Tasmanian country music star Casey Barnes has blasted Virgin Australia after his band’s flights were abruptly canceled during their tour, leaving them scheduled to arrive ‘after the next show would have ended’.
Barnes took to TikTok on the first day of December to share the ordeal, which ultimately forced them to spend $2,000 each on replacement flights with rival Qantas.
“The entire airline has completely gone to the sh*t and they’re cost cutting everywhere,” Barnes said.
“We’ve been affected over the last few days flying. We did a show in Melbourne last night, we were meant to be playing in Sydney tonight, got up this morning, all of our flights have been cancelled.”
“All four members of our band have been chucked on four totally different flights, two of which weren’t going to get us to Sydney in time.”
“So we had to fork out $1,000 each one way from Melbourne to Sydney on Qantas.”
In late August, it was revealed that just under one in ten flights between the two major cities, which typically see 150 flights daily, were being cancelled each day.
Back in July, Virgin’s Chief Legal Officer Susan Schneider blamed the high cancellation rate on the ‘complexities’ of operating at Sydney Airport due to a curfew, hourly landing limits and runway restrictions.
Barnes, who won his first Golden Guitar award for the top-selling Australian Album of the Year last year, has again this year received nominations for Single of the Year for ‘Summer Nights’ and Male Artist of the Year.
He will next perform in Tasmania’s north at The Forth Pub as his tour continues on March 2 next year.
