to passed close by on Sunday with no major effect in AKL. The bad weather was what I call an "aussie special" - storm across from Qld/NSW that worsened crossing the tasman. Winds in excess of 100kmh and very heavy rain from Friday night through Saturday.

QF ExLurker

Exactly. So any compensation should come from Aussie government, not from QF.

744

And which flight would you suggest that Qants cancel to provide an acft for your flight? Hmmm what do they tell the pax on the flt whose acft they should have nicked according to you. Sorry, people going to AKL are much more important than people going to CHC SIN NRT CNS BNE DRW ADL PER.
Sometime things like this are unavoidable.

ianmc

IANAL but with a little research on the law here, weather is not an airline's problem.

Act Of God Defense:
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/tandv/flightdelays.html

Globaliser

Did the NZ arrive on time? Unless you know what happened to it between departing MEL and arriving in AKL, it's a hopeless comparator.

ozzie

Travel insurance ??? I'd get £400 from Amex for a delay that long ...