I've got to balance out the negative experiences we keep hearing...

I've got to balance out the negative experiences we keep hearing about with a recent story from my parents...

Backstory - both generations of my family had booked to travel to the US in 2020 to see my brother, myself, my wife and daughter with QANTAS and my parents with Virgin - my parents have a Virgin flight credit that they are not allowed to use internationally, despite the cancelled trip being international, so they booked with QANTAS instead (and with a little concern after all the doom and gloom stories) - my father has some medical requirements these days which necessitated several levels of contingency planning)

So - on the day of my parents first international flight for 3 years, Perth is hit by some pretty heavy weather, Perth airport loses power and a whole bunch of flights are cancelled - not theirs though, so they hop in the taxi as you could guarantee that if they hadn't of gone to the airport, the flight would have gotten airborne. On the way to the airport, the flight is cancelled and they get an SMS informing them, so they turn around. Shortly after they get home, they get another SMS - they've been rebooked to fly out in the morning, and now, instead of going PER - SYD - LAX - SJC, they're flying PER - SYD - HNL - SJC (now, QANTAS don't fly or have a codeshare from Hawaii to San Jose, so QANTAS (they booked direct, so no travel agent going above and beyond here) has booked them on a competitors flight just to make sure they get there. Top this off, with, shortly after take off, with the storms still raging, the plane is struck by lighting - thankfully no damage to any systems and the flight is cleared to continue to Sydney.

And all those contingency plans as we'd heard so many stories of luggage going missing? All for naught - gear was split over both parents checked and hand luggage and it all made it to San Jose safely They are now back home and didn't have a single complaint about their flights in either direction.

My father is now adamant that he'll never book with a travel agent again as he doesn't think a travel agent would have been able to rebook his flights anywhere near as quickly as QANTAS did (I'm still coming to terms with what that implies for my WEB holding)