Flight from JFK to LAX Thursday August 21 2014

Flight from JFK to LAX Thursday August 21 2014

Not a great flight from JFK to LAX.  We understand about delays and thankfully we had been told at the British Airway Lounge that the flight had been delayed.  Why were we not told upon check-in at the Qantas desk?

Upon boarding, we were told to go upstairs.  We were not shown to our seats on the upper deck but ignored by the staff.

The two staff were reasonably friendly and they informed us that they had no beer and the bar had been restocked at JFK!  Paul had to contend with a Boag's Lager which he did not finish.

The Neil Perry food was very ordinary.  Paul's fish was horrible.  Mine was okay and maybe he got a bad piece.

The worst was yet to come.  There was no announcement for the luggage carousel collection.

We disembarked the flight and followed the other Australians off the plane and followed the two Qantas ground staff with their signs.  One female passenger, in front of us, asked which way to the luggage carousel to the Qantas lady.  She then pointed to her right which was our left.

Why do Qantas not have arrows on their signs?  Either a left, right or proceed forward arrow.  Not difficult.

After we followed the directions of the two Qantas ground staff we continued in the direction and ended up going past Qantas departures.  We suspected we were mis-directed.  All alone we had not seen one sign for baggage collection.  We proceeded on and still saw not one sign saying baggage collection once we had disembarked.

This is how Paul is feeling today!  Not a happy camper after nearly a two hour delay from JFK and arriving at LAX and being sent in the wrong direction 12 (TWELVE) times and walking around in circles trying to pick up our luggage.

The LAX airport needs baggage collection signs.  We knew that we had to go downstairs and we asked 12 airport staff and two walked us to where they thought we had to go.  Wrong!  This is a security issue and a Occupational Health and Safety issue as we ended up in high security areas.  We even asked a cop with a sniffer dog and still could not exit.

We even went into security areas and were abruptly told "that we should not have been in."  And this is the supposed new LAX airport!  Even a policeman with a sniffer dog sent us in the wrong direction.

We went to the Qantas desk three times and there was no one on duty.

Finally after a huge hissy fit (and an understandable one!) Paul saw a Qantas representative in the distance and ran after her.  He explained our 12 instances of being mis-directed.  She escorted us to pick up our luggage via going outside and we had to wait on the footpath for our luggage to be wheeled through their security area.  Our luggage had been taken away and stored thankfully.

Thank you Hazel for helping us to locate our luggage and assisting us with contacting our hotel to say we had been delayed.  She even stayed with us until we got a taxi.  This was the best part of Qantas service for the flight and early in the morning too.  She even gave my partner a reassuring cuddle as she could see that he was distressed due to the lack of service by 12 other LAX staff.

Finally arrived at the hotel at about 2.00am LAX time which was 5.00 NYC time.  Thankfully we both had about an hour's sleep on the flight.

Qantas needs a desk in a central location at LAX that is resourced with a bilingual person 24 hours a day.

I am curious about the other six passengers who also got lost from this flight.

I am also curious if other passengers have had the same experience (from any airline.)