Qantas evacuation charter to Egypt

[Justin L]

I consider it extremely acceptable that especially considering Qantas' recent woes (and even that aside) that a relief flight to Cairo being delayed due to an unserviceable aircraft would make headlines.

Particularly after this article from the SMH where Alan Joyce said the relief flights and subsequent free passage to Australia were part of Qantas' attempt to rebuild its brand.

[Montague S]

Originally Posted by Justin L

Particularly after this article from the SMH where Alan Joyce said the relief flights and subsequent free passage to Australia were part of Qantas' attempt to rebuild its brand.

Good place to start is to quit with all this ambassador bs, are Qantas an airline or a celebrity outlet?

[Matt_L]

also a good article this one:

http://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-inter...ing-alan-joyce

I read that and thought- did he just say that?

[Dave Dale]

Originally Posted by Matt_L

I read that and thought- did he just say that?

I thought the same Matt. I cannot help to think that Qantas is becoming the child of Jetstar, perhaps a role reversal. Engine fault after engine fault, incident after incident, no matter how much we love Qantas, this is what is thrown up at all travellers in the news now and almost on a weekly basis. This cannot be good as Alan Joyce concedes. But if Qantas International is not working out now (as Alan Joyce alludes to), and even with an oversupply of capacity from carriers which isn't going to go away, I can't wait to see what Qantas will do to improve things, and it can't just be old planes that need replacing being the problem... there must be a lot more to be done.

[Bernie P]

Perhaps an A380, silver in colour and an Orange star on the tail, now THAT I'd like to see...

[Grahame Hutchison]

Looks like OJE has been fixed and is on it's way to Cairo.

ACARS mode: E Aircraft reg: VH-OJE [Boeing B744]
Message label: H1 Block id: 7 Msg no: C05C
Flight id: QF6020 [FRA-CAI] [Qantas]
Message content:-
#CFB8403FEB1121403242M00080 ICHA
----------------------------------------------------------[ 03/02/2011 22:43 ]-

[Steve McGinley]

Totally agree, sure put on the flights, charge for them, and then insurance claims can be made. First sign of this type of trouble, people should be already organising to leave, and not leave it until someone else organises and pays for it for them.

Originally Posted by Ash W

I think that the expectation of what the government can do are a tad too high. People traveling must at some point take some kind of responsibility for their own actions and not always rely on governments warning them about places or doing anything above what could be considered reasonable if problems arise.

[Garry Emanuel]

Can we please have some sanity prevail here ?

Joyce was transparent enough to share the driver behind the "free flights". When you've got something that's broken, you look for means to fix it - walk this way ! ! ! !

The "cost" is circa AUD 1 million but I dare say they are seats which would otherwise be empty - real cost to QF is limited. Really, who cares if they capitalise on an opportunity. I don't see people poring over other commercial entities capitalising on the misfortune of some part of the community. Why should Qantas be any differnt to the next ?

Consistent with the good old Aussie theme of "tall poppy", Qantas seems to be able to "do no right".

It's about time a few people moved on and found another topic to bellow from their soapbox about.

[D Chan]

wouldve been nice to let some Kiwis on board if the flights out weren't going to be full.... is there any coordination between the Australian and the New Zealand government? Also, if Rudd expects Egyptian government officials to provide safe passage for Australians to head to the airport through the mess in Cairo I think his expectation is a bit high

[Nigel C]

Spot on Dickson. Rudd (and for that matter Gillard), in his capacity as PM and now as Foreign Minister, has been making 'feel-good' and 'hard-hitting' comments now for years. But the truth of the matter is, nobody except gullible Australians believe or act on a word he is saying.

How many times have we all heard the phrase "I/We call on the Iraqi/Fijian/Zimbabwean/Chinese etc Government to blah, blah, blah, blah....". Like they give a toss what Rudd has to say about their internal matters.
Most of them just tell our Govt to mind their own business, but if we do something they don't like........