Karl Stefanovic loses it at rude Jetstar staff who made daughter upset

Karl Stefanovic has revealed how his 17-year-old daughter was left feeling ‘completely intimidated’ by ‘rude’ Jetstar staff. 

The Today Show host said his daughter Ava was flying home from the Sunshine Coast when her carry on luggage was weighed.

It was 500g over and Jetstar staff told her that she had to pay baggage excess fees. 

When she asked if she could remove an item and put it in her handbag, she was told she would then have to throw out the bag. 

Stefanovic said: ‘She asked if she can put it in her handbag and they said “if you want to throw your handbag out”.

‘It was so rude. It was so rude and it made my daughter, who’s only 17, feel completely intimidated.’

It was announced last year that his eldest daughter, known as Willow, signed with Precision MGMT to launch a career as a model.

Speaking to Stellar magazine, she credited her mum Cassandra Thorburn for helping her to achieve her modelling dreams.

‘My family has always been supportive of my dreams and aspirations,’ she said.

‘Mum has been the one who put in the hard yards to get me to this point. She herself is very creative, especially in home decor.

‘She has instilled in the three of us to journey safely through life, always with impeccable manners, and never get ahead of ourselves.’

The budding catwalk queen also had some kind words for father Karl, stating: ‘He backs me 100 per cent.’

Stefanovic’s outburst is the latest in a string of negative headlines for Jetstar. 

Fed-up customers have grappled with cancelled flights and mechanical fleet issues amid travel chaos across the board this year. 

Most recently, Jetstar struggled to get its Boeing 787 Dreamliners in the air as lightning strikes, bird strikes and delays in sourcing spare parts forced the company to scrap a number of flights.

Karl Stefanovic’s daughter Ava ‘Willow’ Stefanovic signed with Precision MGMT to launch a career as a model

 ‘My family has always been supportive of my dreams and aspirations,’ the teenager previously said

The issue last week affected some flights from Singapore, Hawaii and Bali, while a separate issue earlier in September saw groups of passengers temporarily stranded in Tokyo, Bali and Bangkok.

Customers took to social media to air their frustrations online with an entire website called ‘dontflyjetstar’ recently popping up.

‘I had my flight to Honolulu cancelled when I was on the Hume Highway from Canberra, five hours from takeoff,’ one Twitter user PintoPoloPony wrote this week.

‘Two flight affected in six days. One delayed 12 hours, the other cancelled two hours from boarding,’ user Syatmel wrote.

Another Twitter user said they had their flight back to Australia from Waikiki cancelled five hours out and had to fork out $3,000 for a Qantas flight instead.

The problems with lightning strikes on the new Jetstar 787s are complicated by the fact that the shell is made from composite material as opposed to the metal shells on older aircraft.

With a metal shell, an electric charge would leave one entry and exit hole on the fuselage or wing where maintenance teams would easily be able to inspect the damage.

But the composite material, which uses carbon fibre extensively, conducts electricity differently and a lightning strike can result in a patchwork of tiny holes that requires a much longer maintenance period.

The carbon composite materials also struggles with paint peeling off which has required airlines the world over to repaint aircraft in a costly and time-consuming process.

Pictures of the impacted 787s recently surfaced with duct tape patching parts of the wings and body.

The Today Show host said his daughter Ava was flying home from the Sunshine Coast when her carry on luggage was weighed

She was left feeling ‘completely intimidated’ by ‘rude’ Jetstar staff, Karl Stefanovic revealed

Willow, who previously went by her first name Ava before opting for her middle name, is the daughter of Karl (left) and his ex-wife Cassandra

The tape is actually called ‘speed tape’ and is an aluminium pressure sensitive material that’s commonly used on aircraft and race cars.

Engineers are able to use this as a workaround to prevent water from seeping through the peeling paint into the material but the fix isn’t a permanent one.

In addition to the aircraft issues, both Jetstar and Qantas are battling maintenance worker shortages, further delaying repairs and contributing to the frequency of cancelled flights.

‘Part of the Qantas and Jetstar issue is they don’t have spare aircraft,’ a Qantas group insider told Crikey.

‘The schedule is very tight and when multiple aircraft fail there is not much that can be done. We often don’t have a spare aircraft to roll into its place at short notice.’

Qantas will often lend aircraft to Jetstar to plug holes in their schedule but this becomes problematic when demand for Qantas is high, particularly around holiday periods.

And Qantas itself has faced intense criticism in recent months with passengers slamming performance since services resumed after Covid lockdown restrictions.

Travellers have complained about huge queues, cancelled flights, lost baggage and having to wait months for refunds for flight tickets that were never used.

Meanwhile, it was recently announced that Stephanie Tully will take over from Gareth Evans as Jetstar CEO in November, moving on from her role as chief customer officer at the airline’s parent company

Jetstar have been approached for comment.