Today’s ash crisis for people flying in south-east Australia was not the surprise to the airlines that it may have appeared.
Briefings from the Australian Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre yesterday and this morning confirmed that by about 6pm on Sunday the airlines had been given advice of the risk that today’s events — which have closed Adelaide airport, and are now shutting down Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne airports — were even then a distinct probability.
For travellers, it has resulted in a very mixed report card on how promptly the airlines took action to alert passengers of likely delays or actual cancellations.
Yesterday, for example, Virgin Australia saved its passengers using Adelaide airport today from the frustrations of going to the airport only to be sent home. It promptly cancelled the flights a day in advance.
Yet today it was way behind Qantas, Jetstar and Tiger Airways in warning passengers embarking on day-return business flights between Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra that they might not actually make it home as intended.
Instead Virgin contradicted itself by saying at one stage it was waiting for a 10 am briefing from the ash advisory centre, yet at another moment claiming to be in continuous contact with it and the Bureau of Meteorology as to the outlook for flights.
Result. People made trips to the Virgin Australia terminals that Qantas and Jetstar passengers knew not to make.
But this is not just a Virgin Australia issue. It, like all the carriers, has at times been highly communicative about the delays, and at others, been sadly lacking.
Passengers are entitled to conclude that the eagerness to get them to the airports for the possibility of flying them has exceeded due consideration of the risks that the flights would not operate. This is a criticism that seemed very valid of Qantas yesterday, which was slow to cancel Adelaide flights compared to Virgin Australia, just as it is of Virgin Australia not updating its guidance to today’s travellers until well after 9am eastern time today when Qantas was warning of risks to Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne flights as early as 6.20am today.
It looks more like a case of “sales revenue before schedule” rather than the tired old mantra of “safety before schedule”.
In a clear dig at the carriers today, CASA also issued a media statement warning them of its enhanced vigilance in terms of their meeting their obligation not to fly through volcanic ash plumes. The CASA statement was not remarkable for what it said, but the fact that it saw a need to say it.
Where are the lateste metsat over the south pole images?
Off-topic but I suppose you noticed that you were cited in the Smhage yesterday. Although it is pretty rare for Fairfax or News Ltd to cite Crikey (though I have noticed it is increasing) this was exceptional, in my experience, because Dorman actually hyperlinked to Ben’s article. (In my own submissions to them that get online, any such links are always removed.)
[Slowing down airport security: are you serious?
June 20, 2011, Clive Dorman.
Besides, argues former SMH aviation writer Ben Sandilands, being able to produce photo ID at an airport ultimately tells the system next to nothing that’s worth knowing.]
The link was to: ((blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/06/16/photo-id-farce-coming-to-our-airports-soon/))
I’m at Melbourne Airport right now, awaiting the midnight flight to Singapore on SQ218.
Some things I’m hoping you can clarify for me:
This is being presented to the public as “ooh scary ash”. And I grant that there are some airports (eg Adelaide, Hobart) that seem like “ooh scary ash” is relevant. At a meeting I was at in Melbourne today, people invoked the story of the British Airways flight over Indonesia a long time back where the engines failed. Nobody wants that to happen again.
But at Melbourne tonight, and I know at Sydney tonight, international flights are departing – including at least one Qantas flight (MEL-LON), and Emirates (MEL-DXB), Malaysian (SYD-KUL) and the Singapore flight I’m on.
So my question is: is the cancellation of domestic flights from Melbourne due to the ash in the air in Melbourne and Sydney, where planes are clearly landing and taking off, or is it due to the problems with scheduling crew who may have come from airports that are actually experiencing problems with ash? Is this in fact a problem with operation of aircraft in Melbourne and Sydney, or a problem with union regulations or availability of personnel?
Or is there something special about international flights? Do they take of and land with less time spent in the ash?
I’m not grumpy – I have staff who are stuck in Melbourne tonight, and maybe tomorrow, and that’s costly, but I’m going to get off as planned tonight, so in the general scheme of things it’s not a disaster (my staff are ensconced in the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne on the understanding that the cafe downstairs is better than some and it’s too cold to go outside so they can eat drink and be merry). I’m merely curious as to whether – in Melbourne and Sydney – this is an actual safety issue, or an issue to do with minimising airline losses. I’d like to know what the real story is.
If it’s “ooh scary ash” I can live with that. But then I’m going to be worried about this midnight flight.
How hard is it to ring passengers and advise them their flight has been cancelled? That would at least save them having to line up. Today I flew from Sydney to Brisbane on Tiger. There were only two Tiger flights to Brizzy. One was cancelled. Passengers on that flight were not advised until they got to the check-in counter.