Tag: Sydney

Travel review – Jetstar JQ406 Sydney to Coolangatta

Jetstar delivers on the low cost operator promise, just don’t expect anything more than a flight.

One of the delightful aspects of the low cost airline model is the contempt management has for their customers.

That scorn for the people who fund management’s salaries is guilty pleasure to watch on a third rate TV “reality” show, but it’s not fun when you’re on the receiving end.

So with a fixed smile and a grim determination not to to let the bastards grind me down, I headed to Sydney Airport to catch Jetstar’s flight JQ406 to the Gold Coast

Check in

It’s no conincidence people make reality TV shows documenting the clash of penny pinching, ticket clipping corporatism with the modern lumpenproletariat; the queues are long and the tempers are frayed.

The key to your temper surviving Jetstar’s check in is not to have checked baggage so you can dodge the general grumpiness in the queues.

Otherwise have your all your documents handy when you get to the check in clerk as they are quite friendly once they realise you aren’t going to mess them around.

Seats

A positive with Jetstar is the seats are spacious and comfortable compared to their Virgin competition and Qantas cousins.

While seat comfort isn’t an issue on a one hour flight it is a plus on longer flights and actually makes Jetstar a reasonable choice if you want to sleep on a ‘red eye’ from Perth.

Meals

As a low cost airline, meals and drinks are an extra charge on Jetstar and really who can be bothered on a mid-morning one hour flight?

During the Flight

An irritation with JQ is the early “turn of electronic devices” policy that sees cabin crew telling you to turn off devices the moment the plane starts its descent.

On short trips this weird policy means as little as twenty minutes time available to use a laptop or tablet, if you want to work on your flight then choosing Virgin or Qantas will give you more time to get things done.

On arrival

Baggage collection was surprisingly slow for a relatively quiet airport and Coolangatta Airport’s management save a few bucks by opening a minimum of luggage carousels which can cause crowds if two flight arrive at once.

Getting away

Coolangatta Airport is a delight for transport with plenty of taxis, including Maxi Cabs that seat half a dozen people and a regular city bus service that runs the length of the Gold Coast.

Overall Jetstar delivers what it promises, an 21st Century air flight that does its best to imitate a 20th Century bus.

If there is an alternative at a reasonable cost then go for it, otherwise accept the low prices and avoid checking baggage.

Paul travelled to the Gold Coast courtesy of Microsoft to attend their Australian TechEd event.

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When disruption meets regulation

Innovation wasn’t meant to be easy, particularly when you’re against vested interests.

Taxi booking applications have been one of the big areas for smartphone developers. Around the world apps for hailing cabs have popped up following the lead of San Francisco’s Uber.

One of the opportunities for copycat developers is that in most places taxis are regulated by the local city or state government, so an app for New York will struggle in Los Angeles, Paris or Tokyo and savvy entrepreneurs can create their own Uber knock off suited to their own location.

The problem is in most places taxis are regulated as a cartel, not a public service. Sometimes that cartel is to protect drivers, sometimes the companies that run the networks and often taxi license holders.

Sydney, Australia, is a good example of the latter two. The New South Wales state government’s rules are designed to protect the interests of the greedy ‘investors’ who’ve bought taxi license plates and the networks who run the booking systems and management of the cabs.

The result is Sydney cab drivers are treated like serf in what can only described as a feudal system while customers have to put up with lost bookings, poorly kept vehicles and high taxi fares.

It’s a lousy deal all round and is a great example of where disruption can change things for the better.

The problem is the incumbents will fight innovation that threatens their cosy and profitable arrangements and the regulators are part of that comfortable alliance.

In New York it looks like the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner does have some of the consumer interests at heart, pointing out that the metered fare is what passengers have to be charged by law. In most cities though, particularly Sydney, protecting the passenger is just another smokescreen for protecting vested interests.

Something that many innovators don’t realise is the power of those vested interests.

In the case of the taxi app developers many of them are about to get a nasty taste of just how vicious incumbent and their tame regulators can be when confronted with a threat to their cosy business arrangements.

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Darling Harbour and the peak of consumerism

Sydney’s old docks reflect the changing economy

Sydney’s Darling Harbour was one the centre of the nation’s mercantile economy, from across the country millions of tons of grain, wheat, sugar and other commodities were loaded onto ships and exported to the empire.

Eventually Darling Harbour fell into disuse, the docks became containerised, bulk goods moved to specifically designed loaders and the new breed of cargo ships were often too big to fit under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

What really sealed Darling Harbour’s fate was Australia moved from being a largely export based agricultural export economy to a service based consumerist economy.

Today Darling Harbour illustrates that change, the docks have become expensive restaurants, hotels and shopping centres. The notorious “hungry mile” of docks is being converted into “Barangaroo” complex of office blocks, apartments and possibly even a casino for “high roller” Chinese gamblers.

Even the cruise liners are going. The 1980s vision of Darling Harbour as a temple to consumerism and property speculation is complete. In this way, Darling Harbour has become a picture of the Australian economy.

Just as Australia’s mercantile era peaked just before The Great Depression of the 1930s – the depression of the 1890s was actually far harder on Australia, particularly Melbourne and Victoria – the consumerist era finished with the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

It will be interesting to see how Darling Harbour evolves over the next hundred years.

For a glimpse of the final days of the old Darling Harbour, Island Shunters an ABC documentary from 1977 showed the working lives of railway workers in the goods yards on the Western side of the docks. Today those railyards are the Australian office of Google and Fairfax’s headquarters.

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