$465 Find cheap flights from Newcastle to Ballina

My Dad needed assistance to board the plane. The Jetstar staff were excellent with him and made the experience a lot easier😁

I got to the airport earlier than I expected, and they let me change to an earlier flight with no trouble.

The price difference/saving isn't sufficient to compensate the experience difference, don't recommend unless flight is under 3 hours. Huge queues for check in and the priority lane of other ailines blocked checked in Jetstar passengers from proceeding through to screening. Gate change to a "dungeon gate" that didn't have toilets in the vicinity. 45minute delay in boarding, no updates or explaination, let alone apology for any inconvenience. 1 scanner working for a full fight to board, no coordination. Loaded on to crowded buses to get on the plane in the middle of the tarmac, up stairs with no explaination. 4 bus trips. No system for boarding in sections. Over an hour late departing. Nothing complimentary, not even water or in-flight music. Pay wave not available and no cash sales. Staff onboard were friendly and professional.

Worst experience ever flying Melbourne to Phuket. 5 hours delayed! Didn’t land till 1am in the morning. Staff were rude and unhelpful

It may have been a result of earlier issues with a previous plane, causing delays, but the staff were not nearly as smiley as the previous Jetstar flight I was on. Also, they started boarding before the plane was empty...so we moved from one line into another line. They should have just waited until the plane was empty to avoid waiting in two lines.

We were visiting from California and did not know Melbourne. When we arrived at the main airport, where we also arrived when we flew in, we found to our horror that we were at the wrong airport! There was no obvious to us indication that there were two airports that Jetstar flew out of in Melbourne, or even that there were two airports. The staff tried to find us seats to Sydney but none were available, so we got an Uber and went to the other airport and managed to catch the original flight. The staff were great and very helpful, including figuring out how to check what bag to not have to pay extra for the luggage. I was contrasted with Ryan Air that we had flown with in Europe a few months previously and been treated as cattle and no smiles, no help, just line up and pay. We were impressed by the friendliness and the help extended to us.

They had issues with the plane prior to boarding. You could see it in the gate lounge staff. An hour after the plane was supposed to have taken off, we were still in the gate lounge, not a peep from the staff. Couldn’t seem to bring themselves to give a single verbal update. Then, they give some odd partial message verbally - plane has been downgraded. It’s not going anywhere. We need 37 people with carry on only to volunteer to go onto another flight + we’ll give you a $200 voucher - so this caused chaos, as people rushed to the desk. No mention of what those with checked baggage should do. About another 20 mins later, another lady at the desk makes a reference to going to another gate but stops mid sentence. Fed up, I approach the desk and ask if they can give some clear instructions to those that have checked baggage about what we should do. Another lady then gives a message over the PA telling those with checked baggage to go to a different gate. So we go to the new gate, spend an hour there waiting while the confusion between staff and passengers continues. Eventually board only to sit on the plane for about another hour as confused staff clearly have too many people on the plane and not enough seats. They finally figure it out and the flight leaves 3h25mins late. Things like this happen all the time I’d imagine, so you’d think dealing with it should be their bread and butter. Keep customers updated. Give clear instructions. Apologise for the delays. Not hard, but seemingly all lost on the Jetstar team that day. Pathetic.

The flight was cancelled 7 hours before it was due to fly and Jetstar said they couldn't get us on any other flight that day. We took a refund and easily booked a Virgin flight close to the time of the canvelled Jetstar flight.

The plane layout is built for short haul domestic flights. 3-3-3 configuration in economy is ridiculous for ~10 hour international flight.

On time and well-priced... For a short flight, what more do you need?