VC9 - all you mention as negatives has easy fixes.
1. Catering - over cater 10% and you are unlikely to come unstuck.
2. Seat allocation - Load back 50% of the aeroplane directly after special needs passengers, then the rest.
3. Priority tag the Lounge Passengers baggage and load them in an easily located locker, even if they are held until last on so the suckers can be ripped off easily if the passenger fails to load on the first or second call.
4. Jetstar is a non connection based airline, so there is no problem there at all - single sector and if they are silly enough to follow this path, then ther is no problem.
Grumpy passengers due to:
1. Food and drink - Drink apart from soft drinks has always been pay for in Y on QF mainline. If you serve the punters the food provided in Y on QF at the moment, you will have no problems. The quality is well and truly back.
2. Inflight entertainment is not an issue. Apart from medium- longhaul overseas passengers I have never had a passenger insist on an Airline on entertainment systems alone.
Also discount carriers have many abandoned seats, as it is not worth the call to pay a $33.00 cancellation fee on a $39.00 fare. I just heard from an insider that J* will shortly be overbooking up to their perceieved noshow level on most services.
The bottom line VC9 is that apart from the newbies, people in this market hate Jetstar with a passion, and will simply tolerate it if they must.
Look at the staffing costs. To check in a passenger in AVV, fly them to BNE, require them to recheck themselves and their bags back in at BNE for their flight to MKY means rechecking in MEL - the bags that have just been unloaded onto the racetrack have to be rechecked in and reloaded onto barrows when this could have been a simple transaction in the thru room. Likewise, the allocation of seats for the entire journey could have been performed at the start point. Try to tell me it costs less in staffing the way J* is doing it.
With all due deference to the Irish ex Ryan Air gentleman who is running this shooting match, this is not bloody Ireland or the UK. Take a little look and learn.
Best regards
EWL