Airline flub sees teens forced to share room
Two teenage girls who were complete strangers say they were “scared” and “outraged” after being forced to share a one-bed hotel room following a Jetstar flight cancellation.
The situation arose at Auckland’s Hotel DeBrett on Tuesday night, after 17-year-old Summer Lochhead was booked in a one-bed hotel room with another person who she did not know — and whose name on paper she says looked like a man’s.
The accommodation was arranged by Jetstar after a 6.30am flight from Auckland to Christchurch was cancelled on Tuesday.
While waiting at Auckland Airport for 10 hours for accommodation to be arranged, Lochhead struck up conversation with 18-year-old Pria Escalera who was also on the cancelled Jetstar flight.
After eventually getting the bus to Hotel DeBrett in Auckland city centre about 4pm, Lochhead and Escalera found themselves in the foyer with a confronting situation.
Lochhead had been given a piece of paper by Jetstar saying she was sharing a room with another person.
To avoid having to enter a room with an unknown adult, Escalera offered to share her one-bed room.
Escalera ended up sleeping on the couch and Lochhead took the bed.
“So I said yes [to sharing a room] because we were tired and there was nothing else that could have been done, and I just felt that would have been safer than to go with the other person that I hadn’t met, who I didn’t know how old they were, female or a male, or anything,” Lochhead said.
She said the Hotel DeBrett reception staff confirmed the other person on the cancelled flight assigned to her room had already checked in and also said “they didn’t know me”.
“It was still a very uncomfortable situation, because I’m a very paranoid, very anxious person . . . it was just a situation that should not have happened,” Lochhead said.
A Jetstar spokesperson told the Weekend Herald it had since been in contact with Lochhead to assure her it was investigating how the situation occurred. “We sincerely apologise for this unacceptable situation and have reached out to both customers.”
Escalera said she had also been spooked by the situation the two had been forced into.