Flight 4: JQ827
Route: Brisbane to Sydney
Aircraft: VH-VGU (Airbus A320)
Seat: 10C
Scheduled departure time: 19:40 (Actual: 19:50)
Scheduled arrival time: 22:15 (Actual: 22:18)
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My last flight for the day was the final Jetstar service back to Sydney. The flight was called for boarding around 7.15pm in the lounge, but boarding did not get underway until about 7.35pm (5 minutes before scheduled departure).
Boarding was a shambles. The ladies scanning the boarding passes were chatting amongst themselves, and completely ignored the passengers they were boarding.
The boarding queue was all over the place, yet nobody seemed to be taking charge of the situation.
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I ended up in 10C, an aisle seat. When I checked in, there was no mention of my allocated seat. In order to choose a seat, I would have had to pay $5.50. I chose to risk not paying the fee and luckily didn't end up in a middle seat...
A final legroom shot:
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Yes, that's a Dan Murphy's catalogue in the seat pocket. I'm fairly confident that the legroom on this flight was the worst of the day.
When I sat down I noticed that my seat neighbour, an elderly woman, seemed quite distressed. She told me that she had recently had surgery and was barely able to walk. The ground crew in Brisbane had forced her to walk down the stairs onto the tarmac and then up another flight of stairs onto the plane. She seemed to be in a fair amount of pain as a result.
The lady explained that she had been taken to the boarding gate in a wheelchair. But when it came time to board, she was abruptly informed by the ground staff that they couldn't provide assistance to her as they were "already boarding two wheelchair passengers". Apparently it is Jetstar policy to only help two wheelchair passengers per flight. It seems the ground staff were quite rude about the whole thing too (and based on what I observed during boarding, I'm not surprised).
Reagan, the cabin manager, noticed what was going on when the lady got to the foot of the aircraft, and rushed outside to give the ground staff an earful. After we took off, Reagan came to speak to the passenger again several times. She explained what happened (I heard this explanation, so can verify that what the lady told me is true) and apologised profusely. She was scathing towards the ground staff and also promised to take the matter up with management. I felt that this apology was genuine and that she really wanted to make amends. But this incident really should not have happened in the first place.
Once onboard, the flight was otherwise fine and uneventful. I didn't buy anything to eat, but from past experience I think that I actually prefer Tiger's in-flight menu. Jetstar's range is a bit more limited and I believe slightly more expensive.
Overall, the flight was okay. The cabin crew were very good, but as a low-cost airline there was again no entertainment and the legroom was pretty poor.
I'm disappointed with the way my seat neighbour was treated. I would expect any airline to be more forthcoming in providing assistance to passengers that obviously need it. And if for some reason they can't provide assistance, rudely fobbing off the customer is not the correct way to deal with the situation...
