Jetstar to fly Melbourne-Brisbane

Jetstar’s entry onto the ‘golden triangle’ is now complete, with the Qantas subsidiary announcing that it will start twice daily services on the Melbourne-Brisbane route from July 1.

The new services will be in addition to the airline’s existing double daily services from Avalon to Brisbane, with no reduction in capacity on that service. The airline launched sales of the new flights on December 14, with promotional fares starting from $49 one way.

The move appears to be aimed at competing against Tiger Airways, which has announced that it will operate on the route from March 28 2010. It also comes only days after Jetstar announced a major increase in capacity on existing routes which will be rolled out between March and July 2010 as it takes delivery of four new Airbus A320s for its Australian operations.

Separately, Jetstar Asia has announced that it will add three times weekly services from Singapore to Shantou in the Guandong province of China to its network from February 2. It is Jetstar’s second mainland China destination, while the carrier is the first foreign airline to fly into Shantou Waisha Airport.