Qantas cuts staff and compromises their service

We just flew from Melbourne to Paris via Heathrow using Qantas.  Never again.

Our Airbus A380 was delayed 1.5 hours in Singapore when the auxillary jet engine that provides electricity to the aircraft and starts the main engine failed.  This is clearly a maintenance issue.

We then missed our connection at Heathrow to Paris.  We waited 5 hours for an Air France flight.

Our 2 ski bags and one luggage bag did not arrive with us at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

2 days later, waiting in Paris, we still don't have the bags or an ETA for their arrival.  This means we cannot proceed to Chamonix and do our ski trip on the Haute Route.

The Air France lost baggage call centre is unable to provide any more information than what we can find on the Internet.  Two bags are supposed to have been sent to Paris on 29 April but their arrival is "not confirmed".  The other bag is still missing.

This is extremely frustrating.  The systems for transferring baggage at Heathrow, and the systems for tracking lost baggage, are dysfunctional.

If you want to ski in the French Alps, fly direct to Geneva via Singapore Airlines or Emirates.  Avoid Heathrow if at all possible.

Our entire 10 day ski trip to Europe could well be completely ruined.  Qantas cost cutting will destroy their service and their business.

Update 6pm Tuesday 1 May

We went to Charles de Gaulle airport to ask about our missing bags.  We were informed that Mark's 2 bags had arrived and been sent on to Geneva (!).  We were not notified of this.  Apparently they will be delivered to the hotel in Chamonix, despitte our instructions to pick them up in Paris.  Mark's "missing missing" bag has now magically appeared and is enroute.

My bag is apparently still at Heathrow, despite the note that British Airways would fly it to Paris yesterday - they did not apparently.  We checked with British Airways - they said they had not received it here so it was most likely still at Heathrow.  They may not have been able to fit it on fully loaded planes - which I find hard to believe.

Tomorrow we go to Chamonix. Hopefully our bags arrive there too, and we can finally do some skiing.

Nobody seems accountable for following up and resolving issues with missing baggage, and nobody seems to really care.  Their is little or no status information provided, and some of it is incorrect.  The entire system needs an overhaul.

Update 10pm Tuesday 1 May
Simon rang to say Mark's two bags had been delivered to the hotel in Chamonix, which is great news.  Geneva also called and advised my ski bag was there and would be sent to Chamonix tomorrow morning.  However, the lost baggage system on the Internet still shows my bag at Heathrow!  The system is crap.

But its great news that our bags have finally been located and sent to Chamonix.  150km/h winds there over the last couple of days meant we would have not been skiing.

Our round the world trip in 2009

We embarked on a round the world trip in 2009. Lena had work conferences to attend in both London and Basel, so we decided to buy round the world tickets and visit friends and family in both the United States and Europe.

This map is a work in progress of our trip.

View Our round the world trip - 2009 in a larger map

Australia should embrace the clean energy industry

Here is an excellent letter to the editor of The Age that points out that the Howard Government is guilty of extreme economic negligence by deliberately ignoring the fantastic opportunity for Australia to develop jobs and exports in the clean energy industry.

The European example points out on what Australia is missing out on:

• In 2006 in Europe $38b was invested in the renewable energy industry
• In 2007 it is projected that renewable energy industry investments will increase to $45b
• Nuclear provides about 6% of Europe’s energy and is being phased out
• On current trends renewable energy is predicted to be cost competitive with coal by 2015
• The renewable energy industry employs approximately 500,000 people while the coal industry employs about 30,000
• In 2006 wind energy output exceeded nuclear energy output on one day in Germany
• In 2006 in France, energy production from nuclear was halved due to a shortage of water to cool the power stations.
• Germany has now mandated that new houses must produce 20% of their power needs
• The EU is currently considering increasing their Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) to 20%

It is interesting that emission trading in Europe has not assisted renewable energy, it has only improved efficiencies of fossil fuel use. So John Howard's future dated "response to climate change" is far to little, far too late.


What a waste
Vivienne Gray, Williamstown
Published in The Age on Saturday 10 June 2007. (Source)

Why does our Prime Minister always stress the economic costs of adjustments needed to address global warming, and not the economic opportunities?

Andrew Stephens' article (3/6) highlights how Australia has lost out over the past few years. The Federal Government has failed to foster technologies and industries that could have ensured our ongoing prosperity and at the same time helped reduce our greenhouse emissions. As a result, many thousands of "green-collar" jobs have been created offshore.

The last decade gave us a chance to make progressive adjustments to our fossil-fuelled energy industries. But in the face of government inaction, we now have to take more drastic steps and, if Howard is to be believed, we'll need a network of nuclear power plants.

So, we can forget about being the "clever country". The Federal Government's vision will ensure we remain the world's quarry - mining coal (until no one will buy it) and uranium. Our existing power plants will be replaced with equally ugly nuclear power plants.

Oh, and we'll take the world's nuclear waste, too. At least we'll lead in something.