AUCKLAND: Qantas-owned budget airline Jetstar has had a bumpy service delivery since launching flights to New Zealand on June 10. Now it is trying to win back passengers by offering NZ$50 off their next Jetstar flight to travellers whose flight arrives more than an hour late.

The southern islands’ TV3 News reported that Jetstar has been plagued by problems right from the start when a ground-equipment glitch on launch day caused two-hour delays. Barely a week later, Jetstar was forced to admit that only 20 per cent of its flights were leaving within 15 minutes of schedule.

The rejigging of timetables led to thousands of passengers having their flight times changed and there have been complaints about the airline’s policy of not checking in passengers who arrive less than 30 minutes before a flight. On June 20. the 30-minute policy resulted in airport police being called in to deal with about 30 angry passengers stranded at Auckland Airport.

Even the CEO, Bruce Buchanan, admits there were problems. Flights from Queenstown were worst affected. Jetstar planes are not certified to land in heavy fog and, Buchanan says the problem won’t be fixed till next winter.

The airline said yesterday that, since implementing its revised schedule on June 24, it had regularly achieved results of more than 80 per cent on time performance. Corporate travel customers say many of their customers are refusing to fly Jetstar because of late running flights, and they say businesses won't be coming back till Jetstar improves its performance.