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Is there an Airline Ombudsman? Jetstar does it again!

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Jetstar still beats most South American airlines hands down for service

Of course, in terms of "scenery", the standard of stewardesses in Australia is no comparison with SA employees
 
Never flown Jetstar and don't ever intend to. Given the abundance of evidence about their quality of service (or lack thereof) its a bit naive to fly with them and then act all surprised and annoyed when it goes pear shaped imo.

If I flew with them I would set my expectations pretty low and rate not getting arrested and removed from the plane (as happened to the woman from Byron bay) as a reasonable outcome, and reaching the destination sometime within a year of the departure date, with or without luggage as a screaming success.

I'm no fan of Qantas either. Plenty of much better asian airlines for international travel.
 
lol @ above post!

I want peoples opinion, am I being petty or not?

I fly with Virgin on a weekly basis, am about to get my Gold Velocity (yay!). Anyway I was flying in from Kalgoorlie to Perth then Perth back to Adelaide a month or so ago. I went to go into the Virgin Blue Room but was told that the credit card payment facility was down - so they would only accept cash. Fine except I had no cash on me only my work credit card. I explained to the lady I needed to get in even just to charge my laptop so I can work on the plane back to Adelaide. She wouldnt allow me to enter unless I paid cash therefore I was turned around and had to go sit in the crap waiting area in Perth Airport for 2 hours.

I was tired, it was a long day, I am a Silver Velocity member and thought I would have got better service then this, they could of at least let me in to charge my laptop or written down my details and charged my credit card later.

Anyway so I sent an email complaint off to Virgin and waited the 21 days for a reply - NO RESPONSE. So I have since sent another email complaint off, still no response 2 weeks later.

Do Virgin even check their email complaints?
Am I being petty? Should I just move on?
I really like Virgin but the complete lack of customer service here has really dissapointed me.

comments?
 
Yeah well.... I found this thread and forum because I am looking for an ombudsman too. After years of domestic travel, and about 40 - 50 flights so far this year, I have tried all but Tiger (can't bring myself to take the risk). I went away from Qantas a while ago because the price difference was ridiculous. I found Virgin were the friendliest and most pleasant to fly with, but as Qantas got more into the ball park with pricing I went back to them.
What a releif! How much better and more enjoyable and worthwhile the booking is with Qantas!!! Worth the extra dollars big time - service for one thing. And you get plenty of perks if you travel often. They really do reward loyalty.
Unfortunatley sometimes I still go for the Jetstar super low prices, against my better judgement. I paid for a flight the other day (direct credit, paid instantly), turned up at the airport for my flight, and was told that my booking had failed and I had to purchase another (more expensive flight). I pulled out my laptop and showed them the booking and the money transferred from my account to them. The gate keeper rang head office to tell them that I had proved I had paid, and there was room on the flight. They said too bad! Pay again and the previous payment will "drop out of the system and be returned to me" Pigs may fly! They did not let me on the flight.
Anyway, they refused to talk to me, I cannot conatct them, I have emailed the (not) service department they told me too, I have had no reply and they have kept my money.

Ombudsman anybody??
How the hell do we get our money back off these guys, or are they insolvent?

Freestyler
 
Had a nightmare experience with Tiger on the weekend. Will be makking a compliant to several departments, shame there is no centralised one
 
prawn_86 said:
Had a nightmare experience with Tiger on the weekend. Will be makking a compliant to several departments, shame there is no centralised one
Click to expand...

Sorry about your problem. When I first moved I flew them because they were relatively cheap. Problems were numerous and in the end I found spending an extra $30 went a lot toward happiness.

Problems encountered include:
- Delays by a minimum of 30 mins to up to 3 hours
- Plane 'unexpectedly' dropping about 3000ft in the air with no explanation during the flight or after
- Seats that didn't recline/cramped room
- Similar problem with cancelled flight/next day service

The problem with Tiger is that they run their routes using about 2 planes between cities. One turnaround behind schedule and they are history.

I've only had one laughable experience - the hostess gave me her number when exiting!
 
Beware of flying in anything that bites...

Based on comments I've heard from many others, if you're bitten by Tiger then there's basically nothing you'll be able to do about it. It's unlikely that you'll even be able to speak to anyone.
 

Ooops! I mean once the plane ROSE to 3000ft it dropped - not dropped 3000ft...that would be a lot worse!
 
JTLP said:
Ooops! I mean once the plane ROSE to 3000ft it dropped - not dropped 3000ft...that would be a lot worse!
Click to expand...

You may just find this was a sudden level off. With noise abatement departures the aircraft are required to climb pretty quickly to reduce the impact of noise on the "locals". If you get a fairly low level off after takeoff from ATC (eg coming out of Sydney going over the water) you have to go from a steep climb at a pretty high power setting to a level cruise at a slow speed (you cant overspeed the flaps). This can feel like the aircraft suddenly starts descending particluarly if you are also in the process of retracting flaps. It's a pretty normal thing and the pilots probably didn't think it was worth mentioning. Pilots tend to forget that the people behind the door dont experience these things everyday and are a bit nervous about how this metal tube stays in the air! A good and timely PA can save passengers a lot of sweat and bad publicity.

malachii
 

An example of a simple departure from Sydney that places a passenger PA quite a few step down from being a priority.
 

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Been a while since I've done the Deena 4 but you can see that the inital climb out is at a minimum of 4.7% for the first 1000 feet and then you are allowed to drop to 3.3%. From memory on a busy afternoon ATC will usually give you a level out at 5000' until established on the radial (someone more current can correct me on this). This just means that you are working like a one armed paper hanger and if your a little slow on engaging the auto pilot you may have to do the level out yourself which can cause some "interesting G" feelings!

I wouldn't particularly call this one simple.

malachii
 
My folks were trying to fly up to Cairns from Brisbane on a Sunday. They left the house at 6, plane at 8 and then get above Cairns by 10.

Long story short after several attempts to land they fly them back to Townsville. Since it is a military base they cannot leave the plane and they have no food/drink on board as it is not a full service flight. They eventually managed to find some muffins and fly back to Cairns for another attempt.

They cannot land again so they fly them back to another airport and unload. My dad finds a few people to share a car rental and drive up to cairns to collect his car then another 2 hours back to the house. My mum decides to fly home without lining up for the refund as the line would have been over an hour long (whole plane trying to organise how to get up there as work on Monday etc).

She did finally get a ticket transfer after going through 3 people on the phone.

It took me 13 hours to fly to LA last year while it took my mum, from leaving the house until returning, 12 hours to fly to cairns and never actually arrive : ).

Never again jetstar
 
You cant really blame Jetstar for not landing at Cairns (assuming it was due weather). The alternative is to risk life and limb just to land - I dont think anyone would want that. As for catering - we all know the cheapy airlines dont carry full service. They cant carry an extra tonne of food "just in case". Even full service airlines dont do this.

The problem is that airlines get through the vast majority of the time. When they miss one - everyone complains but if an airliner continued and there was an incident - then everyone complains. What do you do???

malachii
 
malachii said:
You cant really blame Jetstar for not landing at Cairns (assuming it was due weather). The alternative is to risk life and limb just to land
malachii
Click to expand...

Agree entirely.
The Russian and Indonesian incidents are two relatively recent examples of that doomed practice.

Remember that if a crew fly an aircraft to a destination then they actually want to land, all airport approaches however have a predetermined stoploss point and the crew's only decision is where to go to once that point is reached.
 

Malachii I like the cut of your jib and you seem pretty on the ball with your assessment...it's just the Crew's faces, the pretty bumpy drop and the plane not really feeling like it was on trajectory made for some funny stomach feelings!

I guess i'll cut Tiger a break for that one - the rest of the Airline is hopeless...
 
Exactly. As someone who (for a career break) spent 18 months as air crew, I can assure you the crew absolutely want to stick to the schedule. If they are substantially delayed, they will run out of flying hours, and will be forced into an unscheduled overnight. They'd much rather get home. It's not just passengers whose arrangements are upset.

I understand the frustration and inconvenience re lack of landing in the Jetstar incident, but think it's unfair to criticise the airline for this.
Would you rather the landing had been attempted, quite possibly risking the lives of all on board?
 
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