Theme Song: And I’ll never fly Jetstar Again
(JQ15 Sep 30 2011)
And I’ll never fly Jetstar again,
Though they offer me one free trip in ten
The fares may seem cheap,
But non-dollar costs are so steep,
I’ll never fly Jetstar again.
We stood in the queue for our flight
Some had got up at 3.00 in the night
But we stood in that queue
With nothing to do
For hours with no end in sight
They refused all information requests
And treated us like cattle or pests
Other planes came and left
But we stood bereft
And the staff might as well have been deaf.
Some say there was a shortage of crew
But Jetstar knew exactly what to do
Rather than incur additional cost
They told us passengers to get lost
And left us adrift in that queue
Two police who appeared one might guess
Had been summoned to avert any protest
Near the counter they passed
Protecting the staff
From any signs of passenger unrest
Five hours we waited before,
They told us what they had in store
No chance to fly today
You had better start to pray
That we might fly you in a day or more.
A Google search for those who maintain
They will “never fly Jetstar again”
Shows we’re not alone
There are many who now intone
They will never fly Jetstar again
So if you are thinking again,
Of the bargain flight you might attain,
Remember this tale
Of those who without fail
Will never never fly Jetstar again
And if you hanker to fly overseas on a jet
But this tale you should happen to forget
Then after the pain
You can join our refrain
And never ever fly Jetstar again.
Part 2. Flight JQ15: Cairns to Oska (Japan) 29 September 2011. Background
The key point about this mess was the contemptuous attitude of the company to passengers. This greatly exacerbated the distress of passengers who were waiting for hours with no information about what was happening, why they were waiting, and what their options might be. The staff culture of ‘give em the mushroom treatment’ as opposed to timely information seemed deeply ingrained.
Said one staff member (on the sales desk) when approached politely by one passenger: “I am not going to answer your questions. I am too busy.” This was after hours of waiting and before the passenger had actually asked a question.
As passengers stood in their queue like cattle in a holding yard other large queues of passengers were processed for other later flights from the same counter. We initially stood for over an hour in this way just to be told that we would ‘need to wait a bit’. One flight being processed for several hours was to Tokyo, which just might have provided an opportunity for passengers with urgent appointments the next day (they could have flown to Tokyo, then taken a bullet train to Osaka). Ironically I, who had urgent appointments in Kyoto the next day, later discovered he had been rebooked on the Tokyo flight which would have got him there, but since staff rebuffed approaches by passengers to find out such information, I missed that opportunity.
The spread of disinformation was exacerbated by Jetstar management. The counter continued to show the flight number but approaches were refused. After several hours one passenger (a policeman) managed after being placed on hold for twenty minutes to get through by phone to Jetstar HQ. He was told the flight would be going and had only been delayed for an hour: this despite the fact it was showing as cancelled on the monitor. Because of this (mis)information I dropped an alternative booking with another airline I had been trying to make.
It would have been so easy for the company to have made some announcements to the stranded passengers and helped us consider our options. But nothing was done for hours and by the time they were prepared to talk to us, most of the options had disappeared.
The external story from Jetstar management as relayed by customs and other officials was a mix of spin. Passengers were said to have been warned in sms messages about the cancellation – but neither I, nor any passengers I spoke to, had got such a message. Passengers were said to have been offered the opportunity to go on the Tokyo flight. But of course, there was no communication of options.
After standing in queues for hours, with no opportunity to buy a sandwich or even water, around 3.00 pm the company finally made arrangements for various revised flights the next day that would get most of us to our destination a day late. In relation to myself this meant that I had missed being able to present the paper at the conference which was the central reason for my trip. The $100 voucher and overnight hotel accommodation was no real compensation for a ruined trip with its purpose destroyed. For others who had thought that Jetstar might be a reasonable way to meet serious transport needs, the outcome was similarly distressing.
Was it just a bad hair day for Jetstar? I suspect not. A search on Google shows that there are many similar examples, and much concern about the lack of customer orientation in the culture of Jetstar. As we discovered, this can have pernicious implications, especially when something goes wrong.
Part 3. Legal Redress and a Class Action?
My preliminary legal advice is that I probably have an action against Jetstar under the Australian Consumer Law for misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to the misinformation provided by the company which had the effect of denying me options of travel I could have exercised. I should be entitled to non-pecuniary loss for losing the opportunity to give the paper which was the purpose of the trip. There are precedents with holiday cases. There are various options for where the action could be taken but one venue would be the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). However as accounts from this website appear to mean that my experience may be quite standard for Jetstar there is also the possibility that we may all wish to contemplate of a class action. There are legal firms which specialise in this (currently taking on the banks for example) and proceed on the basis of a no-win, no-pay basis.