Being a frequent flyer i’ve been following with interest the introduction of Jetstar to the New Zealand market. I don’t think i’m being libellous in saying it hasn’t got off to the best start. The most common complaints have been the strict adherence to the 30 minute pre-flight cut off time, bad customer service in handling the cut-off time, lost luggage, lateness, rescheduling and the inability to land in visually difficult conditions.

Is it fair enough for customers to criticise Jetstar? Are they right?

Let’s examine the criticisms:

1. Strictly applying the 30 minute deadline – Domestic New Zealand flyers are not used to this. Historically, there has been inconsistent application of check-in times domestically. Two things need to happen here: Jetstar needs to keep advertising and communicating this point vigorously so as to change our behaviour; and we need to start following the rule. If you have paid a small amount to travel it should not be a hard rule to follow. Customers should not complain about this point.
2. Bad customer service around the deadline – No one likes this and no one should have to experience it, no matter how little you have paid. It is just plain stupid, not to mention crippling for brand equity, for staff to be rude. So customers are right to complain about this.
3. Lost luggage – No issue here, complain away.
4. Lateness – Complaint surely is justified due to the strict adherence to the 30 minute deadline. Jetstar admit to teething issues here however so i suspect we’ll just have to wait for Jetstar to sort themselves out and hope it is quick.
5. Rescheduling – Jetstar need to be careful here. One of the most fundamental expectations travellers have is to arrive pretty close to when scheduled. Equally, for Jetstar to be successful it will have to achieve this more often than not to keep customers coming back. The key point here is what is a reasonable delay (assuming no act of god is involved) – 2 hours max? The rescheduling times have often been longer than this and are worthy of complaint.
6. Inability to land due to conditions – This is a problem due to lack of communication of this point by Jetstar to its customers. Jetstar should have known that this point would be contentious due to Air New Zealand being able to land in certain conditions due to technology. Lack of communication of key travel-effecting points is worthy of complaint.

By my count 5 of 6 points are worthy of complaint. Once the initial teething is over in a couple of months we hopefully will only be left with poor visibility being an issue. That issue however could well be enough to stop many people flying Jetstar. Some also will have been so affected by their experiences to date they will not return.