Jetstar trails rival one year in

Jetstar is cancelling flights at twice the rate of its arch-rival on the Palmerston North and Auckland route, which the airline is attributing to the size its operation.

Jetstar has had 54 scheduled flights between Palmerston North and Auckland each week since the service was introduced 12 months ago.

There had been two or three cancellations per week on the route, or between 4 and 6 per cent of all flights.

Air New Zealand flew 6822 times a year between the two airports, or 131 scheduled flights a week. Roughly 2 per cent were cancelled since last March.

Jetstar roused the ire of fans heading to a Bruce Springsteen concert in Auckland when the airline cancelled flights from Napier and Palmerston North on February 24.

Spokesman Phil Boeyen said the airline did what it could to keep cancellations low. The two main causes were issues with engineering and crewing requirements.

The Civil Aviation Authority requires a minimum number of crew on each flight.

When a crew member is sick, airlines try to bring in a replacement from another route or shift, but that can’t always be organised in time.

‘‘If this cannot be done, we will cancel the flight and offer customers an option of moving to the next available flight or a full refund,’’ Boeyen said.

‘‘The majority of customers booked on flights that are cancelled reach their destination the same day on alternative routes.’’

He said Jetstar’s cancellation rate was higher than Air New Zealand’s because it was a smaller operation, with fewer planes and staff with which to react to setbacks. Having fewer flights also meant each cancellation was a higher percentage of total flights.

Boeyen apologised to customers inconvenienced by last weekend’s cancellations.

Palmerston North woman Meg Brown had the misfortune of having her Jetstar flight to Auckland disrupted as well as her return flight cancelled. She said she wouldn’t fly Jetstar again.

Brown went to the Springsteen concert with her adult children, Mike Brown and Cheryl Boice, and had planned a weekend of events in Auckland for the trip.

But when they went to board their flight last Saturday morning Jetstar staff told them the plane couldn’t take off because of issues with the oxygen tanks.

Jetstar asked for 15 passengers to volunteer to be shuttled to Wellington to catch another flight, so the Palmerston North plane could take-off.

‘‘We volunteered because I was not happy to travel on a plane with an oxygen supply problem,’’ Brown said. ‘‘[But] everybody was going to the Bruce Springsteen concert, so of course no-one wanted to get off the plane.’’

Jetstar then offered $150 vouchers to each volunteer to get the required numbers.

Brown said if that had been the end of it she might have considered flying Jetstar again. But when their flight back to Wellington was cancelled, due to crewing issues, that was the last straw. ‘‘We were offered seats on one of three flights on Monday. Both my son and daughter had to get to work, and last minute tickets with Air New Zealand cost $300 each, so we drove home in a rental car instead.’’

Brown gave the airline credit for the vouchers, and for fully

refunding the cancelled return flight, but much of the weekend had been a write-off. ‘‘We missed out on seeing relatives, and having a look about the place like we planned. We didn’t get to do any of that.’’

Boeyen said Jestar tried to minimise the impact of cancellations. The experience of the Brown family had been unfortunate and unusual, he said.