Jetstar is not currently selling any seats on its flights between Australia and Denpasar for travel until 17 October 2022 – after the end of the school holidays. These seats were removed from sale more than a week ago and have not returned.
While some flights are likely fully booked due to the school holidays, it seems that Jetstar has also taken the decision not to sell any more seats on flights that aren’t yet fully booked, while the airline gets its long-haul operations back on track. In recent weeks, many Jetstar flights have been delayed or cancelled as multiple Boeing 787 aircraft have been out of service with mechanical issues.
At one point earlier this month, around five of Jetstar’s 11 Boeing 787-8 aircraft were out of service for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, causing disruptions across the airline’s international network. This has left many Jetstar passengers stranded overseas or scrambling to rebook their holidays on other airlines.
“Our fleet of 11 Boeing 787s have been involved in a number of unexpected events in recent weeks. This includes multiple lightning strikes, bird strikes and damage from debris on the runway. Combined with scheduled maintenance, this has led to a number of aircraft being unavailable,” Jetstar said.
“No airline wants to disrupt passengers’ plans, but when we have multiple unexpected events happening at the same time requiring engineering support, we may have to make unexpected schedule changes. This can mean delays or cancellations as a last resort. We understand how frustrating this can be and we apologise to all passengers affected by these changes.”
Jetstar uses Boeing 787s with Economy and Jetstar’s version of Business Class for its daily Sydney-Denpasar and Brisbane-Denpasar services, as well as its double-daily Melbourne-Denpasar route. All-Economy Airbus A320s are normally used for Jetstar’s flights from Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Cairns to Denpasar.
Over recent weeks, some Melbourne-Bali flights have been switched to brand new Airbus A321LRs which don’t have a Business Class cabin. Downgraded passengers have been offered compensation for the inconvenience.
As of yesterday, all but two of Jetstar’s 787s were back in service. The good news is that the airline says it expects “the final two to be back in service in the coming days”. But with a large backlog of passengers waiting for a seat on a flight home, it seems Jetstar has decided to prioritise assisting its passengers who already have tickets over selling more seats.
Meanwhile, there are still limited seats available for sale on most Qantas, Virgin Australia, Batik Air (formerly Malindo Air), Indonesia AirAsia and Garuda Indonesia flights between Australia and Bali over the coming weeks. Many flights on these airlines are also close to being sold out and airfares are expensive. But Batik Air seems to have a few more seats available for sale on its services from Melbourne and Brisbane, compared to other carriers.
Bali has traditionally been a very popular holiday destination for Australians. It seems tourists are now returning en-masse since Indonesia relaxed its COVID-19 border restrictions.
But Bali isn’t the only popular destination for Australians at the moment. Qantas currently has zero seats available for sale on any of its flights from London to Australia between now and 18 October 2022. All of Qantas’ remaining flights from Rome to Perth for this year (the seasonal route will end in a couple of weeks) are also completely booked out.
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