Advertisement

Chaos at Sydney airport as cancelled Jetstar flights leave hundreds stranded

Jetstar has apologised to hundreds of frustrated and angry passengers after the airline cancelled five flights out of Sydney airport on Friday morning, leaving school holiday travel plans in chaos.

A combination of “bad weather” in other cities, unwell crew members and a “technical issue” with one aircraft forced the cancellations.

The cancelled flights come less than 24 hours after dozens of scheduled flights were cancelled on Thursday because of heavy fog across Sydney.

Travellers took to Twitter to vent their anger about the cancelled flights, with many saying it was “not good business practice” to cancel so many flights.

One passenger said a response from Jetstar saying it wasn’t a major issue showed the airline didn’t care about its customer relations.

“When you say, ‘We run 400 flights a day so these things are unfortunate but five flights out of 400 isn’t a major issue’, It really shows you aren’t caring. Unfortunately it is an issue,” the passenger said.

Another tweeted “You are flying Jetstar? Rookie mistake.”

A Jetstar spokesman said in a statement to The New Daily that there was “no major issue” with the airline’s operation today.

“A couple of minor unrelated issues have meant we had to cancel five flights out of Sydney today.

“It’s a combination of bad weather in other ports, some crew were unwell and one of our aircraft had a technical issue.”

“We will be putting customers on the next available flights.’

Another passenger tweeted a photo of lines of passengers from inside the domestic terminal.

https://twitter.com/elizabethbornst/status/1015043416940371968

Jetstar took to Twitter on Friday morning to apologise to passengers, specifically blaming weather conditions.

“Sorry to hear about this,” said the airline.

“We certainly understand the importance of getting a flight away on time and we aim to do this with every one of our flights.

Despite all the efforts we make, it is sometimes unavoidable that we have to cancel a flight on the day you’re due to travel.
”

“Sorry to hear about your cancelled flight due to fog. We always aim to get every flight away on time however, it is sometimes unavoidable to cancel a flight due to operational and safety reasons.”

One passenger told Nine News he wasn’t aware his flight had been cancelled until he was inside the domestic terminal.

‘There was no text message, just a message on the board when I got here,” he said. “They still haven’t told me why.”

The five flights out of Sydney were the 6.55am flight to Adelaide, the 7am and 8.25am flights to Melbourne, the 11.20am flight to the Gold Coast and a later flight to Melbourne at 5.25pm.

Stay informed, daily
A FREE subscription to The New Daily arrives every morning and evening.
The New Daily is a trusted source of national news and information and is provided free for all Australians. Read our editorial charter
Copyright © 2024 The New Daily.
All rights reserved.