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- Jetstar sent a plane heading to Bali back to Melbourne after several hours of flying, per ABC News.
- The plane was nearing its destination when it turned around, per the Australian outlet.
- The service had been swapped to a larger aircraft but local authorities did not approve the swap.
Passengers traveling on a Jetstar Airways flight have hit out at the Australian airline after it turned a plane back around more than four hours after departure.
The news was reported by the Australian outlet ABC News.
The flight had already been delayed by five hours before it took off from Melbourne to Bali on Tuesday before it was stopped from landing. The flight was denied landing after it had already started its descent, per the report.
A passenger told the Daily Mail that a fellow traveler noticed on a flight monitor screen that the plane was returning to Melbourne.
The crew reportedly said it was due to a system “glitch” that would be reset but another passenger asked staff to find out from the captain, per the Daily Mail.
One passenger on board the flight told ABC News that their fellow travelers were “devastated and angry” when they found out the plane was returning.
Another passenger tweeted that it was the “worst travel experience of my life” along with a photo of the flight monitor showing the plane turning around. They added that staff were “unresponsive and unhelpful.”
A spokesperson for the airline told ABC News that the service had been swapped to a larger Boeing 787 plane so it could take more passengers, but the swap was not approved by the Indonesian regulator.
“We know this has been an extremely frustrating experience for customers and sincerely apologize for what happened,” Jetstar’s spokesperson told ABC News.
Jetstar Airways in Australia and New Zealand is owned by the Qantas Group.
The airline said it was reviewing the incident and offered vouchers to affected passengers. It also said it had provided them with accommodation and was working to rebook them on flights to Bali.
Jetstar did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment made outside of typical working hours.
This post was originally published on Business Insider
