Jetstar accused of heartless act over Christmas holidays over claims a mother and kids were kicked off flight over basic mistake

A man has accused Jetstar of ‘disgusting service’ after claiming the airline left his mother-in-law and her three young children stranded when she forgot to pay a $35 excess baggage fee.

Jaimie Tawhi said his mother-in-law Marlene, 51, and her three children under 10 were booted off a Jetstar plane flying from the Gold Coast to Melbourne.

‘My mother-in-law had forgot to pay for her excess luggage before boarding the plane,’ he said. 

‘They processed her luggage as she checked in then notified (her that) she had to go to the service desk to pay for the few extra kilos. She forgot and went to board the plane.

‘As I was the one who payed for the tickets they called me to notify my mother-in-law would not be boarding the plane if luggage was not paid for.’

Mr Tawhi, who made the claims in a social media post to Facebook, said he frantically tried to pay the outstanding fee when Jetstar contacted him. 

‘They informed me I had 10 minutes to pay $35 or else they would be removed from the flight and extra fees would occur for holding up the flight,’ he posted.

‘I hung up, transferred funds and rang back within four minutes.

‘Jetstar did not take the payment and had removed my mother-in-law from the flight altogether, leaving her and three kids stranded at Gold Coast airport with no water, no food. 

Mr Tawhi vented his fury at the airline saying they had not been able to explain why his payment was not accepted

‘My issue isn’t with the payment for excess luggage as we knew we had to do this.  

‘My issue is how they were treated. Not only my family but me as the paying customer.’ 

She was an inexperienced flyer, having only been on a plane once before. 

With his mother-in-law and four young children left languishing at the airport, Mr Tawhi was forced to fork over another $600 to get them on another flight to Melbourne. 

‘It then cost me a further $600 to book them on the next flight to Melbourne on Bonza,’ he explained.

While some people commented that the airline was within its rights to reject his mother-in-law over the missed payment, Mr Tawhi said his fury was over how the incident was handled.

‘(It was) the most disgusting service and the worst I have ever been treated by a customer service representative,’ he wrote.

A spokesperson for Jetstar said they were investigating but could not confirm the story.

‘We’re concerned to hear about these customers’ experience and are urgently looking into what happened,’ the spokesperson said.