In news that will surprise no Australian person, Jetstar has been ranked Australia’s most hated airline. But it gets worse – in new research conducted by S Money, Jetstar Airways has been determined as the third most unpopular airline in the whole world. Ooft! Talk about a rough landing.
Although Jetstar does offer some ridiculously good deals, lost and damaged luggage is a common theme for Jetstar customers, which is a bummer because who doesn't want to travel with their stuff intact?
So how was the research conducted? S Money unpacked thousands of Tweets that had tagged airline handles and analysed the volume of posts with negative and positive sentiment for each airline. The airlines with the most negative Tweet scores were determined to be the ‘Most Hated’, and vice versa. Because, of course, when travel turmoil arises, people turn to social media to grumble. Tweets tagging Jetstar were 67.5 per cent negative.
Qantas better hold onto their tray tables, too, because the study results will also shake them up – their detours and cancellations have left a lot of people with some serious travel headaches, and a lot of people regard Qantas as greedy. They ended up with a 60 per cent negativity rating.
Virgin Australia came out as the third most common airline to peeve Aussies off (with a 50.7 per cent negativity score). But, considering Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin are the three most commonly flown airlines Down Under, Virgin isn’t doing too badly in the popularity stakes.
Aviair has emerged as Australia's most loved airline, with happy customers raving about their solid track record. We didn’t know who Aviar was before reading these study results, but turns out they’re an award-winning regional airline that provides flights to some of WA’s hardest-to-reach spots. They got all the positive vibes on Twitter from their happy customers.
So there you have it. If you want to avoid a travel fate worse than sitting next to a screaming baby on a red-eye, you might want to steer clear of those bargain Jetstar deals.
Find out more about the Australian and global results of this study, here.