We need your help to make the skies friendlier for consumers
What are we looking for?
We’re looking for some very specific case studies to help us with our campaign for better rights for Aussie flyers. It would be very helpful if your experience was with one of Australia’s four major carriers: Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin or Tiger.
Have you ever:
Got stuck somewhere, and the delay or cancellation was the fault of the airline? (e.g. mechanical problem, staffing issue or the vague term “operational reasons” was used)
Been on a delayed or cancelled flight (again, within the airline’s control) with travelling companions and you received different treatment to your companion or another passenger on the flight? This could include preferential treatment on which flight you moved to, some passengers receiving vouchers and others not, receiving worse accommodation than another passenger, or another issue I haven’t listed here
What would you have to do?
You will need to have some records of your incident (e.g. itineraries, flight numbers) and in the initial stage be willing to have a chat with me (I’m friendly!) and some others working on this issue.
Great! How can I get involved?
If you think you fit the bill, let me know what your issue was below I’ll be in touch if I’d like to know more. Or, if you know a family member or friend who has had a problem, we can get in touch with them directly if they’d like to chat.
By telling us about your experience you could be part of major changes to how consumers are treated in the airline industry in Australia - exciting stuff!
It was a while ago - ended up being shipped around on Herc, Saab, Cessna and seconded international legs just to get interstate - something about the airlines upsetting the pilots so they didn’t come to work … but that was the '80s …
It’s been 2 days now since Qantas Airlines decided to ditch bags at Dallas Fort Worth, mine being among them, and no sign of my bag. The web site is unreliable, giving wrong information and apparently can’t be fixed. I have been waiting on the phone for 45 minutes to try and get some information.
I was told that the last time my bag was seen was in Los Angeles where the bags were sent to get them to Sydney.
Warning: The maths behind the longest non-stop flight DFW to SYD has taken into account that often the bags need to be ditched so that Qantas can put on enough fuel to do the trip. They will ditch your bags and then return them at their leisure. They don’t check the tags so you have no idea where your bag is.
To rub salt into the wound you are asked each time what your frequent flyer number is and your frequent flyer status is. So what difference does it make if you are platinum or bronze? The service, I suppose.
One of the classic problems with baggage at DFW is when the bright bulbs get a hand written tag or a machine printed one where the bar code is damaged and human involvement is required and they cannot differentiate between IAH and LAX. Those ‘I’ and ‘L’ and ‘H’ and ‘X’ must look so much alike after eyeballing thousands of bags. Ask QF to check for your bag in Houston. I was going to IAH (Houston) and they sent my bag to LAX (Los Angeles).
If the best and brightest got involved they checked the bag into LAX and decided it got misrouted and sent it back to IAH. Good luck!
