Delayed flights, lost luggage and now a “WORLD FIRST” failure: Jetstar service to Bali to return after 4 hours due to staff shortage, writes air travel history: “Never heard of it”

Jetstar ended 2023 the way it ended the rest of the year: with angry passengers.

After a year of flight cancellations, delays and lost luggage, the low-cost carrier did what experts say no airline has done before: drastically reverse a flight back to the airport it came from because someone stuffed up the paperwork.

Flight JQ35 was packed with Bali holidaymakers when it departed from Melbourne late on Tuesday evening, already five hours late.

Then, after a 4 hour drive – on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner somewhere over Broome, Western Australia – he had to turn around and fly back to Melbourne.

Two of Australia’s most famous aviation experts told Daily Mail Australia they had never heard of anything like this happening anywhere in the world.

“I’ve been researching airlines for over 20 years and I’ve never heard of it,” says Greg Bamber, a professor at Melbourne’s Monash University and co-author of the book Up in the Air about the airline industry.

A Jetstar spokesman said the airline had swapped the Melbourne to Bali service for a larger Boeing 787 aircraft to carry more customers during the holiday season.

“Unfortunately, due to an internal misunderstanding, we did not get permission from the regulator in Indonesia to switch to the larger aircraft,” the spokesperson said.

Even Geoffrey Thomas of the AirlineRatings website for airline safety and quality ratings had never heard of anything like the Jetstar crash.

He was clear about where he felt the blame lay.

“First of all, the Indonesians didn’t turn the plane back,” Mr Thomas said.

“Jetstar returned the aircraft because Jetstar incorrectly applied for permission to fly this aircraft.”

Mr Bamber agreed, saying that “Jetstar seems to blame miscommunication to some extent, but then blames the Indonesian authorities”.

BILATERAL

Before an airline can operate international flights to another country, the government must first negotiate a contract level agreement with the destination country.

These treaties are known as Bilateral Air Services Agreements and are what caused the problems with Flight JQ35.

Treaties known as bilateral air services agreements are part of what caused a Jetstar plane (flight path pictured) to overturn

“There are capacity agreements with the bilateral between the countries,” says Thomas.

Jetstar has increased the capacity of this service from a 210-seat aircraft to a 300-seat aircraft, from an A-321 to a 787.

“And they made the mistake of not realizing when they sent the paperwork that it was an aircraft change, an aircraft upgrade.”

While it is possible to offload an aircraft – transfer to a smaller aircraft – it is not possible to board under a bilateral agreement without notifying the destination airport.

Pictured are Greg Bamber (left) and Geoffrey Thomas (right), both aviation experts

But that’s exactly what Jetstar did.

“They realized their mistake when the plane was just over Broome and turned back,” said Mr Thomas.

“It didn’t even enter Indonesian airspace, it was still in Australian airspace.”

NO DISRESPECT INTENDED

Mr Thomas said what happened was due to human error and no disrespect to the Indonesian authorities was intended.

“It’s a very sensitive thing with the Indonesians and that’s why Jetstar just didn’t want to upset them,” he said.

“It was definitely human error. They certainly didn’t think, “It’s going to be fine, don’t worry,” as evidenced by the fact that they turned around.

“It would have damaged the relationship with a very important country that they deal with all the time.”

Some customers shared their complaints online, with one calling it the “worst travel experience of my life” (above).

He said that if Jetstar had realized its mistake and continued the flight and tried to bluff through, Indonesia would have taken it as an insult.

“But the fact that Jetstar realized their mistake and turned around… Indonesians would have seen that as a positive,” he said.

(They would have thought, ‘Hey, you made a mistake, you didn’t try to work through and turned around’).

“As such, I think it’s positive from that perspective … Although it was a pain in the neck for the passengers, it was by far the quickest thing to do.”

PRESSURE ON AIR PASSES

Mr Thomas said there are many reasons why we are seeing more flights being canceled than ever before.

Airlines are under pressure during Christmas and heavy holiday periods and due to Covid, departments may not be as well staffed as usual,” he said.

“Especially at the back end of the airline, the stress is much higher, where mistakes can creep in.”

Mr Bamber said staff shortages were a key cause of the problems.

Frustrated customers left the flight at 11pm on Tuesday, only to be told at 3.30am on Wednesday that they would be returning to Melbourne Airport (pictured, Melbourne passengers).

“Airlines, particularly the Qantas and Jetstar groups, were quick to lay off staff to make them redundant when the pandemic first hit,” he said.

“They fired thousands and thousands of people and received very large compensation from us, the taxpayers, to keep the airlines running.

“But they have been very slow in reinstating staff and rebuilding the workforce.

“They still have quite a skeleton workforce, much thinner staff than before the Covid-19 outbreak.”

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

Passengers hit hard by delays and cancellations in Australia do not enjoy the same protections as passengers in the European Union, the US and the UK.

“Anything that comes out of this should be a wake-up call to Australian regulators and lawmakers that they need to implement such a system because it’s an incentive for airlines to treat their passengers and customers better,” Bamber said.

“And it also gives back to customers when they are seriously disturbed. There is nothing like this in Australia at the moment.”

The passengers (above) landed in Bali just before 21:00 local time on Wednesday, but encountered new problems with pre-arranged accommodation and transport

He said while flight costs have risen, service levels have fallen.

“People are paying much higher airfares now than they were before the pandemic, so people’s expectations are quite high,” Mr Bamber said.

“Since they pay a lot of money, they expect good service, but the service is not good.

“The quality of the catering has decreased, the number of cancellations has increased, the delays have increased, there is really a disruption.”