Jetstar confirms long haul for Singapore

Interestingly, the Melbourne- Singapore services will be operated on Jetstar’s Australian traffic rights and will bear the ‘JQ’ designator, while the flights to Auckland have the Jetstar Asia ‘3K’ designator. The latter will be operated by an A330 on the Jetstar Asia operating certificate, while the Melbourne services initially will be flown by Australian registered aircraft.

“Connecting our three largest operations in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore strengthens each of these businesses and builds a solid foundation for future growth beyond Singapore to North Asia and Europe,” said Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan when announcing the new services in Singapore on June 9.

Buchanan has previously indicated that this is likely to include Rome and Athens, which Qantas has withdrawn from over the past decade.

These could be made possible by the delivery of additional A330-200s next year which feature Airbus’s new high gross weight option, giving them a range of about 7200nm.

The airline is also expected to use its growing A330 operation to make a push into North Asia, in particular the Japanese market where Buchanan says the airline has achieved strong brand penetration. Jetstar Asia unsuccessfully sought rights to operate daily services to Tokyo’s Haneda airport earlier this year, losing out to Singapore Airlines.

Nevertheless, the carrier will operate daily A320 services on a Singapore-Taipei-Tokyo Narita routing from July.

The new route announcements come after Jetstar announced in January that it had chosen Singapore as its base for long haul expansion following negotiations with a number of airports in the region. The carrier has also recently added a number of A320s and expanded its route network extensively, to the point where Buchanan now says that Jetstar is the largest carrier by revenue in Asia.

Jetstar says the Singapore long haul A330 base decision will create up to 200 jobs across its growing pan-Asian network.

The long haul services will be fed from both the Jetstar Asia network from Singapore and the new Melbourne and Auckland flights, while Jetstar may also increase other services from Australian cities to Singapore.

Currently, the airline only flies from Darwin and Perth to Singapore with A320s, but offers onward connections to Melbourne through Darwin.

For its part, Tiger Airways, which competes with Jetstar both in Asia and Australia, has indicated that it isn’t likely to follow Jetstar’s path into long haul services, with its focus remaining firmly on narrowbody operations. “We can’t see any cost benefits that we can realise doing that against other major international long haul carriers,” CEO Tony Davis said. “But there is so much more we can do with our single aisle fleet in Singapore, Australia, India and other parts of Asia. ” Jetstar’s move can also be seen as a defensive counter against AirAsia X, which has used its flights to Australia and the UK from Kuala Lumpur to offer an alternative to the kangaroo route. In a recent sale, the Malaysian airline offered return airfares – albeit self connecting – between Australia and the UK from $217.

The move to base at least two of the A330s with Jetstar Asia is also possibly a sign of the airline’s plans for its Boeing 787‑9s, which it says are expected to be delivered from late 2013. In the past Jetstar has also talked of establishing a New Zealand base for the 787s.

Barry Jackson, president of the Australian and International Pilots Association which represents Qantas Group pilots, told Australian Aviation that such offshore basing would have far reaching impacts. “Not only will Jetstar undermine the future of Australian pilots but also engineers, flight attendants and many Australians that were looking to a career in aviation,” he said. “Obviously a lot of thought has gone into the creation of Jetstar and it looks set to become the ‘Ryanair of the Asia Pacific’. As with Ryanair, a lot of work is put into sidestepping legal roadblocks to achieve the lowest cost base. ” “Questions have to be asked as to who is responsible for maintenance and operating standards. Australians and the government must take a good hard look at themselves and ask what has happened and what will happen to the Australian aviation industry which has taken pride in being innovative and set standards other countries strove to match,” he added.