A SLANGING match has broken out between Jetstar and Air New Zealand after the Australian airline claimed its troubled Kiwi launch had been sabotaged by dirty tricks.The Qantas subsidiary has had a bumpy ride since the launch of its New Zealand schedule last month, with complaints of late and cancelled flights, rude staff and dozens of New Zealanders turned away for failing to check in early enough.The airlines started trading barbs after Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan accused Air New Zealand of attempting to sabotage his airline, which has replaced Qantas in New Zealand with 84 domestic return flights a week.
Mr Buchanan told the Herald on Sunday newspaper the Kiwi airline had circulated nasty rumours about the planes being old and unserviced, the pilots poorly trained and the flights overbooked, because it was worried it would lose its monopoly on the domestic market.”We’ve experienced some tough competition before but we’ve never experienced someone trying to sabotage our business, or specifically go after us to try and discredit us,” Mr Buchanan said.He said the overbooking rumour was “a complete fallacy that our competitors are spreading throughout the media”.
‘It wasn’t something we were prepared for and we are surprised at the dirty tricks they are playing,” the Jetstar chief said.”They have a dedicated team of individuals running a campaign to try and ruin our launch.”But Air New Zealand wasn’t taking the claims lying down, hitting back with calls that Kiwis would “see through (Jetstar’s) conspiracy theories”.Shorthaul airline group general manager Bruce Parton said Mr Buchanan’s words were the “actions of a desperate man”.
“Surely, Mr Buchanan doesn’t expect Kiwis to believe that we are responsible for his Aussie airline’s woes?” he told AAP.”We didn’t dream up his draconian check-in rules, his schedule that often cannot be met, his endless schedule changes and his decision to operate ill-equipped aircraft to Queenstown that cannot achieve the same punctuality as Air NZ’s fleet.”Throwing it back, he said Jetstar “only has itself to blame for its own bad PR and the ‘one star airline’ tag some have given it”.
