Hi All,
Given the deserved shellacking Jetstar have been getting for some time now, I thought it only fair to report a pretty positive experience I had this month. But first the negative part.
Coming back from a trip to Bali, my DPS-MEL flight was due to leave at 12:45. Long story short, there was a mechanical safety issue and after multiple delays the flight was eventually cancelled altogether around 4.30pm. So about 300+ passengers headed back to check-in full of trepidation about how this might play out.
Amazingly things went pretty well from there. The local ground staff seemed to know what needed doing, their advice was that we'd be put up for the night while a new plane would be flown in overnight to get us to MEL the next day. Our checked bags arrived in about 20 minutes and several buses arrived to take us to our hotel for the night. On the short drive we passed many pretty ordinary looking hotels, so imagine our surprise when we were deposited at a very nice indeed, 5-star resort hotel right on the water. Breakfast was included, and while there were no dinner vouchers we could keep receipts and Jetstar would reimburse dinner expenses up to around A$75.
The breakfast buffet at the hotel was easily the biggest and best I had on my trip. Later that morning buses arrived to take us back to the airport for our now 1.30 flight to MEL. This flight was delayed an hour for takeoff, however we made up half an hour on the flight back. I've since applied for the reimbursement of dinner costs which was quick and easy online with a real operator.
I can say too that the passengers all behaved very well throughout, particularly when the cancellation occurred. No Karens, no DYKWIA, no aggro. Obviously it helped that we got information about what was happening fairly quickly, with many updates via email and the Jetstar app as well.
So all in all, these things are never fun, but since this happens - and safety always come first - at least Jetstar this time did a pretty good job in response. I have some more international flights with Jetstar over the next 12 months, will be sure to report again if anything of note, good or bad, happens.
Given the deserved shellacking Jetstar have been getting for some time now, I thought it only fair to report a pretty positive experience I had this month. But first the negative part.
Coming back from a trip to Bali, my DPS-MEL flight was due to leave at 12:45. Long story short, there was a mechanical safety issue and after multiple delays the flight was eventually cancelled altogether around 4.30pm. So about 300+ passengers headed back to check-in full of trepidation about how this might play out.
Amazingly things went pretty well from there. The local ground staff seemed to know what needed doing, their advice was that we'd be put up for the night while a new plane would be flown in overnight to get us to MEL the next day. Our checked bags arrived in about 20 minutes and several buses arrived to take us to our hotel for the night. On the short drive we passed many pretty ordinary looking hotels, so imagine our surprise when we were deposited at a very nice indeed, 5-star resort hotel right on the water. Breakfast was included, and while there were no dinner vouchers we could keep receipts and Jetstar would reimburse dinner expenses up to around A$75.
The breakfast buffet at the hotel was easily the biggest and best I had on my trip. Later that morning buses arrived to take us back to the airport for our now 1.30 flight to MEL. This flight was delayed an hour for takeoff, however we made up half an hour on the flight back. I've since applied for the reimbursement of dinner costs which was quick and easy online with a real operator.
I can say too that the passengers all behaved very well throughout, particularly when the cancellation occurred. No Karens, no DYKWIA, no aggro. Obviously it helped that we got information about what was happening fairly quickly, with many updates via email and the Jetstar app as well.
So all in all, these things are never fun, but since this happens - and safety always come first - at least Jetstar this time did a pretty good job in response. I have some more international flights with Jetstar over the next 12 months, will be sure to report again if anything of note, good or bad, happens.
