JetStar, a budget airline owned by Australia’s QANTAS Group, has been ranked as the third most unpopular airline in the world, according to a recent survey conducted by currency exchange service S Money.
The survey analysed thousands of tweets using an “AI sentiment tool” to determine the most loved and hated airlines worldwide, based on customer opinions expressed on Twitter. JetStar received the third-highest percentage of negative tweets, with 68% of tweets about the airline deemed negative. Other low-cost carriers like Go First and TAP Air Portugal also made the list.
The most loved airline has not been reported by S Money.
In the past week, passengers on flight JQ64 from Ho Chi Minh City to Melbourne were left in limbo for hours early on Tuesday after a problem with one of the plane’s doors meant it could not take off. Earlier in the week, furious passengers were stuck on the tarmac in Alice Springs for seven hours. Passengers were confined to the grounded Boeing 787 plane last Sunday with limited food and no in-flight entertainment, complaining they were not allowed to disembark for fresh air.
(As Alice Springs Airport is not an international airport, it had no immigration or customs staff to process internationally arriving passengers)
The Jetstar flight had taken off from Bangkok heading for Melbourne, but it was diverted to Australia’s Northern Territory due to a medical emergency on board.
An electrical fault was detected forcing the plane to wait for a replacement part.
On Wednesday evening, Phuket-GO received this information from a reader…
According to Flight Radar 24 app, the following Dreamliner flights have been cancelled tomorrow (Thursday)
• JQ8 from Singapore to Melbourne
• JQ18 from Phuket to Melbourne
• JQ30 from Bangkok to Melbourne
• JQ38 from Denpasar to Sydney was cancelled on Thursday morning
There were also passengers bumped from a JetStar flight from Hawaii back to Australia, and rescheduled days later, because of a ‘mechanical problem’. Only to find out later that they had been rescheduled because of an another flight being overbooked or needing to reschedule other passenger. JetStar lied to the customers about the situation, only to later be caught out.
The problems follow over two months of regular delays, rescheduling and cancellations during Q4 last year with just about every service from Australian ports to Asian ports affected. The same fleet of Boeing 787s was affected. At the time the airline blamed a shortage of parts and maintenance staff for repairs
The S Money survey indicated that customers were particularly frustrated with JetStar’s sub-optimal service, including grounded or cancelled flights, lost luggage, and long delays. Negative tweets frequently concerned issues of lost and damaged luggage.
The report implies that JetStar needs significant improvements to enhance its reputation among customers.
Furthermore, JetStar topped the list of the most-hated Australian airlines, surpassing even parent-company QANTAS, with 67.5% negative tweets.
The once-loved Australian national airline, QANTAS, has become another victim to a barrage of negative social media publicity over the past year with a string of incidents, strikes, cancellations, alleged price-gouging and big pay cheques to senior staff, tarnishing the ‘flying kangaroos’ formerly untarnished reputation.
Recent incidents of technical problems with the airline’s 787 Dreamliners have left more passengers stranded, causing additional frustration.
JetStar’s unreliability is reflected in the latest BITRE data released by the Department of Transport. The data shows that JetStar consistently underperforms when it comes to getting passengers to their destinations on time, with on-time arrivals at 65.4%, compared to an industry average of 76.7%. In January, JetStar also had the highest rate of flight cancellations at 7.3%, compared to an industry average of 3.1%.
JetStar flies almost daily into Phuket, Bangkok, as well as flights into Thailand via Singapore.
SOURCE: S Money
