Qantas’ chief executive Geoff Dixon last week delivered news of a $1.03 billion pre-tax profit for the airline in 2006 – up 53% on the previous year.

Much of this, he says, is thanks to the launch of Qantas’ low-cost sister airline Jetstar. But while Dixon and Qantas investors celebrate, it would seem that on the ground (quite literally) Jetstar travelers are suffering. Criticisms of the budget carrier are mounting.

This week Crikey received a letter from an angry traveler outlining his “horror experience” with Jetstar:

This month I flew with my children from Melbourne to Sydney to catch a Jetstar flight to Hawaii. We arrived in Sydney to be told that our onward flight had been cancelled and would now not leave until 8am the next morning.

While problems can occur with any aircraft (although it appears to happen regularly with Jetstar) it was the attitude of the Jetstar ground staff that was more upsetting. They allocated one representative to deal individually with a plane-load of people. This of course took hours. But it gets worse.

The re-scheduled flight did not get us to Honolulu until after midnight the next day — too late for any onward flights to Maui, our final destination. Standing with my children at the Qantas/Jetstar counter at 1am in Honolulu, the staff denied any responsibility and would offer no assistance or help to any of the passengers. We were told “Jetstar is an A to B airline and we have fulfilled our part of the contract”. This was contrary to the assurance given to passengers by the Jetstar representative in Sydney, who told everyone that given we would miss our connections, we would be looked after by ground staff on our arrival in Honolulu.

So along with many other passengers, we were forced to find a nearby motel, and over-night for the second time, costing us a second day of our holiday…

We eventually arrived in Maui almost two days late. An 11-hour journey that ended up taking over 50 hours. Even on the flight back (which left 3 hours late), Jetstar crew told us they had run out of meals, so we were forced to share one meal between four of us.

I had heard these type of stories before, but still chose to book with them, but you don’t have to make the same mistake. In my view Jetstar is no star. Surely Geoff Dixon and his Qantas board can’t believe that this appalling third-world standard will not impact on the Qantas brand.

This might seem like an extreme example, but online there is no shortage of similar gripes.

Last month smh.com.au posted a piece that explored problems with Jetstar’s online booking system, inviting reader responses. It prompted six pages of comments and complaints – ranging from regular flight delays and cancellations, deceiving ‘lowest price’ guarantees, plane maintenance issues and “rock bottom” service in-flight and on the ground – that extended far beyond the booking process.

Lowlights include:

“A lady flying with her 15 year old daughter who is on crutches was offered assistance at Sydney but when returning at Avalon the staff member had to be asked and then said no one could assist getting this girl on the plane. Later when she was outside having a smoko with a colleague, she was overheard saying that she couldn’t be bothered helping the kid on crutches, even though this child had obvious problems with getting up stairs.” – Sue.

“I was due to catch the 1.45pm flight from Sydney to Melbourne yesterday. I left home to get to the airport on time at 9am, and I didn’t actually get to Melbourne until 8pm! Apparently a thunderbolt struck the plane and it took them 4 hours to replace… The appalling thing was that no-one actually told us what was going on – we were locked in this waiting room with no notification of the delays we were to face!” – Al.

And the most unusual tale came from a traveler who says he wrote a bad review of Jetstar on his personal blog. A customer service rep named ‘Julz’ apparently replied:

“omg you serious!!!! You really have nothing else 2 do with your pathic time but write rubbish!!!…Smile at rude agroant piece of un gratefully sh-t like yourself??? get out of here yo deserve nothing but being banned on every airline…..and alot of the time staff at any point dont deserve 2 be treated like sh-t of passenagers which i would expect coming from yourself… people like yourself make others sick.”

The traveler concludes: “This sums up my Jetstar experience perfectly… A shining example of the caliber of ‘service’ Jetstar employs.”

Travel blogs like RealTravel and The Boot carry similar critical reviews, and the ABC, Fairfax papers and news.com.au (amongst many other outlets) have recently reported further Jetstar difficulties.