A hearty Fuck You to various airlines, and a booking agent!

The BBQ Pit
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For various reasons, I’ve been trying to book flights, cancel a flight, get cats on a flight and all sorts of other shenanigans.

First, FUCK YOU AirAsia for having the most unreliable website to make bookings on. So many hours I spent yesterday with no booking being processed properly, you really need to up your game if you want folks to fly with you!! I ended up giving up and contacting a third party booking agent (see below).

Secondly FUCK YOU Jetstar. I originally booked the flights (above) with you as I was flying out of Melbourne to Vietnam. I booked the flights AND add-ons yonks ago, but found out just a few weeks ago that we are moving and I can’t fly out of Melbourne any more. Further, my new departure airport doesn’t have you doing flights when I need them.

Now I understand I was going to forfeit the flights, no dramas, that’s part and parcel of buying the cheapest tickets. But seriously, I can’t get the money back for the meals, extra baggage and entertainment that I’d pre-booked? Really? Just Fuck You ya scummy bastids.

Thirdly, FUCK YOU Qantas. Yesterday I booked our cats in to fly to our new home, on the flight we are already booked on. Booking was accepted, money disappeared off my credit card, but NO EMAIL CONFIRMATION? So I tried to contact Qantas…they have one phone number for all enquiries. ONE PHONE NUMBER. No chat function, no way of getting in contact except for ONE PHONE NUMBER.

Y’see, I like to speak to a person if I possibly can, but with the wait time being > 3hrs, or with the option to get a call back at some distant point in the future. I finally relented and contacted them via SMS, which actually worked and the issue was resolved in no time, but FFS, can ya have a few numbers available for the various departments?? As it turned out, the pet freight mob have a different number, but there is NOWHERE on your fucking website to find it. Fuck you Qantas.

Fuck you booking agent. All I wanted was the fare to Vietnam, return x 3 people. Price on AirAsia was around $1450 AUD. But your policy means that for those flights we have to spend an extra $300, so my cheap fare isn’t so cheap anymore. But I do have a useless tour in Saigon now that is soooo overpriced compared to the local tour guides it ain’t funny. Fuck you too.

And a final fuck you to whomever we deign to fly with from our new home town to the nearest international airport to fly to Vietnam. The cost of the 2hr flights x 3 will be a minimum of $2100. Just fuck.

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Hey, live on a closer continent next time! What the fuck, Australia?

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Update: the flights from my new home-town to the city where we fly out to Vietnam apparently offer a resident’s discount. So instead of $2100 for a two hour flight, I got the bonza fare of just $1800. :rolleyes:

Have joined a FB page up here devoted to petitioning the two airlines that service the town (Qantas and Virgin for the record) to get some reasonable fares happening. Not everybody in this mining town is earning a gazillion dollars per annum, plenty of folks are just in normal jobs getting normal wages, but there is no way they can afford to get to the capital city to then get onflights to other parts of the country. Being able to visit family and friends can make all the difference to the mental health of those living in remote areas, but the airlines are making it damned near impossible.

And surely cheaper flights would get more bums on seats, increasing the tourism potential to this amazing area. On our initial flight here a couple of weeks ago, the plane was only quarter full at most. Reduce the stupid-arse fares by half and more people will not only travel to the capital for shopping expeditions, sporting events and concerts, but you’ll have more people flying here just to visit. ESPECIALLY at this time of year when the average winter temp is like 29c.

Anyway again, fuck you Qantas and Virgin, you both suck arse.

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The viability of social life in remote communities seems pretty far removed from an airline’s responsibility or expertise. Wouldn’t this be an issue for the state or federal government, not the airline?

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The airlines dictate the fares, not the government. It’s price gouging pure and simple.

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Or it’s just fairly expensive to fly in and out of small cities with limited populations. Lots of budget airlines have sprung up to fill profitable niches. Perhaps someday one will attempt to fill this one.

If you think QANTAS and Virgin haven’t analyzed the price/profitability numbers in great detail you’re dreaming. With their business model that’s likely the best they can do. And with limited competition there’s little incentive to do anything differently.

Bottom line, that’s one of the costs of living there

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There’s no competition and insufficient demand, so they don’t have to lower their fares, I guess.

Your local government can’t regulate air fares, but they might be able to do something to encourage other competition. Not sure what-all, but perhaps cheaper slots at the airport or some such.

The US government actually has a program to help subsidize air service to areas that would be underserved otherwise because they are not profitable. My daughter lives in a town where they have a commercial airport due to this program. 3 flights a day, anywhere you like as long as it’s Boston (we call it [URL=“Wings (1990 TV series) - Wikipedia”]). Is there perhaps any program like that in Australia?

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There would be a much greater demand if the prices were more affordable. On a local FB page devoted to the price of air travel in this region, folks are pointing out that it is cheaper to fly from the various Pilbara airports via Perth to Melbourne (app 6 hour flight) than it is to fly from here to Perth (two hour flight).

There’s already 50 commercial passenger flights per week from my local airport so it’s not exactly the total boonies. And of course the large mining companies book out x number of seats every week for FIFO workers, even if those seats are never taken up! So for local folk, it’s a double whammy, and Qantas and Virgin are laughing all the way to their respective banks.

Not that I’m aware of.

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There is such a scheme, however Port Hedland is not part of it.

https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/aviation/air-services-in-western-australia.asp

I haven’t flown around WA for many years but I wonder if the issue is not low demand but high demand. Generally when demand is low prices will drop so as to fill seats, when demand is high there is no incentive to offer low fares.

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As I’ve mentioned, demand WOULD be high if the fares were lower, but because the likes of Rio Tinto and BHP pre-book and pre-pay seats for FIFO workers that are never actually sat upon, the local folk are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to paying for fares. When they log into the airline websites, the fares are just outrageous, yet barely a third of the seats on the planes are filled.

I don’t know what the answer is, but the issue is that Hedlanders (and Karrathers and Newmans and Broomes) are severely economically disadvantaged with the current system. Shit, I never realized living in Victoria was such a boon! I can fly to anywhere in the world pretty much cheaper than I can fly Port Hedland to anywhere else in Australia…and the biggest bit of that is PH to Perth. :frowning:

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The fares are high BECAUSE there are so many empty seats, and selling more seats only helps if you’re NOT losing money on the fare. Because you have the same fuel, staff, fees etc, no matter how many seats you sell.

I think you’ve just come HARD up against the difference between living in a larger well serviced hub, and a much smaller, out of the way, less traveled location, and the accompanying MUCH higher costs.

I agree it righteously sucks large. But I think you’ll find such IS the reality of travel, in and out of less services locations, the world over. And a hard transition to make.

(The rest of your wretchedly bad service issues are indeed cause for much righteous lamenting and I feel your pain. We had issues with Air Asia in Vietnam and will never fly with them again! )

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Interesting. Can the airline sell those seats to “standby” customers? i.e. someone who waits at the airport in case there’s an available seat? Not ideal if you really NEED to go somewhere on a specific schedule, but at least for residents, it’s an option.

What are your options for other means of getting to a larger hub? Is there any kind of bus service? I don’t know how far you are via road, or how good the roads are.

Scratch that… 1600 km or whatever is not a doable bus ride.

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It’s a real shame that the airlines forced you to move to this backwoods village just so they could charge you higher airfare prices.

Maybe the cost of living (housing, utilities, etc) is much cheaper so that it makes up for the higher airfares you are experiencing.

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Get a credit card with a 24 hour concierge service. I recommend Chase Sapphire Reserve.

Then, use that service to book business class flights.

You won’t have any problems at all.

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It is very expensive to live in any of the mining towns.

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Well, yes and no. Supermarket prices seem much the same as over east (Coles and Woolworths, damn there’s no Aldi within 1000km), and whilst rents can be phenomenal, you can also get decent places at a reasonable price too.

We ended up moving into an ‘apartment’ (glorified ‘flat’) and it’s nearly $100 cheaper than our house previously. On the plus side, we don’t have to weed a bloody garden, there’s a maintained pool, playground and bbq facilities and whilst it’s an ugly block, the place is roomy enough for the four of us to not kill each other. And it’s gated, so the local hoons who like to play havoc with cars are well-deterred from getting in. :slight_smile:

Petrol is consistently $1.56l, not too bad considering.

Biggest killer is the power bills apparently, and with only one provider in town, you can’t tell 'em to go fuck themselves and go elsewhere. Thankfully our air-con and hot water are included in the rent, so not expecting any nasty surprises come bill-time.

Buying ‘stuff’ is ridiculous though. Freight charges add another x% to anything up here, and so lots of stuff is sold through social media. Some punters are charging ridiculous prices for what is essentially crap. Like $50 for a stained single mattress, and $60 each for two bedside tables that would have been chucked on the nature-strip for hard-rubbish back east.

A local bloke has a meeting with Qantas this arvo to discuss ways and means of making the fares more affordable, especially for those needing to travel for family emergencies etc. Hopefully something good will come of the meeting. :slight_smile:

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Looks like Qantas is feeling the heat.