Qantas again after several years

[agfox46]

My wife & I recently flew MEL-NRT-MEL on QF179/180 to use up some FF points. We hadn’t used Qantas for several years & were interested to fly with the airline again. Here is a brief summary of some of our experiences, which I hope some may find entertaining

MelbourneAirport
• check in at Melbourne Airport 3 hours before the flight, have breakfast & head to gate 12 for our 10.05am departure
• 9.25am & no sign of our aircraft. I see several Japanese approach the desk & Qantas staff point to another part of the terminal
• check main monitors in terminal proper & discover flight is now leaving from gate 1. My wife – who has ears like an eagle has eyes – assures me I did not miss any public announcement of a gate change
• walk to gate 1 only to see a reference to a Cathay Pacific flight, but we enter anyway & query 3 Qantas ground staff who assure us that QF179 is departing from gate 1 & inform us further that the departure is now delayed until 11.00am & that there was a public announcement about all these changes
• note that there is no aircraft at the gate
• sit close to the desk & watch another 11 people (at which stage I gave up counting) come & ask the same questions as us. No-one admits to hearing any announcement about the gate & departure time changes
• eventually, one Qantas staff member goes back into the terminal proper while another makes an announcement. We hear nothing & neither does the first Qantas staff member who subsequently returns & conveys this information to his colleagues
• the next call is to another Qantas person elsewhere in the terminal requesting an announcement be made of the changed gate & time
• an announcement of the changes is then made to passengers waiting within the departure lounge, including the information that the flight has been delayed ‘due to maintenance issues’
• an A330 appears at the departure gate
• 10.15am: we overhear Qantas staff ringing to find out what’s happened to the cleaning crew
• 10.30am: an announcement informs us there will be a 15 minute delay to our departure time ‘due to cleaning issues’
• 10.35am: we overhear Qantas staff on the telephone asking what’s happened to the cleaning crew
• 10.45am: a second 15 minute delay is announced – again, ‘due to cleaning issues’. Some of the waiting passengers make fretful noises
• we overhear several more telephone calls by Qantas staff requesting some action on cleaning the aircraft
• 11.00am: a third 15 minute delay is announced, this time to derisory laughter & several comments about a ‘spotless aircraft’ from the waiting passengers
• Qantas ground staff decide it may be a good idea not to make any further announcements until the aircraft is ready – & we hear nothing more until 11.45am when the aircraft is ready for boarding
• 12.30pm: we lift off for Narita

The Flight Over
• the aircraft is very clean – ha! ha! – & the economy seats seem quite comfortable for the 9hr 26 minute flight – the captain was exact in this regard – so we settle back to watch some entertainment
• hmmm – perhaps it’s my imagination but I tell my wife the screen looks much smaller than I remember when we travelled with Malaysia Airlines. She tells me not to be so picky!
• lunch, & Qantas unveils a new serving method from when we last travelled with the airline: 2 trolleys serving all of economy on the starboard side of the aircraft & 1 on the port side. By the time the single trolley reaches us in 50A &B, the beef has run out leaving only fish – which I can’t eat
• to Qantas’ credit, they find me (and several other passengers) some very tasty chicken & a bread roll (much superior to the one served in economy, my wife tells me after taking a bite) from the Business Class meals
• after lunch, my wife’s entertainment unit goes berserk as the sound races up & down the scale. I start to tell her not to be so picky but her look freezes my tongue. Restarting the system in her seat does not fix the problem
• fortunately, a number of the centre seats are vacant, so she moves to one of those: the entertainment unit is not working at all in her first seat of choice but her second move is successful
• I spend the rest of the flight wondering if we’ll catch the last limousine bus of the night to our hotel: we do, with 5 minutes to spare

NaritaAirport
• to avoid paying any late check-out fees, we arrive at Narita (using the Narita Express this time – and very comfortable it was too in the Green Car) 3 hours 50 minutes before QF180 is scheduled to depart at 2020
• Qantas appears to be using a temporary check-in area at one end of Terminal 2 while the normal counter area is refurbished
• we head in the direction of Service Counter Y to be greeted by the tail of a long queue. Ahead in the distance I spot a stand with the Qantas and JAL logos displayed but am unable to read what it says. We walk up only to find that the long queue is the economy class check in while the almost empty row alongside is for business class passengers, Qantas Club members etc
• we head back to the tail of the queue and watch as numerous people repeat our exercise - including a number, apparently unable to read English or Japanese - who enter & are sent back by a zealous official on guard to detect this very malfeasance
•check-in opens at 1645 &, somewhat to my surprise, we proceed quite quickly, although a couple 3 or 4 places ahead of us slow things down when an official discovers they are in the wrong queue (& possibly terminal to judge by the looks of dismay on their faces)
• despite a very slow Immigration Officer (the officer in the next booth was processing 3 passengers to her 1 – did I say I’m a touch obsessive-compulsive? - because I was counting as we moved forward in the line), we caught the shuttle train to the satellite terminal & arrived at Gate 87 at 1720

The Flight Back
• QF180 departs on schedule & I resist the temptation to celebrate prematurely in case the God of Smart Alecks turns on me
• my wife, who developed & carried a bad cold for the last 6 days of our trip is not feeling well &, as she normally has ear trouble when flying, we’re a bit worried about descending into Melbourne
• the flight back progresses smoothly until I eat breakfast: 30 minutes later I have severe stomach cramps & start to feel like I’m on hospital evacuation Flight 101. ‘Oh well’, I think, ‘another 2 hours and we’ll be on the ground & heading for home’
• we approach Melbourne: the captain (in that cheery voice that all persons of authority use for bad news) announces that Melbourne Airport is fogged in and we’re heading for Adelaide
• having spent 4 hours on a hot aircraft on the Adelaide tarmac when similarly diverted on a flight back from Hong Kong a few years ago, I greet this news with less than enthusiasm & my wife quickly removes all sharp objects from my reach
• my wife’s ears are causing her trouble as we land (despite some special ear plugs designed to equalise the pressure or some such thing) & my stomach has enthusiastically adopted the notion that it wants to be a volcano & is ready to erupt at any time
• we sit on the tarmac for ‘only’ 1 hour &, by the time we get ready to depart, people in the general vicinity of the aircraft toilets are tasking bets on how long I’ll be this time & how long before I return
• finally, we land at Melbourne at 1135 & are off the aircraft, through Immigration & reach the baggage carousel within 20 minutes – where we wait & wait some more. Finally, and apparently without any irony, a disembodied voice tells us that the baggage will not arrive for another 10-15 minutes ‘due to the unscheduled arrival of the aircraft’

We drive home to Ballarat with our thoughts about fog, Qantas and overseas travel in general remaining largely unspoken – mainly because my wife can hardly hear while I concentrate on my driving to avoid giving my stomach the opportunity for any sort of encore performance!

[simongr]

I know it's not polite to laugh at another person's misfortune but the cheerful manner in which this story is told has definitely brought a smile to this face

It is a shame the ear plugs did not work - mrssimongr has had great success with them and she normall experiences very significant ear pain even without having a cold.

Can I assume that you are not planning your next overseas trip any time soon?

[agfox46]

I know it's not polite to laugh at another person's misfortune but the cheerful manner in which this story is told has definitely brought a smile to this face

It is a shame the ear plugs did not work - mrssimongr has had great success with them and she normall experiences very significant ear pain even without having a cold.

Can I assume that you are not planning your next overseas trip any time soon?

Any talk around the house of future holidays has been banned until further notice

[agfox46]

I know it's not polite to laugh at another person's misfortune but the cheerful manner in which this story is told has definitely brought a smile to this face

It is a shame the ear plugs did not work - mrssimongr has had great success with them and she normall experiences very significant ear pain even without having a cold.

Can I assume that you are not planning your next overseas trip any time soon?

PS My wife wants to know what plugs mrssimongr uses, please, simon

[simongr]

mrssimongr uses earplanes - they are available at Sydney airport, online and in most pharmacies. She used to get terrible ear pain and on the last couple of flights she had no pain at all. There is some discomfort from them being in your ears - but not that you would notice. Mrssimongr has been half deaf for days after some flights and had no symptoms on this trip.

S

[codash1099]

Mrssimongr has been half deaf for days after some flights and had no symptoms on this trip.

S

I would see that as an opportunity missed!

[straitman]

mrssimongr uses earplanes - they are available at Sydney airport, online and in most pharmacies. She used to get terrible ear pain and on the last couple of flights she had no pain at all. There is some discomfort from them being in your ears - but not that you would notice. Mrssimongr has been half deaf for days after some flights and had no symptoms on this trip.

S

Mrs Straitman also uses earplanes with great sucess and now won't fly without them.

[simongr]

I would see that as an opportunity missed!

It is her that's deaf - not me I also have only been married for 6 years

[agfox46]

mrssimongr uses earplanes - they are available at Sydney airport, online and in most pharmacies. She used to get terrible ear pain and on the last couple of flights she had no pain at all. There is some discomfort from them being in your ears - but not that you would notice. Mrssimongr has been half deaf for days after some flights and had no symptoms on this trip.

S

Thanks, simon - my wife will give them a try on a flight to Hobart in February (assuming Tiger gets off the ground by then!)

[agfox46]

mrssimongr uses earplanes - they are available at Sydney airport, online and in most pharmacies. She used to get terrible ear pain and on the last couple of flights she had no pain at all. There is some discomfort from them being in your ears - but not that you would notice. Mrssimongr has been half deaf for days after some flights and had no symptoms on this trip.

S

AAAGGGHHH! That's the brand my wife used on our flights