‘You have failed miserably’: Sydney man’s flight nightmare

A SYDNEY couple has lashed out at Qantas after their toddler was left starving on a flight that saw them miss Christmas with their family.

A 25-HOUR, multiple-flight journey with a toddler in tow is up there with many parents’ worst nightmares, but when Sydney couple Ben Craig and Amy Barnett set off for a family Christmas in London with their 15-month-old son, they had none of the usual concerns.

Originally from the UK, the couple had made regular trips overseas in recent years and this was Cooper’s third trip abroad. His mum said on those previous long-haul flights, he’d been a dream.

But the family hadn’t prepared for the nightmare journey that was ahead of them when they boarded Qantas flight QF1 on December 23.

The next 50-plus hours would include about 15 hours with no food, an emergency landing, hours trapped in a grounded plane, a Christmas Day spent mostly in the air, missing luggage, plenty of tears and screaming — not just from the toddler — and, according to Mr Craig, no apology or sympathy from our national carrier.

Fifteen-month-old Cooper slept through the first flight, but the journey took a turn.

After a pleasant flight from Sydney, the nightmare began just before the plane was due to land in Dubai before continuing on to London.

Instead, passengers were told, due to weather conditions at Dubai airport, the pilot had chosen to land at 1am in Al Ain, a small regional airport near Abu Dhabi to refuel and would make the short journey to Dubai when it was safe.

Understanding of the issue, Mr Craig said his concern didn’t begin to kick in until fog rolled in while the flight was grounded and it became clear they would be stuck on the tarmac longer than expected.

Mr Craig said his family and fellow passengers were instructed to stay inside the plane — where food had apparently run out — and were given multiple reasons why they couldn’t be released into the small airport’s terminal.

“They said an engineer was supposed to be sent by helicopter and would be there soon. Then it was that the airport couldn’t handle the 450 people coming off the plane, and then they told us that it was just more comfortable on the plane,” he said.

“The story kept changing and we started to think we were being lied to.”

It was only after about 12 hours trapped inside the grounded plane, with hungry children crying and others on board growing anxious, that passengers were finally told they could go into the terminal the couple said.

“By this point we’d run out of snacks and Cooper hadn’t eaten anything substantial for 12 hours,” Mr Craig said. “When we got inside and we found a mostly empty terminal with a closed canteen and finally after an hour and a half were handed out packaged croissants filled with chocolate — hardly suitable food for a toddler.”

After an hour in the terminal, they were sent back on board the plane — “the pilot said he didn’t know why we had been sent back there,” Mr Craig said — and a further, hours-long wait, passengers were flown to Dubai only to be informed the second leg of their journey had been cancelled and they would have to spend the night at an airport hotel and complete the journey the following day.

Mr Craig said he couldn’t understand why the flight had been cancelled and claimed he hadn’t been given an explanation.

Released from the airport more than 30 hours since leaving Sydney, Mr Craig said passengers weren’t given their bags and he and his partner had to scramble to buy nappies for their son, then beg for room service because the hotel that had been accommodated at, told them to eat in a restaurant nearby.

The delay also meant missing family Christmas in London. The flight which was due to land in Heathrow early Christmas Eve would now not get them there until late afternoon on Christmas Day.

Cooper managed to snag what the family was told was the last bread roll on the plane, after 12 hours without eating.

Inside the terminal they were given chocolate-filled croissants: ‘Not suitable for a toddler’.

When they finally arrived in London, they were told their luggage hadn’t made it onto the flight from Dubai and were collected by family about 5pm on Christmas Day, hardly in the mood for celebrating. Their Christmas presents were in the missing bags anyway.

Ms Bennett said she found the entire experience “really traumatic”, but said the most disappointing element was Qantas’s response.

Before news.com.au contacted the airline, the only communication the couple had received was an email explaining the delay and acknowledging the inconvenience the couple had been through, but included no apology.

The couple said they believed the airline had “failed miserably” in its “duty of care” to passengers by not providing suitable food for their toddler and other children on board, as well as the lack of communication and explanations from staff throughout the journey.

“The issue with the food, as a parent, was definitely my main concern. I just think that the experience itself was really traumatic,” she said.

“The not knowing, I felt like when we were going through it all they weren’t being really transparent about how long we were going to be delayed for. There were so many different stories that (the flight crew) and there was just utter confusion.

“It was really quite stressful to all of us.”

Mr Craig said he believed the airline had failed in living up to its values.

“They say they’re about bringing families together, working together in an inclusive manner,” he said. “That’s not what we saw.”

Ms Bennett added: “Had Qantas maybe made a goodwill gesture or even offered some sort of explanation or apology, I think we would be happy to say, you know what, it was a difficult situation, but what we’ve had from them has been quite the opposite.”

Passengers exiting the plane at the small regional airport Al Ain.

A post on the airline’s Facebook page from Mr Craig explaining the situation and asking for the couple’s frequent flyer points to be returned has attracted dozens of sympathetic comments from outraged people shocked at the experience, but Mr Craig says, has failed to elicit a satisfactory response from Qantas.

In a statement to news.com.au, a spokesman for Qantas said the airline, like others, had been impacted by heavy fog surrounding Dubai and had to be diverted to Al Ain. The spokesman explain that while on the ground a mechanical issue was detected which resulted in further delays as an engineer and spare part were brought in from Dubai.

“During this time, customers were given all the food and drink available on board and when the delay continued, they were given the option to disembark where more refreshments were made available,” the statement said.

Qantas said “several options” were offered to customers travelling on to London, including overnight accommodation and moving onto the next flight.

“We’re happy to reach out to Ben and we understand how frustrating the delay was especially occurring at Christmas,” the spokesman said.