Aug 05
24
How not to get repeat customers
Last Friday I dropped my wife off at <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Sydney airport so she could catch the Jetstar flight to Ballina on the north coast of New South Wales – the feeder airport into Byron Bay.<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
I was half way back home when I got a call on my mobile phone from her. She had missed the flight. Now I had dropped her off at 2pm on the nose and her flight was at 2.30. Problem is that apparently Jetstar’s booking system apparently has a shut out procedure that is enacted exactly 30 minutes before a flight. That means that if you are 30 seconds late for check in the system is down, the signage on the check in counter shuts off and you are basically shit out of luck.
So my wife, along with 17 other potential passengers missed the only flight option of the afternoon.
The good news from this was that we decided to go together the following day – so I had a weekend at Byron. The bad news was that we had to pay an extra $50 to transfer the booking to another day.
When we got to Ballina and checked out our rental car the guy behind the desk told us that he was well aware of the Jetstar business model and that it was pissing off a lot of people – passengers on the one side, and other ancillary business on the other.
Amazing that in a small air travel market like Australia where Virgin has come in with an extremely customer friendly model, a company that was set up by Qantas, the big player, has such an customer unfriendly model.
Does it just show that the character of a company comes from its CEO? Or does it show ignorance or arrogance? I am not sure of the answer to this. But I am sure that Jetstar is going to find that being a customer unfriendly company is not going to enable it to compete with Virgin.