Qantas Forced to Fly a Boeing Dreamliner Full of Lost Bags But No Passengers

Paddle Your Own Kano ^ | Mateusz Maszczynski

[libh8er]

Australian flag carrier Qantas was forced to fly one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners between Melbourne and Sydney without a single passenger onboard but it’s belly-hold full of luggage on Friday. The airline operated the special intercity luggage shuttle in order to reunite passengers with bags that had been left behind as chaotic scenes at Australian airports heralded the start of the Easter Holidays.

The flight had to be quickly chartered after Qantas was slammed in the media for leaving customers without any clothes at the start of their holidays. The Sydney-based airline said only a “small number of flights” had departed without luggage loaded in recent days because of COVID-related staffing “challenges”.

“Decisions were made to have these flights depart without baggage to ensure that customers could get to their destination and not face long flight delays or cancellations,” the airline said in a statement on Friday. A similar decision was made more than 10,000 miles away in London by British Airways after facing its own staffing woes on Thursday.

Some of the delayed baggage is simply being put on later flights and couriered to customers at great expense to Qantas. But in a move that would suggest the number of misplaced bags is far greater than originally thought, Qantas has also chartered one of its widebody Dreamliner aircraft to transport displaced luggage between Sydney and Melbourne.

Qantas normally only uses its Boeing 787 Dreamliners on long-haul international services. Low-cost subsidiary Jetstar is also using some of its Dreamliners on popular domestic routes such as between Melbourne and Cairns to increase passenger and luggage capacity.

“We really appreciate people’s patience and understanding and apologise for the inconvenience,” a spokesperson for Qantas said after the airline came in for criticism over its performance in recent days. Qantas says it will transport half a million people on more than 4,600 domestic flights during the extended Easter weekend.

The spokesperson blamed the luggage fiasco partly on COVID-19 isolation requirements that have seen employee sickness rates swell to as much as 50 per cent in some departments even though staff don’t actually have Coronavirus. The airline said it “rejects” a persisting suggestion that the problems are linked with Qantas’ decision to outsource ground handling jobs around a year and a half ago.

As well as blaming Qantas, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) also blames Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the current woes facing Australian travellers.

“Australians can thank Scott Morrison and his absent government for being stuck at airports rather than doing Easter egg hunts with kids,” blasted Michael Kaine, TWU national secretary. “Staffing shortages were entirely predictable – the sector was hit hard by the pandemic but failures by the Morrison government to insulate the workforce have exacerbated the challenges,” Kaine continued.

Qantas says it has brought in 200 head office managers to help out with baggage and check-in at both Sydney and Melbourne airports.

[Paladin2]

It’s only 550 mi.

And a lesson to get things right the first time.

[How many firearms were involved?]

[Larry Lucido]

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

[Zack Attack]

There was a classic joke I forget who told it with a man at airline counter

Passenger: I want to fly to St Louis. This suitcase to go to Hawaii and this travel bag to Miami

Ticket Counter: I’m sorry sir, we can’t do that.

Passenger: Why not? You did exactly that last time I flew this airline.

[Paladin2]

LOL,

Well Done,

And so [rarely] True.

[Wilhelm Tell]

At least it wasn’t between Sydney and Perth.

[Paladin2]

That’s exactly why when I flew out to go skiing I always carried my boots, helmet, bibs, gloves, et. al. with me so all I had to do was rent skis and poles should the airlines screw up [which they did for one member of a trip to Colo. one time].

It happens.

[\/\/ayne]

Never forget a MAC flight and the original 60 passengers clamoring for our luggage while the lady insisted it was not on the plane and several said they had been watching the plane the whole time and no luggage was unloaded.

"There goes our luggage!" a guy said and we turned to see the plane taking off.

However, my luggage got home about a day before I did since I had to take 4 other flights and a bus.

[sphinx]

Ah, memories. I've had luggage -- which, until I learned the lesson the hard way, included all my spare clothes -- lost between Trivandrum and Columbo, Frankfurt and New York, Dublin and London, and a couple of times between U.S. cities. In Sri Lanka, the bags caught up in two weeks. The bags lost in Dublin reached us in four days, just before we departed for Paris. Never had a problem in China despite some hopping through provincial airports, but that's probably an Asian thing; I think the Chinese have the bags unloaded and transferred before the plane lands. I don't know how they do it, but they are fast.

Which is how I eventually learned to cram a suit and two days worth of clean clothes into a carryon bag.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

COVID-19 isolation requirements that have seen employee sickness rates swell to as much as 50 per cent in some departments even though staff don’t actually have Coronavirus.

The gift that keeps on giving — either COVID itself, faulty tests (false positives), or lunatic government overreaction.

[cowboyusa]

It’s STILL true, Quantis has never crashed.

[anton]

We have a population of air passengers who bitch if they have to pay $300 to fly 2000 miles. The airlines have drank the cool aid and give them exactly what they pay for - shite service.

If it was illegal to advertise airline seats and not actually have them like every other US retail business we would not have to deal with this. Fares would stabilize where they should be and there would be sufficient funds to deliver reasonable service.

But, if everyone wants to pay $0.06 per mile, its not going to be pretty.

[N. Theknow]

First mention of 787’s I’ve seen since the days of the A380 and 787 comparisons of whether Airbus or Boeing would be shown as the better concept for air travel.

Wonder how many 787 are in use by how many airlines.

Is Emirates still flying A380’s? Any other airlines flying them?

[PeterPrinciple]

As well as blaming Qantas, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) also blames Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the current woes facing Australian travellers.

---

Folks,

we will see more union activity and strikes in our future, further aggravating shortages.

[CodeToad]

Boeing hired the idiot CIO, Susan Doniz, from Quantas. She made amess of things there and they gladly recommended she go work for someone else. She’s now busy screwing things up at Boeing.

[PeterPrinciple]

Australian flag carrier Qantas was forced to fly one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliners between Melbourne and Sydney without a single passenger onboard

---

Just like uhaul trucks driven empty many miles so they can be better positioned for the market place?

[GreenHornet]

This is just a cover story. What really happened is that the bags got onto the plane okay, but they lost the passengers.

[decal]

The company I currently work for started out delivering lost luggage for the airlines - ah, memories...

A guy working for Northwest Airlines told me about the time they started a new route from Minneapolis to Omaha.

The first day they had one passenger.

They lost his bags.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Is Emirates still flying A380’s? Any other airlines flying them?

Emirates is still a big user of the A380. Some other airlines brought them back as the plandemic traffic dip faded. Still the best plane for passenger comfort, IMHO.

[GaryCrow]

COVID-19 isolation requirements that have seen employee sickness rates swell to as much as 50 per cent in some departments even though staff don’t actually have Coronavirus.

The gift that keeps on giving — either COVID itself, faulty tests (false positives), or lunatic government overreaction.

More likely Qantas is understaffed because they laid off too many workers and now they're trying to blame it on Covid instead of their own screwups. It's a lot like the U.S. airlines that did the same thing and now are blaming their system meltdowns on anything other than their own incompetence, which is really what caused it.