So today I flew JQ63 from SYD to MEL. It cost me 13,800 points plus $45.39. My strong advice would be: avoid this flight if you possibly can.
Check in was easy and there were no queues at the dedicated Business Class check-in counter.
It was a very long walk to security from the Jetstar check-in; there was a dedicated security screening area for domestic passengers but, by my conservative estimate, it took 2-3 times as long to get through security as it normally would at a domestic terminal (including the length of the walk to the security screening area from check-in).
Boarding was on time (it commenced at 12:55pm) and simple. Business Class passengers and passengers in the last few rows at the back of the plane were called first.
From there, things went downhill somewhat...
Seat allocation: I had decided (more as a matter of principle than anything else) to not pay the $32 to select my seat. I was allocated 2A which I was happy with. Jetstar 787s have 21 seats in the Business cabin, in three rows of 2-3-2 configuration. There were 4 Business class customers, and 4 Jetstar cabin crew who were positioning. The 4 Jetstar staff all sat in the middle seats in 1D, 1F, 2D and 2F. Of the “paying” customers (I think all of whom had used points), there was a couple in 1A and 1C, myself in 2A, and a woman with a lap infant in 2C. So there were about a dozen empty seats (1GJ, 2GJ, and the entire row 3 were all empty) … and yet Jetstar in its wisdom sat the two solo customers, one of whom had a lap infant, together!
I immediately asked the flight attendant if I could move to an empty seat — she refused, saying that I had to wait until we were in the air and the seatbelt sign is off.
Well, I thought, that won’t take long. I was wrong.
The flight was due to depart at 1:35pm. At about 1:45pm the Captain announced that the flight would be delayed because they were waiting for a crewmember to arrive. He took about 10 more minutes to arrive and then the plane pushed back.
One of the flight attendants had taken drink orders while were had been on the ground. The lady sitting next to me requested a wine, but was told “because this is a domestic leg of an international flight, we can’t serve alcohol on this flight”.
I had ordered a coffee which was delivered about 15 minutes after take-off. It was stone cold. I pressed the Call button and the flight attendant apologised, saying that she’d “put in too much milk”. She came back a few minutes later with a nice hot coffee.
The only food that was served was a slice of lemon cake, wrapped in plastic. There was no cutlery or crockery of any kind — just the slice of cake in its plastic. It was about the quality of an economy class snack on Qantas.
The seats were comfortable enough for a 1-hour flight, with a legrest and a reasonable amount of recline. There were small seat-back entertainment screens (the same as in Qantas economy cabins with IFE) and mine worked reasonably, although the touch screens weren’t very responsive.
We landed just before 3:30pm, about an hour and a quarter after take off. We taxi’d to the gate … almost. With about 10 metres to go the plane stopped and sat for about 15 minutes. The captain eventually announced that they were waiting for a “suitably trained marshal” to turn up and direct the plane to its gate. That happened within a few minutes and we were disembarking at 3:45pm, 35 minutes late.
Going through immigration was reasonably quick and the signs directed passengers to Carousel 6 to await our luggage.
Nothing happened. For 45 minutes we were all waiting at Carousel 6, whose screens clearly showed “JQ63”. No luggage.
Eventually someone realised that our luggage had come out at Carousel 2, goodness knows when. We walked to the Carousel and there was our luggage. The screens at the Carousel were blank. There had been no announcements. Admittedly I don’t know whether I should be blaming Jetstar, or Melbourne Airport, for this — but we were all mighty annoyed.
So I ended up exiting the terminal at 4:45pm — after a scheduled 1:35pm to 3:10pm SYD-MEL flight.
The verdict: If ever there were a flight version of the Keystone Cops, this was it. From the late departure, to the lack of alcohol, to the pathetic food & beverage service, to the luggage claim fiasco … this flight cost 13,800 points plus $45.39, but I frankly think it was worth barely half that.
Business class service on both Qantas domestic and Virgin domestic is far superior and I would say definitely worth the extra few thousand points. And if you are considering actually paying for this product … don’t.
