Andrew

This is just over a year ago. I only just found your site.
My wife and I were travelling to Bali on September 4th at 9.15am with Jetstar.
We wanted to arrive early afternoon giving us an extra day in Bali rather than
fly at 5.30pm and arrive late evening, so paid more for the fares.
We had also organised to meet a friend for dinner that night.
(Jetstar representative recommended – verbally – that we be “at the gate” 1 hour before the scheduled flight, once she had assisted us with the baggage.)
We had breakfast after dropping our bags off and with 70 minutes to departure time
made our way out to go through immigration as advised by Jetstar representative.
We were told by an airport official to join the queue to go through the international departure which snaked out to the left of the doors, around the baggage drop off and out past PJ O’Briens (around 100-120 metres long).
The excuses that we were given by airport staff for the queue were:
Excuse 1 – immigration staff had called in sick.
Excuse 2 - There was a system failure.
Excuse 3 - It was a snap stop work meeting.
It seems the latter was the truth.
It took us 40 minutes just to get to the International doors.
Once we had snaked through to the front of the scanning area everything stopped, an official in uniform advised everyone that immigration was full, so we had to wait in line. I looked up at the overhead screens. It stated your flights will strictly close 10 minutes before departure. It was now 8.55am and we now had 10 minutes before our flight was due to close.
Many people were worried with some crying as they were concerned about missing their flights.
Meanwhile staff from United Airlines and Air Asia were calling people out and rushing them through.
No representative from Jetstar came looking for their passengers.
I was about to question a lady official (in uniform) when she shouted out to the entire crowd.
“Please don’t panic, your flights will not leave without you, I guarantee that we will get you on your planes”.
Very comforting, however, when we arrived at our boarding gate at 9.25am along with
4 other people, the gate was closed.
Eventually a Jetstar representative (Nathan) arrived and blamed us for holding up “His plane”.
He offloaded our baggage, then brought us back through immigration.
Initially he told us to purchase another ticket.
Then he advised that for $75.00 each he could transfer us to another flight.
Then after speaking with immigration officials his entire demeanour changed and he tried to get us a flight through Adelaide and Perth – This did not eventuate.
Obviously there was a lack of communication.
Nathan eventually transferred us to the 5.30pm flight at no further cost to us.
Meaning we had an eight hour wait at the airport for the next flight.
I've complained to Jetfilth, Immigration Dept, I even sent a complaint to the Ombudsman, no care or liability. Jetfilth offered us $100 each to be used by 3 months for "Bringing it to their attention" I told them that I'd never fly with them again and true to my word flew with Garuda this year. The cost wasn't much more. Full service, efficient and spot on time.