Passengers left fuming over six hour Qantas delay on tarmac

Qantas passengers are fuming over an incident where they were left sitting on a grounded plane for a gruelling six hours, with only a bag of nuts to eat.

Qantas passengers have been forced to sit on the tarmac for six hours before their doomed flight was cancelled in the latest horror story to come out of the airline.

The Los Angeles bound plane flying out of Melbourne was already delayed when crew ran into more trouble as soon as passengers boarded on Tuesday night.

The flight was deemed to be too heavy to take off due to strong winds at Melbourne Airport, with the facility’s longer runway closed for maintenance.

Frustrated customers have been kept on the tarmac at Melbourne Airport due to aircraft complications, only for the flight to ultimately be cancelled. NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Passengers were offered the option to fly to LA without their bags, which would be sent on the following flight, an option that one woman described as “filling [her] with fear”.

“Two hours in, we’re really frustrated and they’re still doing paperwork, then at about 1:30am when everyone was getting quite frustrated at that point, there wasn’t any food offered...they basically said to us that the flight’s too heavy for the runway space or something like that,” passenger Pip told 3AW Radio.

Despite opting to continue on without her bags due to work obligations in the United States, the flight was cancelled entirely at 3am, to the frustration of customers.

“We got off and ground staff were waiting but it was just disarray, there were no messages, no communication in terms of timing for the next flight, when that would be arranged,” she said.

Customers were “livid” over the incident according to one passenger. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

“They said anyone from Melbourne has to go home with a cab charge.”

Pip said they weren’t served a meal, only water and a bag of nuts, in the entire time they waited on the tarmac.

She slammed the airline’s customer service and handling of the incident.

“This isn’t their first rodeo, they didn’t have any contingency plan and they’re never on the front foot,” Pip said.

“You’ve got to get on the phone to them, you’ve got to chase them up, you’ve got to be the one that tries to get your compensation or get your complaint in.”

Qantas has apologised to customers for what it described as a “frustrating experience”.

“This was a significant disruption caused by multiple rolling issues, including delayed arrival of the incoming aircraft, runway works, bad weather and the number of hours that our crew can legally work,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“We wanted to get as many customers as possible to LA, which is why we kept working to resolve the issues as they came up. Despite best efforts, we weren’t able to make that happen.”

The airline has said that those who did not travel will recieve a full refund and those impacted by the delay will be given a $1000 travel voucher as an apology.