While I never book a flight or a hotel expecting it to be bad,
certainly sometimes my expectations are pretty low- perhaps that's why I loved
this fly on Jetstar so much, without further ado, let’s get into it, welcome to Brisbane.
If you’d like to know the exact rate that I paid for my stay or my next five videos in queue,
please check out the description below and if you’re new here,
hi there and welcome to the channel, my name is Kevin.
I’m of the opinion that the world needs a bit more honest travel content these days,
so I make airline trip reports, high end hotel reviews and cruise ship tours as well,
all without invitation. I always film without the company’s knowledge and self-fund my trips to be
sure I get a true experience and give you nothing more than my personal honest unbiased opinion.
It is very early in the morning and after three ubers canceled on me,
I’m very happy to have found a friendly one that actually turned up to bring me here for Brisbane’s
first international flight of the day. Brisbane has two terminals, domestic
and international- I’ll let you guess at which one we’re at.
I mention sometimes that certain flights or hotels made up the original framework
of a trip and today’s flight from Brisbane to Bali- along with my Philippine Airlines
flights were part of that original plan. Today’s flight on Jetstar was at the time,
the cheapest non-economy option from anywhere in Australia to Denpasar,
so knowing airfares in Australia make the rest of the world look affordable, I booked it right away.
To be clear, the same way that I would and will judge Scoot Biz or Air Premia 42 or French Bee
Premium, I will be judging today’s as a Premium Economy flight, regardless of what it’s called.
I don’t think Jetstar is trying to fool anyone with what their product is, so I think it’s a
fair play. Other low cost carriers like Air Asia X or VietJet that offer a full flat bed,
that I think deserves to be judged as a true business class, albeit, a cheap one.
Check in for economy had quite a line at 4:37 in the morning,
but for business class, there was no one and I was checked in in a matter of seconds- could
have something do to with only having 21 business class seats on their 787s.
Let’s head down to departures and we can talk a wee bit about Jetstar.
Their beginnings were conjured up in 2001 when their parent company, Qantas,
needed to figure out a way to deal with growing competition from Virgin
Australia. Soon enough,
the new airline was established with a primary hub in Melbourne with A320s and 787s on the way,
becoming part of Qantas’ new two airline strategy.
By the way, if you are new to the channel,
I’ve got a new playlist linked above and below which has 15 or so videos which will give you
a pretty good idea of what this channel is all about. Feel free to take a look.
In 2004, Qantas spread its wings a bit further and established Jetstar Asia, their Singapore
based and owned airline. Contrary to the 900 Aussies who came at me on my previous Jetstar Asia
video for saying it was a Singaporean airline… well, it is. Jetstar owns 49% of Jetstar Asia.
In 2008, they also bought an 18% share in Vietnam Airline’s Pacific Airlines to create
Jetstar Pacific, which Qantas has since sold their share in and is back to Pacific Airlines.
They also own 33% of Jetstar Japan formed in 2011, which was established in 2011 along
with Japan Airlines and Mitsubishi. Last but not least, they were meant to have Jetstar Hong Kong,
formed alongside China Eastern, but that deal eventually fell through.
Currently, the Australian arm of the company flies from their three busiest cities of Brisbane,
Sydney and Melbourne to around 15 international destinations. They also have a substantial
domestic network, but I’ll cover that next year when I have an Australian Airlines series planned.
I don’t know how many airports I’ve been to in the past few years,
but it’s a lot… and I applaud Brisbane for being the absolute first terminal I’ve noticed to
have USB-C charging ports available in the departures hall and lots of them at that.
Ok, now that daylight has decided to join us for the party, let’s head to our gate.
Here’s our first morning golden hour view of our 9 near old 787-8, one of 11 in the fleet. All
together, they have 79 aircraft with a further 29 on order, all of which are A321LR or XLR aircraft,
so we can certainly expect to see many new long and thin routes coming to Jetstar,
just like Qantas will begin to do soon as well.
If you support the content I’ve been putting out on the channel or honest travel content in
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We were at the same gate that I arrived at yesterday, the very last one.
I have a question for Australians. When I’m in Australia and I see airlines like Nauru Airlines,
they’re in that super exotic category of carriers for me, but surely for y’all they’re
just an everyday kinda sight. My question is, for those of you that have been to the US,
which airlines did you see there that really made you do a double take. I’m
guessing we’ve got quite a few Caribbean and Latin American carriers which are equally exotic to you.
Boarding began a bit late, but just a few minutes- and frankly,
if boarding was on time, could we still actually call it a Jetstar Flight?
As for today’s flights stats, we ended up taking off 15 minutes late and headed up tu 40000
feet for our six hour flight northwest to Bali, landing 16 minutes behind schedule.
We were greeted by a very friendly crew member and had a peak of economy on our stroll to the forward
business class cabin. I’m frankly surprised that Jetstar even offers in flight entertainment
screens in Economy. I was more or less expecting them to have the same product on offer as Scoot.
The seats on offer up here are equally nothing to write home about, but also, really comfortable.
There are plenty of airlines that use a version of this same seat in their premium economy cabins
and it makes for a great trip. Enough padding and recline for longer flights and a fully
adjustable headrest to help you get some sleep. The only thing I don’t actually like about the
cabin is how small it feels. Normally, smaller premium cabins are meant to feel
“intimate” but this one just feels crowded with three rows in a 2-3-2 configuration.
Legroom here is fantastic, a true 38 or 40 inches of pitch and while bare bones,
the seat does have everything that you’d need.
Upon boarding there was a Chill Kit which we will take a look at later,
as well as some not horrible headphones, a blanket and a bottle of water.
The crew also came around with non-alcoholic pre-departure drinks.
There’s also a legrest, but it doesn’t really do much.
The crew began their manual safety demonstration and we pushed back and
began what is surely one of the longer taxis I’ve ever been on.
According to Google Maps it was 4.5 miles, over 7km from our gate to our runway for take off.
Eventually, we’d be lining up and taking off to the northwest. The spool up,
take off and airport stats are coming up next.
One note about the crew as we continue our climb, ours today was based in Bali. I’m
not sure of the current status of it at the moment, but some years ago Qantas came under
fire for using almost exclusively foreign crews on international mid and long haul Jetstar flights.
I’m not commenting on it one way or another, but I will say that they were surely one of the
friendliest and gracious crews I’ve had and are definitely what made this flight so great overall.
They were attentive throughout the flight and proactive for even the small things like
checking the bathroom in between passengers or offering snacks outside of meal times.
Let’s check out the comfort items for today’s flight, there are surprisingly a lot of them.
A small but nice pillow. I appreciate that it’s not in that cheap economy scratchy covering.
Then the blanket, which is brand new and you can take home.
I mean, I know they do it to save costs on laundering and I’m sure they’re recyclable,
but, it’s hard not to feel like it’s a bit of a waste.
Inside the Chill Kit was a very surprisingly comprehensive assortment of stuff.
Honestly, this is a better kit than I’ve received on quite a
few full service carriers in Business Class. I’m looking at you Austrian.
There’s also a blow up neck pillow which came in handy and the whole kit came in
an actual tote bag, which you’ll likely see in some of my upcoming bali videos.
Really, just an all around well stocked and smart set of amenities.
As for in flight entertainment. There are a few movies on offer. It’s nothing
spectacular but it’ll get the job done. But, in a stroke of genius on my part,
certain ipads will very very conveniently just dangle like so, if your cover folds.
I had a few clips where I thought I was recording video… but,
apparently I wasn’t. Either way, it’s still some beautiful terrain.
That brings us to a really great breakfast service. Starting off
with pretzels and a cup of coffee. Here’s the full menu for our flight.
I went with the vegetable frittata, again, team frittata which was served with chicken sausage,
braised beans and creamed spinach. Along side it was a coconut and raspberry
muffin and a few slices of really decent sourdough bread. I applaud airlines that
manage to serve fresh, sliced bread. It’s such a nice departure from those monotonous rolls
and garlic bread which every one pretends is delicious but is actually stale as hell.
Next up we have the ten second toilet tour. There are no frills
but it was certainly kept very clean and tidy.
I would have loved this clip crossing the northern coast
to not be a time lapse. Oh well, live and learn.
Beautiful skies gave way to lots of clouds as we began lining up while crossing over Lombok.
After that it was a straight shot into Denpasar’s runway 27, catching a glimpse
of the beautiful cliffs of Pendida Island on the final approach. Enjoy the landing.
A
brief
taxi had us parking next to familiar company and that is that. This was
a thoroughly pleasant flight which exceeded every expectation I could have possibly had for
it. It is so so so refreshing to have such a great low cost experience,
especially considering this fare was lower than Qantas Economy was for the same route at the time.
I really do hope you enjoyed this video today, if you did, please be sure to click that thumbs
up and subscribe with notifications on so you don’t miss out on any of my upcoming content.
In the coming weeks we have content coming from Bali, Garuda, Cathay and Taipei,
but first, I’ll see you next time at the Hotel Indigo Seminyak Bali.