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Passengers on a recent flight to Bali are livid after their plane had to U-turn back to its departure destination more than halfway through the flight due to miscommunication on Tuesday (27 December).
The JQ35 Jetstar flight was leaving from sunny Melbourne to tropical Bali, full of passengers ready for a festive Christmas getaway, but after four and a half hours in the air, the flight was turned around and sent back to Melbourne airport.
The service was supposed to leave around 6pm on Tuesday, but passengers have confirmed that the flight was delayed until 11pm, already causing distress among travellers.
After finally taking off from Melbourne, holidaymakers were disappointed to find that their flight would be returning them back to the same airport just a few hours later on Wednesday morning.
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Some travellers have taken to social media to make their complaints, saying they were within 40 minutes of landing in Bali when the message was received that the plane had been denied authorisation to land and would be turning around instead.
One passenger aboard the flight, Denise Draeger, has said that her family holiday had been ruined by the ordeal and upon landing they were sent to a hotel in Melbourne without a proper explanation.
Her post read: “Good one Jetstar. You have done it again. More family holidays spoilt, clearly you can’t deliver .. what a joke.”
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Another passenger, Richard Holliman, was also waiting in a hotel in Melbourne following the 'Jetstar disaster', but was hoping to reach his destination by flying again on Wednesday afternoon.
The Australian budget airline has since apologised to the passengers onboard in a statement saying that the flight was turned around due to 'miscommunication' with Indonesian authorities.
A spokesperson from Jetstar said: “We swapped yesterday’s Melbourne to Bali service to a larger Boeing 787 aircraft to carry more customers during the holidays.
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“Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, the aircraft swap was not approved by the local regulator in Indonesia.
“As soon as we became aware, the flight returned to Melbourne, and we have rebooked passengers on a flight later today.”
Jetstar acknowledged the ordeal was 'extremely frustrating' for customers and apologised for the frustration caused.
The statement continued: “While customers wait for their new flight, we’re providing them with hotel rooms and meal vouchers, and we’ll cover additional airport transport costs.
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“We’ve begun a review to understand how the miscommunication happened so we can prevent it from occurring again.”
Customers affected by the flight will also receive a $200 travel voucher for future flights.