Tasmanian Jetstar flights cancelled amid global Airbus safety scare

Two passengers hoping to return home from Tasmanian holidays speak out on their experience following Jetstar’s cancelled flights, including one left with no option but to pay for a business class ticket.

Molly Appleton

@mollyappleton93

3 min read

November 29, 2025 - 3:34PM

Hobart airport in chaos. Picture: Caroline Tan

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Aussie travel chaos after global safety scare

Andjana Pachkova had to pay $1500 for a domestic plan ticket to fly home on Saturday, and she may have been one of the lucky ones.

The Sydney-sider was one of hundreds impacted by Jetstar cancelling flights between Hobart and Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane amid a global safety aviation scare.

Finishing her two-week artist residency armed with a lot of luggage, including paints, brushes and a surfboard, Ms Pachkova only discovered her afternoon flight was cancelled after returning her rental car.

“I booked [the flight] through Expedia a year ago,” she said.

“So I got to the airport and I got in line with Jetstar and then they announced on the loud speaker that anyone who purchased their ticket, or made travel arrangements through a third party provider, which would be Expedia, should not be queue in this line. They should contact their provider.”

Andjana Pachkova had her flight cancelled and now waiting at Hobart Airport. Picture: Caroline Tan

With the clock ticking on a school graduation for one of her three boys, a husband at home at his “wit-ends” and no where to stay in Hobart, Ms Pachkova said she had to organise alternative travel.

“I went to Qantas and I said ‘please, please put me on the next flight’,” she said.

She secured the final ticket, a business class one that was “$1500 out of the budget that I didn’t have”, but will get her to Sydney on Saturday.

Unlike Ms Pachkova, Christine Sholer booked direct with the budget airline and praised the Hobart staff’s help in organising accommodation and a new flight.

Her flight plans to return to Melbourne, and her Gippsland home, alongside two others she completed the Three Capes hike with, were delayed to Sunday.

Only noticing Jetstar’s cancellation message on her phone after arriving to Hobart Airport by a taxi, she said re-booking on her phone was difficult to navigate so she joined the airport queue.

Affected passengers Christine Sholer, Carley McGrath and Andrew Munns waiting to travel to Melbourne. Picture: Caroline Tan

Mrs Sholer said organising a new flight was straightforward, however alternative accommodation was proving more difficult.

She said Jetstar staff informed them the hotel they usually put up passengers of cancelled flights to, only had a double room left, which wouldn’t work for the three of them.

Speaking at the time the trio were meant to be boarding their flight to Victoria, they were waiting in a line of about a dozen to lock in their sleeping arrangements for an extra night in Hobart.

“It’ll be an absolute nightmare for Jetstar flight,” Mrs Sholer said.

“They’re certainly trying to do the right thing by rescheduling and trying to find us accommodation.”

Affected Airbus A320 passengers queuing at Jetstar service desk in Hobart airport. Picture: Caroline Tan

Nationally 90 flights had been cancelled after Airbus ordered an emergency upgrade to some of its A320 fleet, due to concerns that solar radiation could corrupt flight controls.

The aerospace giant discovered that solar radiation can damage the data in the flight-control computers on the Airbus A320, which can cause glitches in the operating system.

On Saturday, Jetstar engineers were working to install a software patch to fix an issue which was discovered following an in-flight incident in North America earlier this year.

The problem must be corrected by physically changing the software status out of the plane and an update takes roughly two to three hours to carry out.

In a statement on Saturday, Jetstar said “Safety is our number one priority. To respond to a precautionary action from Airbus, we have cancelled some Jetstar flights.”

Four outbound flights from Launceston were canned on Saturday.

Jetstar doesn’t fly out of Devonport and at this stage no Qantas Link flights, which flies out of the North-West airport, have been impacted.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson said the airline hadn’t anticipated being grounded by the software issue.

Air New Zealand, that runs flights from Hobart, has also grounded its A320 fleet, however it doesn’t impact its Tasmanian flights having made the to A321. The next flight across the ditch isn’t scheduled until Sunday.