MAINTENANCE issues and weather have caused recent delays in Qantas’ Mildura-Sydney direct service, the airline says.
Sunraysia Daily contacted Qantas last week after receiving reports from two regular travellers about lengthy recent flight delays to the service, which began late in November last year.
“A combination of poor weather and maintenance requirements have caused some recent delays on our Sydney-Mildura route,” a Qantas spokeswoman said.
“We understand these disruptions can be frustrating for our customers, but we’ll always put safety ahead of schedule.
“Our teams have been working hard to minimise the inconvenience and are focused on getting our passengers to their destinations on time.”
The spokeswoman said that when mechanical work was needed on planes in Mildura, “an engineer from Melbourne is often required to travel out to inspect the aircraft”.
Two recent examples of flight delays for the Mildura-Sydney service occurred on April 27 and last Monday.
On the first occasion, there was a nearly three-hour delay for passengers due to an “engineering issue” on a plane scheduled to fly to Bendigo from Sydney.
As no back-up plane was available, those passengers were put on the Mildura service, which was redirected to Bendigo before touching down in the state’s far north-west.
Last Monday, a 6.30am flight from Mildura to Sydney was delayed by just over three hours after being redirected to Canberra Airport due to fog at Mascot.
The delay was then extended when a “hydraulics issue” with the plane was discovered when it was being refuelled at Canberra Airport.
Passengers were forced to board another service from Canberra to Sydney, arriving just before noon.
