We arrived for our flight at Auckland at 6am for a 7am flight. As we went to board the plane we were told we were being checked out through customs- with no explanation as to what was happening! As we entered through security doors a young child was locked on the other side from her parents. The parents were told by Jetstar staff to "shut up" three times as they tried to get staff to release the door to get their child. We could not find any staff to direct us out of customs and back to the Jetstar terminal. When we finally found our way someone ran out to hand the que a letter stating our flight had been cancelled. We waited in that que for 4 hrs to find out what was going on- with a 2 year old & 3 year old (not fun!). No managers came out to explain what was going on, no food/drink vochures- nothing! When I finally got to the front of the que after 4 hrs I was greeted by a team leader who told me "he had to go" and never returned. We were promised flights back home 2 days later which was of no help to us. Eventually some of us got on a flight to Brisbane, with no promise of a connecting flight back to Melbourne (which we were eventually promised).
As we went to board our next flight to Brisbane we noticed the times were not alligning with what Jetstar had given us. Another Jetstar mistake- we were not booked into the flight. One man's flight was swapped to Sydney without his knowledge. Once again we were told to move aside as we were "not the priority" at the time, awful customer service. Another hour spent in a que to sort out this mistake.
Once we finally arrived at Brisbane we were promised a connecting flight back to Melbourne. Once we got to Brisbane we actually arrived at the Gold Coast and everyone was told to get on a bus. We were told our flight was cancelled again. By this stage and 20 hrs of non stop travelling I was not impressed, they went back and checked their lists and our flight was not cancelled, another mistake. By this stage we were all exhusted but we were to join another long que for our next flight. Eventually after almost 24 hrs travel we were home. This should have been a 4 hr flight!
I made a complaint about this service to Jetstar and a month later they contacted me back, insisting I travelled to Osaka and not New Zealand! They gave me personal details of another person who they had muddled up complaints with. I could not follow up any of my concerns with customer service as they were based in Manilla and would only respond to email.
What did we receive? My kids got a crappy Jetstar toy plane that fell apart as they took it out of the box...and $100 travel vochure. There is no way we will ever travel with this airline again!!
On another note we met some lovely people whilst we waited in those ques 9thanks for the laughs and for trying to entertain my kids)
Cancelled flight, terrible customer service, never fly with you again Jetstar!
International
New Zealand-Auckland
Australia-Melbourne - Tullamarine