It’s been an embarrassing week for Jetstar after the airline was ranked last in an international survey comparing more than 70 airlines. The abysmal ranking earned Jetstar just one star out of five in the survey conducted by Choice in conjunction with Consumers International.
But is Jetstar really the worst airline in the world? The budget airline is not exactly known for its excellent service… but our members believe that the survey is seriously flawed, rendering it meaningless.
Our members have pointed out numerous limitations in the Choice survey. Firstly, we don’t know how Jetstar compares to its main rival Tigerair, because Tiger was not even included. Secondly, people in only 8 countries were surveyed. Nobody in Asia, North America or Africa took part in the survey, and only 11,000 responses were received in total. Of these, just 745 respondents lived in Australia. And when it came to compiling the results, only airlines that had been flown by at least 25 survey respondents in the past year were included.
Beyond this, Choice has revealed very little about how the results were collated. They have also failed to release a full list of how each of the 73 airlines ranked. Because of these and other flaws, our members do not believe that the survey is fair.
Nonetheless, it does appear that Jetstar has room for improvement. One of the reasons for Jetstar’s low ranking was its poor on-time performance. Last year, Jetstar had by far the most flight delays of any Australian airline. In response to the survey Jetstar defended its on-time performance, blaming “the weather” for many of its delays.
Recounting their recent experiences with Jetstar, some members do agree that the result reflects Jetstar’s service. But others believe that labelling Jetstar the “world’s worst airline” on the back of this survey is a bit of a stretch.
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