With the average airplane fare rising by 29% from 2021 to 2024, it is not surprising that many people get excited when various ticket sales come around.
Japan Airlines (JPNRF) and Cathay Pacific (CPCAF) both saw their websites temporarily go down after launching low-fare promotions at different points last year.
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The latest airline that had this happen is Jetstar, the budget offshoot of Australia's flagship airline Qantas Airways (QUBSF) . As part of celebrating the fact that it was turning 20 years old this spring, Jetstar launched a sale in which some domestic routes across Australia could be bought for 29 Australian dollars ($19 USD) and less than $100 to nearby international destinations such as Bali.
Travelers complain: 'You can't even get onto the page'
The $29 is a specific nod to the cost of many of the domestic routes when Jetstar was founded in 2004. The lowest fares are limited to flights from Brisbane to Newcastle, Adelaide to Brisbane, Perth to the Gold Coast and Sydney to Byron Bay.
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While the sale was launched on May 3 and was supposed to last five days, many of the available seats were snapped up within hours and the airline's website ended up crashing. Many Australians who were trying to make a purchase reported seeing a pop-up reading that Jetstar is "very busy right now and something has gone wrong — we are very sorry."
"What's the point of having a sale when you can't even get onto the page," reads one of the comments on the Instagram (META) post announcing the 20-year celebration.
"It's actually not working," reads another.
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Qantas has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons lately
Jetstar had earlier told its online followers to "stay tuned for a big month of Birthday celebrations" but has not been responding to questions on whether the seats it had slated for the sale had sold out or more low fares would drop later.
While Jetstar has not been as heavily scrutinized as its parent company, Qantas Airways has been the source of significant outcry over the last six months. In the fall of 2023, longstanding chief executive Alan Joyce ended his 15-year career and went into early retirement after a local consumer protection group filed a lawsuit accusing the airline of selling tickets for more than 8,000 flights it never intended to run during the pandemic.
Customer resentment was exacerbated by the fact that the airline justified rising airfare prices by inflation while continuing to report record profits. Vanessa Hudson, who stepped over from CFO to lead the airline, has since been on a damage-control and reputation-rebuilding mission that has largely not managed to build back the public's trust.
At the start of 2024, a new safety video that the airline intended to be "relatable" was widely mocked for its 10-minute length even after Qantas clarified that the online version was significantly longer than the in-flight one.
"I know that we have let you down in many ways," Hudson said in an apology video released on Sept. 21. "For that, I am sorry. We haven't delivered the way we should have and we've often been hard to deal with."
