JetStar's 787-8 a Lemon

[cycler49]

I have used business class on JetStar's flights from Melbourne to Asia more than once with some connecting flights on 3K (JetStar Asia). Using JetStar international out of Melbourne avoids transferring via Sydney (e.g. to Bangkok) plus the earning of quality Qantas status credits.

3K flights are well run and always on time. Cannot heap the same praise on JetStar Australia and their use of Dreamliner 787-8's. In my view the 787-8's are a big "dud" - OR - JetStar Australia has a cultural/engineering maintenance issue. Never had a JetStar international flight from/to Australia that has achieved the "contracted" time to depart or arrive. The most recent example is a MEL to SIN and SIN to MEL flight in September. Booked a couple months ago. The out leg to SIN was cancelled due to the scheduled 787-8 stuck in Bangkok for engineering reasons. The return SIN to MEL leg was five (5) hours late for unspecified engineering issues as customers were stuck in the departure gate area with limited announcements about if and when we would fly.

Earlier this year, a friend was stuck in Bangkok for 2 nights as a 787-8 couldn't fly. Waiting for parts to arrive coupled with the crew quickly running out of time allowed to be on duty to fly the aircraft.

YES - sh-t happens, but I am yet to strike an airline that when things go wrong that have a "plan B" and an associated communications plan to keep their customers informed.

 

[dajop]

Hi, and welcome to AFF. Lot of discussion about the Jetstar 787 delays in another thread: Jetstar Delays/Cancellations

Regarding MEL-SIN flights:
1) for the Sunday flights, it is not uncommon for these to be cancelled and passengers transferred onto Qantas. Whatever they tell you, my theory is they look at the total number of passengers on the two QF flights and one JQ flight, in both directions, and if they can accommodate all passengers in both directions on the two QF flights, they will be cancel the Jetstar flights. Just my theory.
2) for the flights doing SIN-MEL on Thursday evening, most likely due to delays in maintenance of the aircraft. That aircraft arrives in SIN on Wednesday evening, and is supposed to depart Thursday evening, and I presume it is on the ground for 24 hrs for maintenance. The single time I took that flight it departed SIN at 7am on Friday - due to maintenance requirements.

On this route the problem goes away in December, as they are discontinuing the twice weekly service then.

 

[Flying Fox]

I don't have enough data to comment but my only JQ 787-8 exerience was MEL-DPS which was 3hrs late.

Can I ask what happened with your travel with regards to JQ cancelling your MEL-SIN flight?

 

[TheInsider]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line. I can tell you front line staff are getting fed up with it.

Edit: Pretty much every day has some kind of major delay or cancellation on the QF/JQ international network. It really is a joke. If you want to get somewhere on time, don't fly QFi or JQi. Staff have never seen it this bad for a very long time.

 

[RooFlyer]

Welcome to AFF @cycler49 ; hope you hang around and contribute some more.

 

[levelnine]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line.

I get the impression that QF/JQ are sweating their assets way too hard. There is absolutely no margin in the schedules for more than planned maintenance. The second unplanned maintenance is required, the network falls over like a pack of cards, with cascading delays.

 

[Mattg]

I don't think the Jetstar 787-8s necessarily have more or less maintenance issues than other aircraft elsewhere. However, JQ really pushes the utilisation on their Dreamliner fleet to the max and there isn't enough slack in the system to cope with inevitable issues when they arise.

 

[DC3]

And welcome to AFF.

 

[Forg]

Wife & I flew to Tassie via Melbourne about ... I’d say about 6 months after JQ started using the 788’s internationally. I wanted to try a 788 out, and we both wanted to se the F lounge.

About a half-hour late going down, about 2hrs late on the way back.

Mind you, that hit-rate’s about average for my general JQ travels.

 

[jakeseven7]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line. I can tell you front line staff are getting fed up with it.

Edit: Pretty much every day has some kind of major delay or cancellation on the QF/JQ international network. It really is a joke. If you want to get somewhere on time, don't fly QFi or JQi. Staff have never seen it this bad for a very long time.

I think you will find all major airlines with large fleets have aircraft that become unserviceable, the larger the fleet the more likely in general. Gosh I love these sweeping rubbish statements on here sometimes!

 

[UP4014]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line. I can tell you front line staff are getting fed up with it.

Edit: Pretty much every day has some kind of major delay or cancellation on the QF/JQ international network. It really is a joke. If you want to get somewhere on time, don't fly QFi or JQi. Staff have never seen it this bad for a very long time.

The entire operation, wow.

Please give us some details, I see Melbournian's posts so he must be missing a lot problems.

 

[Max Samuels]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line. I can tell you front line staff are getting fed up with it.

Shhhhhhhhhh... there are QF shareholders that read this and will take it personally.

I do agree with you, however. I don't keep a little diary handy, and I have flown QF the most over the years, so my impression might be skewed.... however....

The WORST delays I have ever encountered were QF and/or JQ. In fact, I have had JQ cancel dom flights on me from OOL, send me a link to rebook, and then by the time I click on it, no seats left. The only option was the next day.... but instead I just got a train up to BNE and purchased a new ticket on VA.

I also remember once flying SYD-BKK (years ago), i got an SMS saying "your flight has been delayed 72 hrs. Please arrive at the airport 3 hours before check-in". Of course that didn't work, so I went to the airport and complained a lot and got put on Thai.

Then of course there was the 3 (or was it 4 days?) of delays on QF94 recently.

And then again in July when I flew to NRT on QF, the same flight the day before was cancelled entirely.

But other than that, no complaints....

 

[jakeseven7]

Shhhhhhhhhh... there are QF shareholders that read this and will take it personally.

I do agree with you, however. I don't keep a little diary handy, and I have flown QF the most over the years, so my impression might be skewed.... however....

The WORST delays I have ever encountered were QF and/or JQ. In fact, I have had JQ cancel dom flights on me from OOL, send me a link to rebook, and then by the time I click on it, no seats left. The only option was the next day.... but instead I just got a train up to BNE and purchased a new ticket on VA.

I also remember once flying SYD-BKK (years ago), i got an SMS saying "your flight has been delayed 72 hrs. Please arrive at the airport 3 hours before check-in". Of course that didn't work, so I went to the airport and complained a lot and got put on Thai.

Then of course there was the 3 (or was it 4 days?) of delays on QF94 recently.

And then again in July when I flew to NRT on QF, the same flight the day before was cancelled entirely.

But other than that, no complaints....

Wow what substantial data points

 

[Melburnian1]

The entire operation, wow.

Please give us some details, I see Melbournian's posts so he must be missing a lot problems.

BAM1748, I certainly miss many delays. I also only record those estimated or actual as half an hour or more, but the standard to measure an on time arrival is no more than 15 late at the gate, which is very generous for some short domestic flights but here we are talking international.

I won't repeat a lot that is said in the JQ delays and cancellations thread but AFFers MEL_Traveller and Quickstatus have questioned whether JQi has sufficient aircraft to operate its published international timetables. I don't know why anyone books on these, they are so unreliable. While I do not see all the delays it appears MEL is worst but SYD and CNS do not escape problems.

Mr Joyce ought to fix this rather than concentrating as he seems to on personal publicity of no interest to many.

 

[Melburnian1]

The entire QF group international operation is a lemon. Every day there is another broken aircraft somewhere along the line. I can tell you front line staff are getting fed up with it.

Edit: Pretty much every day has some kind of major delay or cancellation on the QF/JQ international network. It really is a joke. If you want to get somewhere on time, don't fly QFi or JQi. Staff have never seen it this bad for a very long time.

TheInsider I am not having a go at you, as sarcasm has been used to effect through the ages, but given it is hard to tell on the Internet, were you being serious in your points or just criticising AFFers who are negative towards JQ or QF, or both?

Unfotunately from the delays and cancellations Silvia and I compile, which are not exhaustive, your edited comment, whether or not sarcastic, is pretty much true. Yet operators like TG whose aircraft are away from their home base rarely have a cancellation or non weather related delay. Of course, I don't look at every flight but the sample size is large enough to draw that conclusion.

I would find it stressful being asked by 100 passengers why a plane was late, or cancelled, or wanting hotel accommodation pronto not in three hours.

 

[Scarlett]

Based on reading AFF posts for many years, I would tend to place more emphasis on what TheInsider has to say about QF (group) than most others.
Alan Joyce has made a lot of money...for Alan Joyce and other execs. He has not reinvested in QF, has sold off elements of the group to inflate results and seems to favour the orange cancer at every opportunity. Nice new seats and marketing spin (game-changing new Dreamliner...) are useless if your ageing fleet have maintenance issues or you don't have sufficient support elements for them due to endless cost cutting.

I want QF to be world leading. Lived experience suggests they are not, by quite some way. They are good but I think there is a lot of downside to the present position.

And then there's NELMVARSE*....but that's well and truely another story



*Never Ending Loss Making Virgin Australia Rock Show Experience

 

[Melburnian1]

While we may all suffer from survey reading fatigue, one of the Big 4 accounting firms asked a sample of our countrymen to rate customer (in airlines' case 'passenger') service experience. SQ came in first of 114 companies, QF 29 and VA 31. I assume it meant 'group' for each airline so JQ would be part of that. It is surprising VA ranked beneath QF but two places difference is not much of a gap.

Mr Joyce ought fix his deficient airlines.

 

[Quickstatus]

The(11) JQ 787-8 rego numbers are:
VH-VKA to VH-VKL (expect for VH-VKC)

Somes of the 787-8 routes have been culled or will be culled like the twice weekly MEL-CGO from Dec.

Might be time to rexamine the JQ 787 fleet to see if they are over committed

 

[jb747]

Rumour machine had it that part of the reason behind the revolving door Jetstar CEOs is that they get moved on as soon as they realise (and state) that Jetstar will never be profitable with wide bodied aircraft. Disagree with Alan, and bye. He most certainly favours it, as he started it under Dixon.

 

[Melburnian1]

Rumour machine had it that part of the reason behind the revolving door Jetstar CEOs is that they get moved on as soon as they realise (and state) that Jetstar will never be profitable with wide bodied aircraft. Disagree with Alan, and bye. He most certainly favours it, as he started it under Dixon.

Rumours may be correct but it is a little confusing, as has'nt JQ always in recent years been claimed to be solidly profitable? But we do not know how the QF group allocates its overheads.