Western Sydney Airport no ‘budget option’ for Qantas, says Hudson

“95 per cent of Jetstar passengers are for leisure, and the Gold Coast, Brisbane, and Melbourne are big leisure destinations, and for Qantas, we do provide a large portion of leisure, but the disproportionate share of Qantas customers is business purpose,” she said.

“We’re incredibly proud of the role that Jetstar is going to play in unlocking affordable travel, and Jetstar has done that for 22 years, and it is something that we will continue to make sure that the Qantas group focuses on.

“We will invest here in Western Sydney – not just on the network we’ve announced today, but we will over time be investing in new services to Perth, to other destinations, and that’s going to be something that our team focuses on all the time.”

Jetstar will be Qantas Group’s only passenger airline at WSI for its first few months in operation, with the inaugural flight to launch on 25 October and QantasLink to commence E190 services next year. According to Hudson, the group is not simply “dipping its toe” into WSI.

“60 per cent of Qantas passengers are business purpose travellers, both large corporate, but also small to medium sized businesses,” she said.

“If you look at the seasonality of Qantas, December, January, February are the months when those business travellers are on holidays, and so March is the right month for us to really set these services up for success. I’m confident that from that point, as we see demand grow, we will grow that service to match.

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“I do think that our focus is that we want to see this as a huge success. Starting from the position that we’ve announced today is the right thing to stimulate demand to set up our operations properly.

“Qantas is undertaking its biggest fleet renewal in our history, so we’ve got lots of flexibility to add additional aircraft, more frequency, bigger aircraft, and we expect demand will grow, and when we see that, we’ll put more frequency in.”

Jetstar will initially operate up to 14 return Melbourne flights per week, as well as four per week to the Gold Coast and three per week to Brisbane. QantasLink will begin operating from the airport 28 March 2027, with four E190 flights per week to each of Melbourne and Brisbane.