best airline?

[Bingo85]

Japanese domestic (skymark, ana and jal) all routinely do this too. The first time I realised we were taking off at the stated time was a bit of a "rush"!
My only experience with Vietnam airlines is sitting on the Tarmac at Ho Chi Minh airport for 30mins after landing with no a/c.

[Nick G]

Japanese everything is on time otherwise you get a profuse apology ever minute something is late.

[Perry]

. . . after landing with no a/c.

The mind boggles. How did you land without an aircraft?

Parachute down?

[flyernzl]

I think he means 'no airconditioning'.

APU malfunction after engine shutdown.

[eri]

speaking of apu, auxillary power unit

usually a small jet engine that provides high pressure air to turn over the wing engines and electricity to fire them

interesting this new theory on the lost malaysian 777

that an electrical fire in the electric centre below the floor killed the elec system + people

but left the plane flying on autopilot until it ran out of gas

then during the glide? down the apu computer? in the tail sensed engine failure and kicked in

providing power to the satellite engine reporting system in the roof

that got off a burst of position information before the plane hit the water

[Wayne]

I think he means 'no airconditioning'.

He knows .

[Perry]

Krap Kart kraps out at a really bad time and place.

Because everywhere in the capital was booked out by ACDC fans in Wellington for the band's concert,
a primary school orchestra had to bunk down at Wellington airport after their Jetstar flight was cancelled.
Around 50 students from Cornwall Park District School in Auckland, as well as several parents & teachers,
were in Wellington for an orchestra trip. They ended up staying longer than planned when their Saturday
night flight was cancelled for "engineering" reasons.

Don't you just wince at the reason? I suppose it does sound so much better than something's
broken in our aircraft.

[Perry]

It's not getting any better, any time soon, folks

Passengers Terrified When Jetstar Engine Trouble Caused 'Shuddering', 'Banging' In Mid-Air
13 December 2015

Spark-like flashes of light, bangs and shudders forced a Jetstar plane
to turn around shortly after take-off and land back at Auckland
Airport. Although the pilot talked to the passengers when the plane
touched down, he said no announcements were made on board until the
plane turned around prompting everyone to panic. "There was fear,
bewilderment. Everyone was wondering what was going on. They were
all keen to get off the plane when it finally touched down."

A spokesman for Jetstar said the flight had to return to Auckland
shortly after take off due to an issue with one of the engines. The
passengers were accommodated on later services he said. However, one
passenger waited for more than 45 minutes after they touched down for
some form of announcement, to no avail. He said he had to take matters
into his own hands. He had to get back to Dunedin that night and said
he resorted to booking an Air New Zealand flight after he was told at
the Jetstar customer service desk "It would be best if you made your
own arrangements," he said.

When folks choose to deal with the cheapest provider,
they should not complain when things go wrong.

[Wayne]

You would think that the crew would announce what is happening at the least.

I was on a ANZ flight coming into Wellington once and we were just over the rocks on the southern side when we went 'power on' and ascended again.
Very quickly the pilot was on the intercom to tell us that a big rain shower came through so they had to go up.
Same on a landing into Taupo when we aborted the landing because the control tower reports a heavy rain shower coming through.

Communication is the key to happier passengers.

[eri]

often they are just told to lie

once was on an air new zealand jet that sat with us all on it for 2? hours before it was ready to take off

the pilot told us that they had noticed the hot water boiler wasn't working just after they had closed the doors and pushed-back

so were going to replace it so we had meals

but the guys outside the windows working on the engine seemed to imply it was more than hot water that was holding us back

but with jetstar the crew don't bother lying

they're just over-worked part-timers? on minimal wage? ruhing from job to job

and don't know what's going on either

[Perry]

Every Airline Has Them

(including a list of excuses)

Communication Outage Causes Delays For Wellington Travellers
27 December 2015

Travellers were left frustrated at Wellington Airport after a network
outage led to delays for Qantas passengers. The outage forced staff to
check passengers in manually, leaving long lines and some passengers
upset. Qantas spokeswoman Ingrid Just said a third-party network
outage crashed the computer system.

De-coding that:
Because we use cheap outsourcing and are too parsimonious to have
some appropriate back-up . . . .

[eri]

like that poor malaysian pilot

pillared

for asking why

his 3rd party flight plan

seemed to be sending his plane

to the southern indian ocean

and not KL

[Perry]

Another PR Disaster for Qantas and Their Maintenance

Christchurch Family Unimpressed Following Problems With Qantas Flight
8 Jan 2016

A Christchurch couple have likened their experience on a Qantas flight
to child abuse, after departure delays and problems with the airline's
food service. The family began the journey home on Monday night, but
"about 10 seconds into the acceleration there was a big bang". "We
just taxied off and sat on the tarmac for about three hours waiting
for something to happen. Their flight was rescheduled to leave
Johannesburg at 11pm on Wednesday, but was delayed until 1am
Thursday. "We got in there and it was really, really hot in the plane.
"We actually had to strip the babies to keep them cool. It's actually
unsafe to have babies in that kind of heat."

The aircon began leaking after the plane took off, with water
"basically . . . pouring out of the ceiling". "The aircon was all over
the show. It was freezing." "There was also no food on that plane.
Fifteen hours with no food," she said. "My sister had a 5-year-old and
a 3-year-old and they didn't feed them. They eventually gave them
a cupcake. The experience would have been "funny" if they did not
have a child with them, Smith said.

Related story here.

[eri]

qantas still the world's safest

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/01/rain-man-was-right-0

air nz in the top 20

Top 20 airlines (alphabetical order, source: Airline Rating)
Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, All Nippon Airlines, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, Qantas, Scandinavian Airline System, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia

[Perry]

Gilding The Lily?

Nobody died, but they've had lots of accidents, close-calls and near-misses.
But I suppose the judging panel has to have some sort of criteria to use.

Qantas 'not meeting own safety benchmarks'
The civil aviation watchdog has told Qantas to improve its aircraft maintenance systems
after a series of problems with its planes. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) took
a closer look at the national carrier after the incidents, including an emergency landing in
Manila when an oxygen tank exploded mid-flight. "CASA wants Qantas to make a range of
improvements to the way it manages and delivers aircraft maintenance following a special
review carried out by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority,'' CASA said. "CASA has told the
airline to produce a plan to address deficiencies in meeting some of its own maintenance
performance targets.

Unfortunately for Qantas, which celebrated it's 90th anniversary on
Nov. 16, Rain Man is a little outdated as is the brand's impeccable
image. Though there haven't been any fatal incidents in the interim,
a series of close calls in the past two years has tarnished Qantas' once
sterling reputation. One of the worst was an engine explosion on an
A380 from Singapore to Sydney on Nov. 4, which resulted in an
emergency landing and, later, in Qantas grounding its six A380s, two
of which will be back in service on Saturday. The QF32 incident was
just the start of an extraordinarily bad month for the airline. The
day after, a 747 was turned back to Singapore after midair engine
failure. On Nov. 12, a Boeing 767 was forced to turn back to Perth
because of engine vibrations, and three days later, an Argentina-bound
747 had issues with the electrical system and returned to Sydney.