Jetstar already cancelling flights

Days after Jetstar restarted selling domestic flights in New Zealand, it has infuriated customers by cancelling some of them.

On Wednesday, the budget airline started selling airfares from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin from July 1, including Auckland to Wellington for as little as $34.

Jetstar emailed some customers yesterday, telling them their flights had been cancelled, and blamed government travel restrictions.

Several consumers contacted Stuff to complain about the cancellations, with some saying the airline was now selling the same flights for four times what they had paid.

Consumer NZ head of research Jessica Wilson said it had received complaints yesterday about the cancellations.

‘‘Where an airline has accepted bookings during level 2 and has now cancelled the flight, it would be a stretch for it to blame the cancellation on Covid-19,’’ Wilson said.

‘‘The airline shouldn’t have been taking bookings at this time unless it was able to provide the service.’’

A Wellington man who Stuff agreed not to name said he was surprised to see Jetstar had cancelled flights for his family’s first skiing holiday in Queenstown in mid-July.

‘‘I only booked the flights on Saturday, so Jetstar’s claim that it had to cancel my flights in response to the evolving coronavirus situation, and to imply the cancellation was due to government-imposed travel restrictions beyond its control, was clearly bogus.’’