Travel is not always glamorous. Kaitlin and I definitely expected to hit a few snags and travel issues along our journey; however we were not anticipating something so soon – or severe – as our experience getting to Sydney.
Qantas flight QF8 runs daily from Dallas to Sydney. We made it from Detroit to Dallas in time for our scheduled departure on Tuesday, June 14 at 10:50 PM. Everything was going well. We onboarded on time, the plane left the gate, we watched the safety video…I even sent this picture to my family saying “we’re off!”
Then the nightmare began.
Our pilot cut in to the PA and informed everyone of a “slight technical issue” for which we’d need to return to the gate. “Should be resolved and in the air in just a few minutes.”
We sat at the gate on the plane for about 45. Another message “still working on our problem, shouldn’t be too much longer folks.”
After a further 30+ minutes of waiting; the pilot informed us they needed to perform something similar to a “Ctrl+Alt+Delete reboot” of the plane (still in a slightly humorous mood) to get things running. But, in order to do so everyone needed to deplane. “Should have you all back on and we’ll be up in the air shortly.”
Smash cut to 2+ hours sitting at the terminal gate with no updates – it is now nearly 3AM – and we were informed over the PA that our plane would not be taking off tonight. Everyone was instructed to exit the terminal and collect our bags. We were given no further information than this piece of paper:
Given the late hour and the morning reschedule, plus the fact that all hotels immediately around DFW were booked, Kaitlin and I decided to tough it out overnight in the departures terminal. We slept as best we could on the airport benches, contorting our bodies around the (of course) immovable armrests.
At about 7:30 AM, the flight was rescheduled again – to 10PM. Safe to say Kaitlin and I were not the only upset passengers in the airport terminal; however Qantas did not even make an employee present to provide instructions/details on the issue. Best we could do was track the flight online – status “Delayed” with an estimated new departure time (but no gate information). Without gate information we couldn’t check in and get to the “good” part of the airport, so we joined several of our fellow travelers at the airport Hyatt’s breakfast lounge – which of course is not designed for this, so while the employees were hustling everything was still slow.
At this point Kaitlin and I were in desperate need of a shower and a real bed. We checked the Hyatt for availability – no dice; 1 room remaining for $500. I then called around to the nearby hotels again, and fortunately the Comfort Inn did have available rooms. We booked, and took the complimentary shuttle there.
At 6:30PM we went back to the airport for round 2. Qantas at this point had 2 flights checking in – ours from 6/14; plus the normally scheduled 6/15 flight at 10:50PM. However, there were only 2 attendants at the check-in line – one of which was serving business/first class exclusively. Ultimately we got through and checked in past security after ~2 hours.
2 airport beers and a soft pretzel later, we were on the plane again. Boarding happened on schedule; however we noticed at about 10:15 that we still hadn’t left the gate. At about 10:40, the pilot got on the PA to tell us “everything is fine with the plane, we are just waiting on the baggage to be loaded.”
The pilot also explained the nature of the plane’s mechanical problem – apparently a heating unit which defrosts one of the wing sensors was not working correctly. While not catastrophic, this would have resulted in the loss of the sensor while we were midair. So, props to Qantas for safety first (I can say now).
But the saga was not over. Ultimately it took over 2 hours for the baggage to get loaded; and we exited the gate at 12:15AM. Plane rolled back, we watched the safety video a second time, and then we started rolling back to the gate.
Needless to say there was a lot of loud complaining onboard. Flight attendants quickly brought water bottles to the passengers, and again the pilot got on the PA – “by now you’ve noticed we are heading back to the gate…again nothing is wrong with the plane however we are missing an engineer’s signature on one of our flight documents.”
20 minutes later the document was signed, and we left the gate (and watched the same safety video) again. Third time was a charm, and we finally took off – with some very sarcastic cheers from the passengers – at 12:39AM.
All in all, nearly a 26 hour delay ahead of a 15.5 hour flight. As a final indignity, the crew removed all the pillows and blankets from the plane on Tuesday night and forgot to replace them by Wednesday.
Per their piece of paper, Qantas will reportedly reimburse us for the food/hotel we needed to book due to the delay. We’ll definitely be submitting those receipts.
As we deplaned in Sydney, one of the flight attendants had this exchange with Kaitlin.
“Was this your first time flying Qantas?”
“Yes.”
“Bet it will be your last.”
I think that says it all.
More from Sydney coming soon (Kaitlin is already posting to the Instagram) but I had to get this story written down first for posterity. Hopefully this experience filled up our “travel problems” quota for a while. And we’ve finally arrived!
What a bad experience! Thanksfully you finally arrived.
Enjoy your time in Australia!