Jetstar, Bali and the eruption of Mount Raung - a rant

[eminere]

Playing Devil's advocate here, I think a risk adverse person would have cancelled the trip to Bali knowing about the Volcano activity, as you say "The outbound flight was threatened to be cancelled by the volcano but thankfully I made it into Bali."

Exactly. The OP knew the already-present risks and went ahead with his travel anyway - he took a gamble and he lost.

 

[funkyr]

Thanks for all the replies and dont worry about offering criticism, it's part of my job to have to deal with it every day.


I agree, I dont think I should have had any higher priority than the 1000s also stranded just because I'm a doctor. Yes everyone had their livelihoods affected and there are knock on effects for everyone. Heck I would have loved to stay for even longer as Bali is not such a bad place to be stranded.

To put this rant into further context what I haven't mentioned yet is the way in which several of my colleagues at the same conference were treated. We were all in fairly similar situations with having to make patient cancellations etc. In general those travelling with jetstar received similar apathetic, rehearsed responses and we received a wide varying range of alternative flights varying from 5 days to 4 weeks away! In stark contrast my colleagues travelling with Virgin and Garuda had a much different customer experience and were offered much earlier flights in general. It wasn't just on one or two occasions, it was a consistent trend we all noticed (there were over 100 of us mostly staying at the same hotel).

In any crisis situation, which I've been involved with many, there has to be some sort of triage process to determine what is high priority compared to that of low priority. No doubt Jetstar had to deal with this as well. What I find difficult to understand is how jetstar had next to no sympathy for the numerous patient cancellations I have had to make. In one of their press releases they stated that they are prioritising flying back those who had to get home earlier - fair enough, a relative of mine wasnt dying and I wasnt running out of vital medication etc. What people may also not know is that that several of the people who whinged to the media were given priority, and call my a cynic, were probably given priority to reduce the bad PR for Jetstar.

At the end of the day there was no untoward bad outcomes for my patients, for which I'm happy. The only bad outcome was a grumpy wife with 2 young kids!



The reason I chose to go ahead with my trip to Bali was that I was part of the organising committee for this particular conference so I had to go.

 

[funkyr]

Rather than just attacking the OP, maybe look at the issues that was raised - conflicting information given by Jetstar. Even on a LCC the message should be the same! And the bit about the OP being special and wanting his 'livelihood' looked after etc ... I think that's un-necessary. If the person is a doctor, with patients waiting for surgery etc, I think that's worth mentioning if the OP is having a personal self described 'rant'. I hope everyone's doctor here would express similar frustration if they missed appointments due to circumstances out of their control (at the time) and personally, I wouldn't relate it to a possible impact on their income. YMMV.

On the other hand, I agree with sentiments that the OP might have avoided being put in this compromising situation by avoiding LCCs in general.

I just wanted to reply to this in particular. No, income had nothing to do with it. I'm a salaried public hospital doctor and didn't even think about 'missing out on income'.

 

[PLANT]

Look you needed to be Luke D'Arcy from the hot breakfast mmm..... He got special treatment and que jumped out of there..... Listen to the podcast..... Otherwise no soup for you!!!!

 

[whatmeworry]

Hard life going to conferences in sun kissed destinations.

 

[juddles]

Hard life going to conferences in sun kissed destinations.

And making Platinum 1 while you're at it

 

[juddles]

In any case, the op's opening post did not impress me - it did sound like yet another doctor thinking they were more important than the rest of the world - but his followup tonight showed humility and frankness - good stuff!

 

[kpc]

The reason I chose to go ahead with my trip to Bali was that I was part of the organising committee for this particular conference so I had to go.

I agree that you had no choice but to go!

 

[JohnPhelan]

As for communication, hard to communicate about a situation about which you have little control, and personally I dont see any value in an airline telling me every hour they dont know when I'll be able to fly.

Exactly!!!!