On August 23rd, the ground crew doing the boarding was highly unprofessional and incompetent for a flight from Penang to Singapore. We were told that the flight was fully booked and only 1 piece of carry-on luggage was allowed. This is fine if the definition of what constitutes a carry-on is clearly defined and enforced. In our case, we had a normal cabin trolley, a small bag carrying a medical device, a ventilator for sleep apnea, and a sling pouch bag where I put my wallet, passport, boarding passes, eye-drop and envelopes from hotel/rental car. For perspective, this pouch bag is smaller than DIN A4 paper and certainly smaller than the purses or bags of the women that were boarding. We were told we had to give up one of the pieces to be checked in as regular baggage. There were no way to reason with the agent at the gate as I explained that the small medical device bag and the sling pouch bag has never been considered as carry-on luggage allowance in all my travels. We also pointed out that many other passengers were boarding the plane in the meantime with cabin trolleys that are 1.5 times larger than mine and by his definition with 3-4 pieces of carry-ons without any issues. To avoid further embarrassment and to demonstrate how asinine his behavior was, I gave up my small medical device bag. This small medical device bag and the sling pouch bag would have fitted comfortably under the front seat and provide sufficient leg room for me to stretch. When the plane was fully boarded, we found out that there were sufficient overhead space that were empty. I wonder if the ground crew is trained to generate income for the airline so that the passengers will pay extra for check-in baggage or carry-ons. In our case, it seems that they may be lying as well as there was sufficient overhead space for carry-ons.
To add insult to injury, they lost the medical device bag that was taken at the gate. When I contacted their consumer complaints department, they were very courteous with insincere (my take) platitudes and gave me a phone number to call at my expense for a problem created by them since that bag should not have been taken at the gate. I told them they were not helpful. The problem I have with the consumer complaints department is that they don't owned the problem and try to resolve it, but rather shift the problem away. Never again Jetstar! They are simply the pits