So , I went to the cafeteria with my $5 coupon and of coffee ( where they even seem to charge you extra for the sugar ) having ordered a small sandwich and a cup of coffee , I found that came $6.50 . not having any Australian money on me I said ‘ what do I do ? she sad you just have to pay, so then I exploded _ having gone from a passive to a very aggressive state . I told her I had no intention of paying and that the passengers before me had only in fact spent $3 coupon, therefore the organization ( that is , the cafeteria ) was ripping people off and making a profit. She wasn’t happy about that , nor about me getting aggressive, so I got aggressive and told her “ you can do what you like “ and walk off with my sandwich and my cup of coffee and sat down. However , before doing so I made sure I publicly and in a loud voice told the other passengers in the queue to be careful because they were being ripped off . the mood was pretty tense. I went ant sat down and ate my sandwich 6.50$ sandwich nothing more was heard , but needless to say I was very annoyed and upset.
By this time rumours were spreading among the 300 passengers who were still in the transit lounge ( some 21-22 hour after leaving los angeles ) still not knowing when they were going to get to Sydney. Yet Qantas had made no announcement to inform us what was happening . I walked up to what appeared to be the most senior person in charge and indicated that all sorts of rumours were spreading around as to when flight , and that people were pretty tense , adgy and p…ed off with Qantas . upon my suggestion , believe it or not , a relatively senior Qantas employee got on the microphone , thank god , and made an announcement and their best to keep passengers informed.
Lo and behold , when the new plane arrived , which was going from Melbourne to Sydney to los angeles , but was already half full ( as you might imagine ) , we found that not all of the stranded passengers could get on this plane to Sydney. Well, you can imagine the confusion , mild panic and angst that caused. Only about half of those waiting in transit would get on this flight to get to Sydney. At the point , some to the American passengers in particular got abusive – in fact , one of them pushed a Qantas employee demanding he be allowed on the flight as he had contacts in Sydney who were waiting for him urgently . again , the situation was pretty tense . how did I feel.
Not much different, except I was getting grumpier, but resigned to the fact that I had better accept the situation and just try and relax. So I didn’t join the ‘ cattle queue ‘ , and was resigned to the fact of getting on the second plane up to Sydney and not the first , as I was not in any great hurry now as I had already missed my connection in Sydney.