JetStar glitch leaves 300 stranded for 2 days

[Keith T 2]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21556635-421,00.html

 

JetStar glitch leaves 300 stranded for two days

 

By Adam Harvey

April 15, 2007 01:00am

 

 

ALMOST 300 Australian tourists were stranded at Honolulu airport for two days after a Jetstar plane broke down.

 

The budget-price airline angered passengers by refusing to organise a replacement aircraft.

 

Instead, they spent 48 hours trying to repair the jet's fuel system.

 

"We've spent two days in the airport being kept in limbo whilst the airline was trying to fix a problem that we didn't know existed or not," passenger Kim Auswild, from Bellevue Hill, said.

 

Jetstar said it had been unable to charter another aircraft or find seats for the stranded passengers.

 

The Hawaii debacle is a disaster for the low-fare airline's bid to be treated as a serious international carrier since it launched its overseas services in November.

 

The Airbus A330 aircraft was to have left Honolulu for Sydney early on Friday.

 

It was scheduled to return to Honolulu yesterday to pick up another load of passengers bound for Melbourne.

 

Rather than organising a replacement aircraft, Jetstar tried to fix problems first described to passengers as a "frayed seat belt" and later upgraded to a "fuel system problem".

 

Last night, Jetstar said the problem was a faulty fuel gauge.

 

Melbourne passenger Braham Shnider was furious that Jetstar representatives had failed to speak to the stranded tourists.

 

"It's been left up to the staff at the Qantas lounge, and they know almost as little as we do," Mr Shnider said. He was travelling with his wife, two 11-year-olds and a one-year-old daughter.

 

"It's the worst experience in customer service that I've ever come across."

 

Jetstar confirmed it had contracted out its Hawaii ground handling to a local agent.

 

A Jetstar spokeswoman said yesterday the problem was complicated and time-consuming because Qantas engineers had to drain and refill about 13,000 litres of fuel to test whether the gauge was working properly.

 

"It's not a situation we ever wanted to happen, but we've got teams working overtime to try to fix the problem," she said.

 

The Hawaii fiasco is a disaster for the low-fare airline's bid to be treated as a serious international carrier since it launched its overseas services in November.

 

It comes less than two months after it was revealed full-fare Qantas passengers were being bumped on to Jetstar flights.

 

Some of the stranded Hawaii passengers had expected to be flying with Qantas.

 

They were supposed to leave Hawaii early on Friday, but the airline kept a planeload of Sydney-bound passengers at the airport for 12 hours before finally taking them to a Honolulu hotel.

 

Passengers were told at 11pm they had to be back at the airport by 7am yesterday to join flight JQ2 to Melbourne, but on arrival were told plane was not ready.

 

Both Sydney and Melbourne passengers were then taken to another airport hotel.

 

"We've been at the airport for two days straight and they haven't told us anything," Brianna Pratt, from Vaucluse, said.

 

The public-relations disaster was made even worse when a busload of elderly passengers and children were dropped at the wrong terminal yesterday morning and had to walk back to the correct departure gate.

Edited April 14, 2007 by Keith T

[Tony 1]

The public-relations disaster was made even worse when a busload of elderly passengers and children were dropped at the wrong terminal yesterday morning and had to walk back to the correct departure gate.

Eek! But was the bus operated by Jetstar?

[Mushrif A 3]

Eek! But was the bus operated by Jetstar?

 

Unlikely, but they organised it and should ensure that the bus stops at the right place.

 

[Keith T 2]

Eek! But was the bus operated by Jetstar?

 

They contract out their Honolulu operations to a ground handling agent. But that's no excuse as a contracted agent represents the airline and at the end of the day the airline is to be held accountable.

[Peter Smith 1]

4 a/c in their fleet, -EBA goes u/s...there goes 25% of their fleet without thinking, of course its going to cause problems. It happens to all new upstarts running on a skeleton fleet!

 

They are a low cost carrier, you get what you pay for and until people realise this, they're gonna bash these carriers to bits in the media. It pisses me off something cronic!!!

 

I want to ask all 300 people one thing, would you rather be stuck in HNL for 2 days (oh god, poor them, stuck in Honolulu...what a pain that must be :rolleyes: ) or attempt to fly back to Australia hoping you have enough fuel....hmmm, let me see.

 

And on top of that, whenever a plane goes u/s and the pax are not told down the wire what the problem, someone always pipes up to the media that they weren't told the truth, and the media takes that inch and runs 2 miles!

 

There is nothing in the regular media now-a-days in regards to aviation that is 100% credible.

 

Keith, bit harsh in your topic title to compare AK to JQ international...like comparing the Royal Aero Club with Qantas, they're completely different.

Edited April 15, 2007 by Liam Gibb

[Keith T 2]

Being an LCC doesn't absolve an airline of its obligation to treat pax decently. It would seem JQ not only has a skeletal fleet - I would describe the entire operation, particularly customer service and finance operations, as skeletal. Alas welcome to the future of Qantas.

 

I don't care what happens from a technical point of view - JQ was obliged to pass its pax to any carrier that would transport them to Australia but it chose not to. And please don't come up with the excuse that seats between HNL and Australia are scarce - they aren't. This obligation is mandated by Rule 240 (because JQ was departing from US territory) and applies equally to every carrier, LCC or full service and overrides any T&Cs of the carriers concerned. And I would agree with you, Liam, that people who fly LCC largely don't know what they're in for. I would go further to assert that these naive pax do not know they have rights against the carrier. Such is the nature of the LCC operation - propped up by pax who do not know their rights.

 

And I also note that lots of people were bumped on to the JQ services by QF when the latter replaced some of its flights to HNL with the former.

 

To further debunk the 'you pay for what you get' mantra - what about people who pay for Jetflex or Star Class fares? These fares are often comparable or more expensive than fares with identical conditions on full service carriers like BA or SQ.

 

For instance:

SYD-BKK-SYD, flexi Star Class fare on JQ: AUD1923, including tax and fuel fines

SYD-BKK-SYD, flexi World Traveler's Plus fare on BA, AUD1920, including tax and fuel fines

 

So if the adage 'you pay for what you get' holds here - why would Star Class pax (for that matter, Jetflex pax) on JQ expect anything less on JQ than they'd expect of a full service airline like BA?

 

The fare you pay only determines your flexibility with the fare, and the level of service you expect onboard. But it does not wipe out your rights as a consumer to be transported from A to B in the most expedient manner. There is a big difference between whining about not getting a blanket for free or not being allowed to check in after the 30 min cut off on JQ (and yes that does piss me off) and a legit complaint RE being abandoned in HNL.

 

There is nothing in the regular media now-a-days in regards to aviation that is 100% credible.

 

Makes for a great story.

 

Keith, bit harsh in your topic title to compare AK to JQ international...like comparing the Royal Aero Club with Qantas, they're completely different.

 

You wouldn't deny that they're both LCCs would you?

Edited April 15, 2007 by Keith T

[Peter Smith 1]

Keith, while I don't dispute anything you said, and yes AK and JQ are both LCC's, but operate on completely different path to one another. AK also happens to have twice the fleet of JQ.

 

The original 15hr delay does not warrant any airline, whether all premium class or LCC to pass on their pax to other carriers, and while seats on the HNL-oz route are not scarce, their availabilty at short notice generally is. JQ ops the largest a/c on this route, all other services are ops by 763.

 

not being allowed to check in after the 30 min cut off on JQ (and yes that does piss me off)

come work at the airport, realise the logistics behind the scene's to get pax bags (especially international) beyond the 30mins cut off point to the aircraft, without being forced to stockpile masses of bags in hold 5. There is such a thing as trim, too much weight down the back can throw this off, particularly on fully loaded flights where you operate barely within the envelope.

 

Keith, always a pleasure having a debate with you!

[Keith T 2]

I've successfully enforced rule 240 when faced with a 7 hr delay. No prior notice, only found out when I showed up at Boston Logan. It was a domestic flight however, but didn't stop the UA agent from trying to wriggle out of it. In the end she had no choice but to issue me an FIM anyhow.

 

come work at the airport, realise the logistics behind the scene's to get pax bags (especially international) beyond the 30mins cut off point to the aircraft, without being forced to stockpile masses of bags in hold 5. There is such a thing as trim, too much weight down the back can throw this off, particularly on fully loaded flights where you operate barely within the envelope.

 

I was actually referring to pax whining about not being able to check in that pisses me off, not the actual inability of checking in. Glad to see we're actually in agreement.

 

Thankfully I've never been faced with that situation - to me turning up early = more champagne in the lounge. Except once or twice when work ended late but I still managed to turn up in good time.

 

Pleasure's all mine, mate.

Edited April 16, 2007 by Keith T