This was published 1 year ago
Jetstar Auckland - Sydney: passengers made to return duty-free after sudden flight cancellation
By Jonathan Killick
Jetstar passengers made to return duty-free after sudden flight cancellation Credit:
A UK holidaymaker who scrambled to reorganise flights after a last-minute cancellation by Jetstar Airways said having to return duty-free shopping added insult to injury for stranded passengers.
Molly, who asked that her surname not be used, had already made it through security at Auckland International Airport when a timetable sign said her flight had been cancelled, 40 minutes before it was scheduled to take off.
In the absence of information, and being stuck on the wrong side of security gates, Molly walked around looking for other lost passengers.
Passengers weren’t informed whether they would be provided assistance, but they were told they had to return their duty-free goods.Credit: Alamy
By the time Molly had tracked down the gate where the flight was supposed to have left from, two Jetstar staff, one of them a trainee, were left to deal with 180 displaced passengers.
"Staff walked the passengers back through security, but it was clear they didn't know what they were doing," Molly said.
However, the staff did make each of the passengers return their duty-free shopping back from where they purchased it before they were allowed to leave the airport, she said.
A spokesperson for Jetstar said that it was a government requirement that duty-free goods be returned, but passengers could repurchase their goods prior to their rescheduled flight.
They said a text and email message had gone out to passengers two hours before the flight, which also explained what assistance they would be entitled to.
"No airline wants to see customers disrupted, and we do everything we can to avoid delays and cancellations," they said.
However, Molly said that message was not received by passengers until an hour after the flight had been cancelled, and only some passengers received it.
She said that a guard was waiting on the other side of the security gates and reprimanded Jetstar staff for not notifying security that the flight had been cancelled.
Passengers would not have been allowed through had security been told, she said.
Molly was able to move her connecting flights with United Airlines from Sydney free of charge, but heard from others who spent thousands to rebook.
Staff told Molly that the next Jetsar flight she could catch would not be until the next morning. She then spent an hour and a half on the phone with the airline trying to organise the new flight. She was provided with a hotel room in Ellerslie and a food voucher.
Molly said her month-long visit to New Zealand from the United Kingdom had been plain sailing until the last-minute hitch.
"I definitely would have paid the extra $150 for another airline to have saved myself the hassle."
See also: Surprise as Qantas surges into top five as world's best airline named
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