Jetstar International is scrambling to defend its reputation after problems with two of its four A330 aircraft left 300 Australian passengers stuck in Honolulu for up to 48 hours.
As the last of the stranded passengers arrived in Australia yesterday afternoon on a scheduled Honolulu-Sydney flight, the low-cost Qantas offshoot argued that it had spent up to $1million trying to limit delays caused by the faults affecting half its fleet.
It said a review would investigate passenger complaints that they had been kept in limbo as they spent hours at the airport waiting for a flight home.
Jetstar’s problems began when a flight scheduled to leave Hawaii for Sydney on Thursday morning Honolulu time (Friday morning AEST) was cancelled because the plane due to fly the route — an incoming flight from Australia — did not arrive.
An avionics problem in one of the carrier’s Airbus A330s combined with crew rostering and curfew issues to prevent the plane leaving Sydney.
The airline eventually opted to book Sydney passengers waiting at Honolulu’s airport into a hotel and put them on a service to Melbourne early on Friday.
But bad turned to worse when the aircraft sent to operate the Melbourne flight suffered a 15-hour delay because of a faulty fuel gauge.
“We’ve had a good solid performance with our long-haul operations since November, and we just had one problem compounded on top of another,” a Jetstar spokesman said.
By: steve rowell - 18th April 2007 at 01:41
If I was in Hawaii, i’d be praying my plane was delayed 2 days :diablo:
You’ve got to remember Jetstar is a budget airline so the majority of those passengers are probably travelling on a shoe string budget… and a lot of them have probably cut it fine with their return to work date
By: Bmused55 - 17th April 2007 at 12:50
Not if you have no cash left to spend, no fresh clothes to change into and no where to stay you woudln’t 🙁
By: RingwaySam - 17th April 2007 at 12:25
If I was in Hawaii, i’d be praying my plane was delayed 2 days :diablo:
By: steve rowell - 17th April 2007 at 03:52
Qantas offshoot Jetstar is on the back foot again after two of its planes missed Sydney’s landing curfew on Sunday night, delaying passengers overnight and prompting the cancellation of an early-morning flight to Hamilton Island.
The incidents meant the airline, already defending delays on its international route that left 300 passengers stranded in Hawaii, had to accommodate travellers at hotels in Geelong and on the Gold Coast.
The problems began when a mechanical glitch on one of the airline’s Airbus A320 aircraft caused a delay that grew worse throughout Sunday.
The knock-on effect of the problem led to flights from Avalon airport, near Geelong, and the Gold Coast being cancelled because they were unable to reach Sydney before the city’s 11pm flight curfew.
The carrier applied for dispensation to break the curfew or to fly the Gold Coast plane to nearby Newcastle, but was refused by authorities. The delays meant a flight leaving Sydney for Hamilton Island at 6.55am yesterday had to be cancelled.
“We obviously had to put passengers and crew up overnight at our cost and move those aircraft this morning,” Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said yesterday. “One of the reactions from that was to have one of two Sydney-to-Hamilton Island, the first of our two services of the day, cancelled.
“We did call-outs to passengers last evening from about 9.30pm onwards because we knew we weren’t going to get one of the aircraft in, and we got in touch with over two-thirds of the passengers.”
By: Bmused55 - 16th April 2007 at 11:32
Should’ve bought Boeings earlier :diablo: :dev2:
Disclaimer: I’m kidding… ok!
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April 16, 2007 at 3:27 am