Mass flight cancellations have left 4,000 Jetstar passengers stranded or forced to cancel trips, with the carrier only able to offer flights a week later in many cases.
Many have reported being left in Bali well beyond their planned return date without access to medication, or being forced to lose wages because they could not return home in time to work.
Jason Hayes was treated to “breakfast in bed” on Father’s Day – the breakfast was a block of chocolate and a packet of chips, and the bed was a row of seats at Perth airport.
Hayes, his wife, Roxi Heywood Hayes, and the couple’s autistic seven-year-old son, who also has ADHD, were supposed to arrive home in Newcastle from their holiday in Bali at the end of August. Instead they were stuck in Indonesia for a week, with medication running out.
Thousands of Australians were still stranded in Bali early this week after Jetstar cancelled multiple flights. Eight return services between Melbourne or Sydney and Denpasar have been cancelled since 1 September, in addition to a number of delays of up to 24 hours.
Jetstar said about 4,000 travellers were affected, but a spokesperson for the company said “the majority of impacted passengers have now been re-accommodated and our teams are working hard to find the remaining 200 or so impacted passengers an alternative option”. Guardian Australia understands that number was down to 180 as of Tuesday afternoon.
Many travellers in Bali and in Thailand too, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, are facing delays of more than a week in order to get an alternative flight home.
But the airline denied the Herald report that it had lost half its long-haul aircraft fleet to engineering issues.
Hayes and his family’s original flight home was cancelled on 29 August. After their second flight was cancelled on 31 August, their son had only a day’s supply of ritalin, Hayes was three days out of blood pressure medication, and Heywood Hayes was three days out of antidepressants.
“We did not think we would be forced to stay in Bali for an extra week,” Heywood Hayes said.
After their fourth flight cancellation Hayes demanded the airline get the family to “anywhere” in Australia, and were eventually offered the route from Bali to Perth, Perth to Melbourne, and Melbourne to Sydney, where a three-hour train ride would take them home to Newcastle.
Heywood Hayes said they left Bali at 9pm Saturday night, but didn’t make it home to Newcastle until 1am Monday morning.
“All of this with a seven-year-old autistic son with ADHD and no medication,” Heywood Hayes said.
She described the experience as “horrific”.
Heywood Hayes was not alone. Speaking from Bali, Sonia Myers told the ABC her 85-year-old father, Lionel, and his 70-year-old friend John Williams would run out of medication if their return flight was delayed any further.
Myers said the travelling trio managed to secure a flight for 12 September – eight days later than their original flight – after first being told there were no options to book another flight this month.
In statement, Jeremy Schmidt, a chief pilot at Jetstar, said the company’s Boeing 787 fleet had “recently been impacted by a number of issues – a lightning strike, a bird strike, an item taxied over on the way up to the runway and also a critical part that needed to be road-freighted across the US before coming to Australia”.
“We would like to sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and frustration caused to our customers with this disruption,” Schmidt said.
In a separate statement a Jetstar spokesperson said “our teams are working hard to get passengers on their way as soon as possible – we are putting on five special services to bring people home and booking seats on Qantas flights also.”
“We have also offered a flight credit or refund to passengers who no longer wish to travel and accommodation and meal vouchers for those who require it,” the spokesperson said.
Many travellers have been forced to fork out large sums to get home.
Heywood Hayes said her family lost wages as well as money they had to pay for appointments they couldn’t attend.
“I don’t work, I don’t get paid,” the cleaner and early childcare worker said.
Meagan Mulder told news.com.au the four friends she was travelling with paid more than $10,000 to book flights with another airline to get home via Kuala Lumpur.
The cancellation of flights heading in the other direction, from Australia to Bali, has also caused upset.
Maree Edmond told Guardian Australia the cancellation of her flight, which was due to leave for Bali on 4 September, led to the cancellation of the family’s holiday because her husband, a self-employed builder, could not afford to stay in Bali any longer than they had budgeted for.
“By time we would have arrived it would have been half what had planned and we couldn’t risk getting stuck over there with having to return to work commitments,” Edmond said.
Their only other option was booking with another airline, but the cost would have been $4,500 and their travel insurance could not guarantee they would be reimbursed for the initial flights.
“I’m totally devastated, angry and frustrated. Like many we have saved and planned an awesome overseas holiday that we have been denied for many years, only for it to be squashed,” Edmond said.
Lloyd Hargraves took to social media to tell Jetstar of his disappointment that the cancellation of his flight to Bali meant he missed his friend’s wedding.
Hargraves found out his flight on 1 September was rescheduled for the following day, but when he arrived in the airport he was met with further delays.
He said the experience cost him $1,500 as well as the opportunity “to see our friend get married which we can never get back”.
