Qantas flight QF7 from Sydney to Dallas, an A380-800, returned to Sydney on Tuesday due to a mysterious high-pitched whistling noise in the cabin – delaying the flight by over 24 hours and costing Qantas a fortune in dumped fuel.
The flight crew ran out of hours and passengers finally departed for Dallas early yesterday afternoon, just over 24 hours late.
The whistling sounds were coming from a door. A seal was believed responsible – a door seal, that is. As the whistle increased in intensity and pitch, the captain decided to turn around “in the interests of passenger comfort” and return to Sydney, a Qantas spokesman told ABC News.
Cabin pressure was maintained and the aircraft landed safely without incident.
Simon Hradecky’s renowned Aviation Herald, which usually plays such events straight, managed a smile and gave the incident the headline: “Oh happy door”.
The whistling started just 300km east of Sydney, and as the flight is the second-longest that Qantas operates, a lot of fuel needed to be dumped.
A passenger aboard filmed it.
Dumping $167,000 worth of fuel… shouldn’t of filled up with premium 😂#Qantas #sydney pic.twitter.com/G7OQt3Nfpt
— James Nitties (@JamesNitties23) August 28, 2018
The airline landed 2.5 hours after departure, leaving people to work out how much the fuel dump must have cost.
Qantas denied it was worth AUD 100,000 as some news outlets reported.
Whistling kettle. Not guilty
An A380-800 has 10 fuel tanks with a total capacity of 320,000 litres of fuel. The spot price for aviation fuel, “Gulf Coast kerosene-type jet fuel” is about USD 2.15 per US gallon – or at least, it was in May 2018. At that rate, a full load of 84,535 US gallons would cost USD 181,750 (AUD 249,000).
But the spot rate is not what Qantas would have paid as airlines hedge fuel well in advance – and for obvious reasons the captain didn’t dump all the fuel.
Even so, the whistle wouldn’t have come cheap.
Written by Peter Needham
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As one who books business travel often on the Dallas route, I can safely say no route I’ve ever dealt with has as many delays as Sydney – Dallas – Sydney. I’d estimate around 50% of my clients on that route suffer a delay in one direction, and the situation is not helped at all for connecting passengers with “partner” American Airlines staff in the US not even the slightest bit interested in helping stranded QF passengers, even those flying First Class or being Platinum One members.
As one who books business travel often on the Dallas route, I can safely say no route I’ve ever dealt with has as many delays as Sydney – Dallas – Sydney. I’d estimate around 50% of my clients on that route suffer a delay in one direction, and the situation is not helped at all for connecting passengers with “partner” American Airlines staff in the US not even the slightest bit interested in helping stranded QF passengers, even those flying First Class or being Platinum One members.