Safest Airline Not So Safe This Week : Kathika Travel Website

Qantas might have been made famous by Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rainman when he repeated said he wanted to fly Qantas because “Qantas never crashed”, but anyone reading the headlines this week would have felt a bit less secure about flying on Australia’s national airline.

Hole in Side of Qantas Jet

The week started with an explosion in the side of a plane after it departed from Hong Kong, leaving a large hole in the side of the aircraft and causing it to suddenly drop twenty thousand feet. The oxygen masks were released and the cabin was cold and depressurized, but the pilots were able to make a safe emergency landing at Manila in the Philippines – and no passengers were hurt. After they disembarked and saw the extent of the damage, many were ill and in shock, but nothing worse. Investigations so far blame the explosion of an oxygen bottle for the emergency.

Unfortunately, the rest of the week kept Qantas in the headlines and another incident occurred to unsettle the flying public. A flight leaving Adelaide for Melbourne was forced to turn around and return to Adelaide and make an emergency landing because a door on a wheel bay had not closed. Such an incident would usually be insignificant but with the accident earlier in the week some passengers were too nervous to fly another Qantas jet and refused to board the replacement flight.

Other Problems for Qantas

As if airlines around the world didn’t have enough problems to deal with, especially in light of rising oil prices, once they hit the headlines for something then everyone finds a reason to complain – and the case of Qantas is no exception. This week they started using a new check-in system which has had some hiccups and seen economy class passengers bumped to later flights in favor of business class passengers, and an uproar began in the media over this.

Then a flight to Queenstown in New Zealand made the headlines because they had to divert to Christchurch and circle for an hour or so before landing, and because pilot left the seatbelt light on the entire time, many passengers were angry because they needed to go to the bathroom. Again, a small incident made bigger because we’re hungry for Qantas stories this week.

Qantas has still had no fatal accidents, so Dustin Hoffman’s character might still be right about Qantas being relatively safe to fly, but hearing stories about it in the headlines is certainly unsettling and might see some losses in passenger bookings for the carrier.

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