Dirty Old Jetstar

[SooziQu]

My partner and I have called it this for ages as it wasn't our first choice of airline and we'd found it pretty ordinary in the past. However with some vouchers from a cancelled trip we had decided to go to the Queensland from Victoria. Two trips cancelled due to lockdowns and we are flying out tomorrow (allegedly).

Yesterday morning brought and email from Jetstar saying our 6.15am flight was cancelled due to the evolving coronavirus situation. No ability to manage it online. Two phone calls to the Philippines and the first operator told me it was cancelled because I couldn't fly back from Qld to Vic. Huh?? Second phone call and I was rebooked on the 8am flight. Seems the coronavirus situation was going to resolve in that 1 3/4 hour time slot.

Awoke this morning to another of the same emails saying my flight had been cancelled due to the evolving coronavirus situation. Again, called the Philippines and had my flight moved to the next flight at 4.15pm. On a guess what?? Bigger plane!

Now I get the need to make operational changes to flights and particularly flights not full. But two flights in a row is pretty ordinary. It seems the flights are consolidated into one larger plane. Ok, but don't blame coronavirus for something that is actually an operational decision. And at least make it possible to choose another flight online through Manage Your Booking and free up the call centre. I hate having to call airline call centres at any time. And to be fair, the consultant was lovely and said there were a lot of passengers complaining about the same email as I was.

Once this trip is over (if we get to go!) I'm done with dirty old Jetstar. They've proved once again why they aren't my airline of choice.

 

[henrus]

Once this trip is over (if we get to go!) I'm done with dirty old Jetstar. They've proved once again why they aren't my airline of choice.

I've had the same thing happen with Qantas and Virgin over the last 12 months. I'm sorry but that's the risk of flying during these times where borders shut whilst aircraft are in the air.

Every Australian airline in their condition of carriage/contract says that specific departure times aren't a part of the contract you have with them.

You can try the other airlines of Australia but your experience is going to be very similar... at least with Jetstar, it's relatively simple to contact the phone line and they also have a live chat feature online (wait times on Virgin/Qantas normally exceed 4-5 hours during border closures).

 

[drron]

The problem for all of the airlines flying from Victoria to QLD at present is that they can have a reasonable load on the flights to QLD but have buckley's chance of having a reasonable load flying back to Victoria.Makes absolute sense to have 3 smaller planes replaced by 1 larger plane so only 1 plane and 1 crew coming back to Victoria.
Mrsdrron was to fly down to LST yesterday and was flying MCY-SYD-LST.There were at least 6 changes before they finally cancelled the LST flight and made the journey MCY-SYD-MEL-LST.So she rebooked as MCY-MEL-LST to save 3 hours in travel time.Of course tassie kept the Sunshine Coast out until today so it all fell over,So do you call QF Dirty Old Qantas?

 

[vetrade]

..........So do you call QF Dirty Old Qantas?

If the cap fits, drron! QF doesn't deserve to be cut any slack because their customer service has been under-staffed and under trained for years before Covid came along, especially the OS call centres everyone dreads getting on the other end of the line. If you're not P1, WP or Gold, CS is abysmal or non existent. Contempuously, QF never does anything to improve the situation either - virtually every change they implement compromises CS even more e.g. just today I read Matt Graham's article about his disastrous experience of getting stuck in Perth because QF had zero staff available at PER to ticket him and online access failed too. Zero ticketing staff at a capital city airport! With all their other failings, QF could be described in far worse terms than just "dirty old Qantas".

 

[ANstar]

I guess if you don't want the risk of flight cancellations don't fly during a pandemic. It's hardly an airline specific issue as all of the airlines have similar cancellations.. more a gripe towards a brand.

 

[serfty]

I guess if you don't want the risk of flight cancellations don't fly during a pandemic. It's hardly an airline specific issue as all of the airlines have similar cancellations.. more a gripe towards a brand.

Maybe more the issue being the quality of customer support that is avaliable in disruption.

 

[Berlin]

I've had the same thing happen with Qantas and Virgin over the last 12 months. I'm sorry but that's the risk of flying during these times where borders shut whilst aircraft are in the air.

Agree, same here. And if Qantas and Virgin do this all the time then surely Deathstar will do even more so- one gets what one pays for.