Thursday, October 4, 2012

Jetstar Blinded By The Light

Jetstar has a reputation for pissing passengers off.
Its first months of operations into NZ were marred by myriad mistakes. Complaints were commonplace. For a while, the no-frills Aussie airline was in danger of sinking under the weight of its own incompetence. It became a laughing stock of our skies and - when the only connection you could get was a Jetstar one - you learnt to not rely on it...
Suffer-a-jet?
That said, Jetstar worked hard to iron out its rough spots and seemed to have largely got its act together. However, last Sunday it was SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fucked Up) time!
Four Jetstar flights between Wellington and Auckland were delayed...because the airline forgot about daylight saving! The Sunday 8.15am flight out of the capital was an hour late while crew waited for its plane to arrive from Oz. Like every year since 1974 (!!!), NZ clocks went forward an hour on Sunday morning, but that wasn't factored into Jetstar's schedules. As a knock-on effect, three later flights on the route were delayed.
Passengers only found out when they got on the plane and were told the flight was delayed because of daylight saving - as if daylight saving was the problem. No, the problem was Jetstar's legendary incompetence! Though its scheduling is by computer, it would have taken the briefest of glimpses by a human to have spotted the error.
Jetstar Australia issued this written statement: "The flight departed Cairns on time and was flying over the Tasman Sea when NZ's time-zone switched to daylight saving which meant the aircraft was late arriving into Auckland. Once Australia changes to daylight saving this week, any anomalies for trans-Tasman services will be eliminated." Riiiiiigghhtt!! How could they have dropped the ball so badly?
Is it because Daylight Saving was a NZ invention?
Is it because they're Australian?
Or is it simply because they're Jetstar...!

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