A single flight cancellation from Singapore to Melbourne on Saturday night left hundreds of Australians stranded, with most of them spending an entire day at the airport.
The Jetstar flight was canceled around midnight on Saturday, leaving passengers scrambling for overnight accommodation, with many forced to sleep at Singapore’s Changi Airport.
The grounding of flight JQ8 took place in the middle of the busiest weekend for Singapore and its hotel industry, with the Singapore Formula One Grand Prix driving up prices and limiting availability.
Travelers were offered up to $800 to cover the cost of their hotel room for the night – a drastic increase from the usual $150 usually offered – but the money did little as most of the region was booked out.
“This is what it looks like in a Singapore gate lounge when Jetstar cancels your flight at midnight and says you can find your own hotel until the flight resumes in 24 hours,” traveler John Lethlean wrote on Instagram.
‘Oh, and it’s Grand Prix weekend, so you can’t get a hotel in Singapore for less than 800 Singapore dollars, which is about AU$800.’
Jetstar’s flight cancellation from Singapore to Melbourne on Saturday night meant many travelers were forced to spend 24 hours at Changi Airport (pictured)
A Jetstar spokesman told Daily Mail Australia that the airline was forced to cancel the flight to ‘put safety first’ after its pilots received a warning indicating a problem with the auxiliary power unit.
“Engineers resolved the issue but as a result the flight was delayed 24 hours,” the Jetstar spokesman said.
‘We found accommodation for around 50 clients and offered support to others who needed hotel rooms. Singapore had a busy weekend with the Grand Prix, so some customers stayed overnight at Changi Airport.
‘We provided these customers with food stamps and will reimburse them for other reasonable expenses.
“We understand this was an extremely frustrating experience and sincerely apologize to customers for the delay.”
The flight from Singapore to Melbourne was on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a plane that has recently been plagued by problems with lightning strikes, bird strikes and delayed parts being blamed for the problems.
The grounding of flight JQ8 took place in the middle of the busiest weekend for Singapore hotels, with the Singapore Grand Prix driving up overnight rates
Travelers were offered up to $800 to cover the cost of their hotel room for the night – a drastic increase from the usual $150 usually offered
Last month, hundreds of Australians were stranded in Hawaii after Jetstar abruptly canceled their flights home.
At least two Jetstar flights bound for Australia were scrapped, leaving around 600 people stranded in the expensive holiday resort of Honolulu.
Jetstar said a lightning strike and a technical problem were to blame for the flight cancellations.
The problems with lightning strikes on the new Jetstar 787s are complicated by the fact that the shell is made of composite material, unlike the metal shells of older aircraft.
With a metal shell, an electrical charge would leave one entry and exit hole on the fuselage or wing where maintenance teams would be able to easily inspect the damage.
But the composite material, which uses carbon fiber extensively, conducts electricity differently, and a lightning strike can result in a patchwork of tiny holes that require a much longer maintenance period.
‘Speed tape’ over an aircraft wing, commonly used on aircraft and racing cars
The carbon composite materials also struggle with paint peeling, which has required airlines worldwide to repaint the planes in an expensive and time-consuming process.
Pictures of the stricken 787s recently surfaced with duct tape patching up parts of the wings and fuselage.
The tape is actually called ‘speed tape’ and is a pressure-sensitive aluminum material commonly used on aircraft and racing cars.
Engineers are able to use this as a solution to prevent water from seeping through the peeling paint into the material, but the solution is not permanent.
In addition to the aircraft problems, both Jetstar and Qantas are struggling with a shortage of maintenance workers, further delaying repairs and contributing to the frequency of canceled flights.
“Part of the Qantas and Jetstar problem is that they don’t have spare planes,” a Qantas group insider told Crikey last week.
‘The schedule is very tight and when several planes fail, there is not much that can be done. We often don’t have an extra plane to roll into place at short notice.’
Qantas will often lend aircraft to Jetstar to fill gaps in their schedule, but this becomes problematic when demand for Qantas is high, particularly around holiday periods.
The Qantas group has bought more planes, but they will not arrive for a few years (pictured: queues at Sydney airport in September)