A television reporter who injured her ankle on holiday has slammed Jetstar for refusing to upgrade her to business class and making her pay for a pillow to elevate her leg.
WIN reporter Jodi Lee posted on Jetstar’s Facebook page after staff failed to accommodate her requests to ease her pain after she snapped her Achilles tendon in Thailand.
“@JetstarAustralia I am appalled at your blatant disregard for customer service,” Ms Lee wrote, accompanied by a photo of her bandaged leg.
“[S]taff over the phone, at the check in counter and on board refused to upgrade my seat ‘due to policy’’.”
She said that staff disregarded a letter from Thai doctors and the advice from a surgeon in Sydney that she would need to keep her leg raised on the flight home.
“I was forced to still pay for a pillow and blanket,” she said, despite there being four vacant seats in business class.
Upon arriving in Sydney, the trouble continued as “no lift arrived to help me safely disembark from the plane onto the tarmac”.
“I was forced to wait alone on the plane for an hour after landing then hop down a flight of stairs in the rain to a waiting bus,” she said.
Her pre-arranged wheelchair was not waiting for her, and when it did arrive, she was taken to baggage claim and “abandoned”.
“My travel partner [was] forced to push two suitcases and my wheelchair through customs,” she wrote.
“I understand you are a budget airline but surely concessions can be made for passengers clearly suffering injury or illness,” she wrote.
A Jetstar spokesman said the airline did not agree to Ms Lee’s request for an upgrade but did organise an empty seat next to her in economy, SMH reports.
The spokesman also said that a wheelchair was also arranged but she had to wait until all other passengers had disembarked from the plane.
