Qantas passengers could face more delays at Dallas/Fort Worth
By David Flynn, May 27 2011
Qantas passengers flying out of and into Dallas/Fort Worth could face delays due to the cancellation of more than 200 flights at DFW by Qantas partner American Airlines.
As severe thunderstorms pounded North Texas a heavy hailstorm passed directly over the airport yesterday, damaging dozens of planes.
The Houston Chronicle reports that 50 American Airlines planes were damaged by hail damage, and despite repair efforts 18 aircraft remain out of service according to American spokesman Andrea Huguely.
The knock-on effect was the cancellation of 217 domestic American Airline flights, which Qantas sells as codeshare tickets to Australian passengers travelling beyond DFW.
Qantas commenced direct flights from Sydney to Dallas/Forth Worth earlier this month, although the move was less about Texas being a major destination in its own right and more that DFW would serve as a hub for passengers to travel onwards to the eastern side of the US (with Los Angeles acting as a hub for the western side of the country).
However, the route has already posed some challenges for Qantas. Earlier this week the airline deliberately and controversially chose to leave three containers of passengers' luggage at DFW due to concerns over fuel consumption for the QF8 return flight to Australia.
The storm season also saw the inbound Qantas flight QF7 diverted over 400km from Dallas to Houston yesterday because the aircraft Qantas uses for the service – a long-range Boeing 747-400ER – lacked sufficient fuel at the end of its 17 hour flight from Sydney to circle DFW for long enough for the thunderstorms to pass by.
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 362
Another story regarding QF and DFW... wow - shocker there. C'mon AusBT, lay off!
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2563
You don't reckon delays, cancellations, missed connections and missed meetings on a route that's based almost entirely on onwards bookings (unlike LAX, which has a lot of end-point traffic) are relevant to business travellers? When Qantas stops having issues with DFW which impact on travellers, we'll stop reporting them.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 362
You mean like every other airline in the world?
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2563
While I don't necessarily accept the premise of your statement, we're naturally less interested in 'every other airline of the world' than we are in issues affecting the major new hub & route of an Australian airline which carries the majority of Australian business travellers. So please put away any notions of a vendetta against QF: unlike many 'travel' sites we're here for the travellers, not the airlines, and we report on issues affecting travellers, be the news good or bad.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 362
I accept that. However, why are there so many articles surrounding this new service and no articles about V Australia pulling out of JNB, HKT and NAN and leaving the latter two to a substandard Pacific Blue? What about Air New Zealand's "cripple seven" service where it takes hours on end just to get served a meal? Those issues also affect business travellers in Australia and New Zealand.
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2563
It comes down to time and timeliness, relevance and perceptions of 'news' (eg degree of impact). Issues as have been affecting QF-DFW are high impact and very immediate, very timely, so that gives them a priority over other stories (in how we allocate our writing time).
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 6
aklrunway - we have reported on several issues surrounding AirNZ's new seats and services -
https://www.executivetraveller.com/air-new-zealand-s-economy-and-skycouch-cuddle-class-on-the-777-300er
https://www.executivetraveller.com/air-new-zealand-s-spaceseats-brand-new-premium-economy-on-the-777-300er
We did not cover the V Australia removal of routes because this either happened before AusBT was around, or was for primarily leisure destinations like Phuket and Fiji.
Our honesty has upset some airlines, but our goal has always been to present the facts to the business traveller. QF is promoting DFW as the alternative to LAX.
The question is why someone would fly on an older-product plane to a city that is notoriously prone to weather issues, and make a fuel stop in Brisbane on the way back? Is this really better than flying the A380 to LAX or the 747 to SFO?
A number of pilots on several private pilot-only forums have expressed their concerns about QF pushing the 747-400ER too far, as well as respected aviation journalist Ben Sandilands from Crikey's Plane Talking.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
09 May 2011
Total posts 362
Ben Sandilands is anti anything Qantas/Jetstar. His articles are filled with biased comments and hatred towards anything related to the two (this is why I came to AusBT for my airline news ;)).
Although I accept that there are issues surrounding the new route, I feel that you can't bag an airline for a) giving it a go, b) giviing travellers a new option (especially to connect to other cities in the USA) and c) pulling out of a route that they were losing money on in favour of a more profitable route. Sure an article regarding the issues is fine but do you really need 3 or 4 just reiterating what the previous ones have said?
Just my 5 cents worth.
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2563
AKL, let me assure you that your 5c worth (obviously the old 2c has been hit by inflation) is respected, and I appreciate your sharing it - that's what the comments boxes are for!
We're great with QF entering a new route, and I think many travellers would appreciate the option of an east-US hub to balance LAX – but the DFW route seems to have issues of which travellers deserve to be informed. And we won't hold back on a 2nd DFW story just because we had one the previous day - if there's new DFW news we're onto it.
As for SFO: like many QF passengers I often travel to SF for business, perhaps QF did not have enough of those to balance out the potential gains from DFW - but right now that leaves passengers with just one option, United, for direct SYD-SFO. That's not good for competition or choice (well, basically, there is none of either), which is why many travellers would welcome a second SYD-SFO (and maybe MEL-SFO?) service - be that The Return of The Red Roo (unlikely), Virgin Australia (looking good), a Jetstar 787 (also likely, but some while away) or anything else which provides travellers with choice... and I reckon we can certainly agree that Choice is Good. :)
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer Platinum
06 Apr 2011
Total posts 18
I come here to get the news (good, bad and ugly). QF has had a lot of bad and ugly news lately either due to bad planning or just bad luck. Virgin had their system troubles a few ymonths ago too. But I still want to know. May be if you only want to see the good news about an airline the PR section of their website would be a better bookmark.
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
Just throwing my opinion into the basket...
This report really isn't going to help business travellers, or any travellers for that matter. These are rare issues that will have a minimal impact on the operation of this flight in the long run - they are small and menial issues that really don't need to be discussed at length on sites like this one... Maybe focus on the big underlying issues that actually matter would be useful for those reading this site (obviously they're over this meaningless reporting seeing as this is the fourth article that has recieved negative backlash in the last 2-3 days).
I do not care about whether some flights today are cancelled - I care about how this route is going to fit into my travel, how it can help me, my options regarding it etc. I tried it out earlier this week (sitting in a hotel room in Chicago right now) and like it very much... The old Skybeds are fine (better than the latest product on leading airlines like Air France, Lufthansa, most EK/SQ flights out of Australia etc) and certainly beat sitting in AA domestic for 4 hours against the 1 hour from DFW... Qantas is a good airline, and that's something you come to appreciate when you use others around the world...
This is a great service, and I would definitely use it again - that is the sort of thing that I'm interested in. Not little issues that are totally and completely outside of the airline's control... @David - your first reply said:
You don't reckon delays, cancellations, missed connections and missed meetings on a route that's based almost entirely on onwards bookings (unlike LAX, which has a lot of end-point traffic) are relevant to business travellers? When Qantas stops having issues with DFW which impact on travellers, we'll stop reporting them.
And yes, it's an issue... Is it Qantas' fault? How can they know that in the fist week of operation they'd be faced with a tornado, unnaturally strong headwinds, a hailstorm and a website back here that appears to have been purchased by John Borghetti?
I certainly agree that you've reported on other airlines (eg the Air NZ example), but you've never gone out of your way to criticise them... There was a single story about the VA 777 that has an engine blow in LAX recently (which wasn't exactly critical of that airline), with nothing about the "delays, missed connections and missed meetings" that were caused in that incident.
You didn't report about any of the major delays into Sydney by a wide range of airlines in the past few weeks (despite delays and missed meetings, certanly on my part with the experience I had on BA15) and you didn't report on the engine issues QF has been having in Bangkok recently (again, delays and missed meetings...)
Instead, we've heard about how amazing Virgin Australia is (did you get a chance to look behind the curtain on that A330 - pretty shocking product compared with QF back there which hasn't been reported on at all). I like Virgin Australia, and I'm considering spreading some of my travel over to them once they've established themselves a bit more, but you guys are in love!!
Sorry to be so agressive and almost rude - reporting for the sake of reporting, and airline bashing is just something that I hate to see... This site has some really useful and interesting articles and I love it for them... But honestly, I challenge you to not report on every little delay/cancelation out of DFW for the next month...
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2563
AM: just rushing out for a meeting but wanted to ask that, as you've done QF-DFW and are obviously a Frequent Flyer, maybe you'd be interested in writing and sharing a trip report on this, with your own impressions of the flight and service and how it fits into your travel? I'm sure our readers would be very interested in this! You can email me at [email protected].
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
I'd be happy to offer a few observations on my experience of the flight -- will have to wait till I'm not so madly busy though... And I'm not that much of a frequent flyer, it's just been a really crazy few weeks!!
04 Nov 2010
Total posts 1
Well my own 5c is that I am happy to see ABT running articles like this. I don't care about DFW, but its good to see a website that isn't afraid to run a story like this. So many travel sites only run fluff pieces and 'good news' because they are afraid they won't get the free trips and advertising. At least seeing that ABT is fair about reporting the not so good news tells me that I can trust the site when it comes to articles on the routes and airlines I do care about.
26 May 2011
Total posts 62
I appreciate, AusBT, that at present the route to DFW is served by ERs with the older QF product, but still pretty comfortable, I might add. And in September, the first of the ERs are configured with A380 seating and entertainment, so anyone who is booking this route after then is no less off than those on the A380 to LAX. Infact, I'd say the 747s will be even better, more intimate and with a class leading product.
AAvantage
27 May 2011
Total posts 1
I have to admit, that sinceQantas announced the route back in January I have noticed a lot of QF bashing to a certain extent. I first came across your articles at that time and have been reading them since, but do find that it could use a little more balance. Okay they left several bags behind on one flight so far, but i'm sure if they had more time they would of forwarded the bags onto LA and then on to SYD. You have to understand that with a new route comes growing pains, regatrdless of what airline you fly this is an common thing. You have to applaud Qantas for taking this on and providing the benifit of bypassing the nightmares of LAX. DFW is a great airport and the people are very friendly, i would say that out of all US airports DFW is one of the best.
In regards to the 747-400ER, this aircraft version is the newst of the 747 fleet, and I believe that the current registration that fly's the route to have been built in 2002. Give the route sometime and you'll see frequency improvements and airframe changes (Boeing 787/ Airbus A380). You have to understand that airlines are finding themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, it hasn't helped QF that Boeing has had large delays on the delivery of the 787, which is ideal for this type of route.
I will have to say that you have provided one non-negative QF-DFW article and that was related to things to do in DFW on a layover. I live in Dallas and I have to say that you got a lot of things right, you might want to checkout Grapevine, which is 5 mins from the airport each year they have a large grapefest (wine tasting party with all kinds of activities). Grapevine is also home to several large hotels/resorts, such as the Gaylord Texan and Great Wolf Lodge. The later has a big waterpark for kids and just down the road from that is a new LEGO park.
15 Apr 2011
Total posts 580
I conceed defeat!!
I am sat in SFO and just checked The Qantas Source only to see that DFW-BNE stopped for fuel in Noumea... This is starting to get ridiculous! Once or twice at the beginning is fine as they get their act together but this is starting to become a bit of a pattern -- not good...
If the plane cannot make the journey in virtually all cases then they should reroute it and knock off the Brisbane stop... Nadi is only just off the optimal route from DFW to SYD, but doesn't offer one stop connections across Australia. Maybe Auckland would be the better option (it would also one up Continentals panned IAH service), and would offer one stop flights if it departed a couple of hours later and arrived in AKL at around 5:30 for the morning bank of Qantas departures...
The flight I experienced coming out here was great, but I'd probably avoid the return if these issues don't get fixed soon...
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