Evidence from QANTAS and British Airways of what I tell my patients: The order of business for commercial airlines is Safety first, then Comfort then Economy.


Two flights which made news today, one an Australian domestic and the other international, made news today for quite different reasons, but both show what I've always said: that safety is the number one priority for airlines; once that is looked after, then passenger's comfort comes next, followed by trying to make the flight cost the airline as little as possible. Any airline that changes that airline in not worth taking the risk with...

My local broadsheet newspaper, the Melbourne Age, featured two airline-related stories today. One, an international flight from Sydney to London via Bangkok (the Kangaroo route) with British Airways, and the other a QANTAS domestic flight, from Sydney to Wagga Wagga (also in New South Wales).

Both showed that safety comes before both passenger comfort and the airlines' bottom line in management's priorites. Indeed, both incidents were unexpected and quite chaotic for the respective airlines, causing them to change schedules and move personnel and in the British Airways case, aircraft, to help passengers continue their journeys.

For the British Airways flight, a Boeing 747-400 with an almost full load of passengers left Bangkok en route to London when a fire warning light caused the crew to seek the nearest airport to let down. It ended up being in Uralsk, a city in northern Kazakhstan near the border with Russia.

No doubt the crew had planned their route's alternative airports, and despite language problems, safely let down on the rather primitive but safe runway. Unfortunately, despite the fire warning being a false alarm, the runway's length was insufficient for the Boeing to take off with its full load. So some quick collaboration with BA HQ in London saw three smaller aircraft sent out to shuttle the passengers and crew to Heathrow. First and Business class (upgrades have their virtues) got to to fly out first, and while waiting for the other two aircraft to arrive, coach passengers got to hang out in the pointy end of the 747.

In the Qantas flight, a terminally ill woman died en route to Wagga Wagga, and her husband asked workers not to revive her when they arrived on the scene at Wagga airport. (Wagga is a few hundred miles south west of Sydney - about 4 hours drive - not too far from Australia's capital, Canberra.) Unfortunately for the passengers on the flight back to Sydney, to be undertaken by the same crew, one flight attendant was too distressed by the events to fly, and with no attendants on stand by in Wagga, unlike quite a few who are always at Sydney on a "just in case" basis, one had to be flown to Wagga to make sure the flight has it full complement of crew to make sure the flight was safe to leave for Sydney. Passsengers were delayed for three hours, and I wonder how many missed their international or domestic connections if Sydney was not their final destination.

Again, the message here is the first tier airlines will not put their safety records at risk, and flight crew are a most conservative lot when it comes to risks. Too bad for the airlines' bottom line, but it's simply not worth the risk.

Posted: Monday - April 17, 2006 at 07:18 PM         |

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