Qantas And Jetstar Increase Domestic Flights

[Brad Myer]

Qantas Group Announces Increase in Domestic Capacity

The Qantas Group today announced plans to increase capacity across its domestic route network by 9.6 per cent, including a number of new routes for both Qantas and Jetstar.

Qantas Chief Executive Officer, Mr Alan Joyce, said over the next nine months the Group would increase capacity by more than 66,000 seats per week once fully implemented, with the addition of new aircraft to the domestic fleet and in response to the recovering domestic market.

“We are seeing improved demand domestically and the introduction of these additional services and aircraft will see the Qantas Group well placed to meet this demand,” he said.

“The changes will see around 65 additional return services for Qantas and around 120 return services for Jetstar introduced across selected routes.

“Seven additional aircraft will be deployed on the Qantas domestic network this financial year. In July 2010, we added a B767-300 to grow routes including the key east – west market of Sydney to Perth.”

Mr Joyce said an A330-300 will be added from January with a further five B737-800s being progressively added to the domestic network from March 2011.

“These aircraft will be deployed on a variety of growth markets, including the east coast, east – west and intra WA markets,” Mr Joyce said.

Qantas will commence direct Brisbane-Broome services next year, resulting in Broome becoming the third destination behind Perth and Karratha that Queensland passengers can fly to direct from Brisbane. The new services will be seasonal, operating from April-October, to coincide with the Broome dry season.

This new service will join Broome-Melbourne and Broome-Sydney services, resulting in passengers from the popular tourist destination being able to fly direct from Broome to three east-coast destinations, as well as Perth.

Mr Joyce said Jetstar would also add new routes and increase services to key leisure destinations across Australia.

“Jetstar plans to increase Australian domestic capacity by up to 30 per cent in this financial year,” Mr Joyce said.

“Last week Jetstar announced new services in Perth and Launceston and today detailed additional services to Cairns – an important tourism destination.

“With Qantas and Jetstar, the Qantas Group has two strong and complementary brands to ensure we are able to respond to opportunities and changing market conditions.

“Qantas and Jetstar now jointly operate on over 20 routes across Australia, including the high traffic Sydney to Melbourne route”.

Wonder where the A330-300 will come from? New? Leased?

Pulled of Intl routes? Cant see how... The A333 fleet is already maxed out with Intl flying as it is. MNL goes A333 from NOV as well.

[Todd Hendry]

I'm pretty sure its a typo.
Should read A330-200 which is due by the end of the year.

[Jarden S]

According to today's Cairns Post the Cairns to Gold Coast is going up to daily from 3 per week. Is there enough demand for that route?

[Harry G]

When they are trying to fight off Tiger there is demand!

[Kain C]

From the Cairns Post http://www.cairns.com.au/article/201...ocal-news.html:

Jetstar confirms daily Gold Coast-Cairns service

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

© The Cairns Post

JETSTAR has announced 25 additional weekly return services to Cairns, adding extra daily flights from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

The budget airline will also establish a daily return flight between Cairns and the Gold Coast.

"Our commitment to building to a daily Gold Coast-Cairns service will also better support inbound international visitation," Jetstar Group CEO Bruce Buchanan said.

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The latest series of extra services represents 8850 more weekly seats in flights to Cairns and a $100 million investment by Jetstar in the city.

Full report in tomorrow's The Cairns Post.

So extra daily to each of MEL,SYD,BNE plus 4 per week extra to OOL adds up to 25 extra exactly.

[Jarden S]

Be nice if they made the PER and ADL flights to CNS daily while they are at it.
I wonder if Qantas will start CBR-CNS 3 per week and get there before someone else does. Maybe they could start Sydney to Port Hedland before strategic get a look in.

[Kain C]

The full report from The Cairns Post http://www.cairns.com.au/article/201...ocal-news.html

Jetstar boosts daily flights into Cairns
Nick Dalton

Thursday, August 26, 2010

© The Cairns Post

LOW-cost carrier Jetstar has backed its confidence in Cairns by investing another $100 million in the destination with an extra 25 new weekly domestic flights, an extra 460,200 seats a year to Cairns.

Jetstar Group chief executive Bruce Buchanan said it represented an expansion by the airline in Cairns by nearly a third and was the airline's largest addition of new domestic flights for the city.

"Jetstar will now be at record capacity on Melbourne-Cairns and Sydney-Cairns routes and complement Qantas on the largest Brisbane-Cairns market," he said.

Mr Buchanan said factors behind the new flights included the long-term pricing contract the airline had with the airport and the success of the extra domestic flights introduced earlier this year.

He said the reinstated Osaka flights were showing strong growth and New Zealand had great potential.

Mr Buchanan said Jetstar also was adding more aircraft to its fleet to increase capacity.

Airport chief executive Stephen Gregg said the new flights were "another great step in recovery for the tourism
industry".

He said there was a strong relationship between Jetstar, the airport and the tourism industry.

Mr Gregg said the announcement highlighted Jetstar's confidence in Cairns.

"It's been a very good season and next year is only going to get better," he said.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Rob Giason said the new flights would bring the number of domestic flights to Cairns almost back to the levels of two-and-a-half years ago.

He said the extra flights would be worth up to $30 million a year to the region's economy.

Mr Giason said the daily flights to the Gold Coast were critical links between the state's two leading tourism
destinations.

"It makes a lot of sense and will drive a lot of business. It's an incredible domestic market for us," he said.

Mr Giason said in the next six months the industry could start recapturing business lost over the past two-and-a-half years of the economic downturn.

The bit about long term pricing at the airport is interesting; given that the current pricing agreement at HBA (which was due to expire in June, but got extended) is due to expire on September 1, only a few days away. One last bit of leverage perhaps?

As for CNS-PER and CNS-ADL Jarden, I noticed last night that the additional CNS-OOL have been loaded into the JQ system, and the aircraft operates OOL-CNS-OOL for the 4 extra flights, with the 3 existing CNS-OOL-CNS remaining that way. Maybe they will make the OOL-CNS-OOL daily to free up the aircraft to do CNS-ADL-CNS daily? Otherwise 3 per week OOL-HBA-OOL on the days it doesn't go to CNS would be nice!

[Brad Myer]

Looks like the QF press release has been corrected:

Mr Joyce said an A330-200 will be added from January with a further five B737-800s being progressively added to the domestic network from March 2011.

Must be the new domestic A332 due at the end of the year.

Thanks

[Adam W]

The new A330 won't add any extra capacity as EBJ will be moved to JQ when the new one arrives.

[Wenglock M]

Could there be a change in plans (i.e. both EBO and EBP go to QF instead of just EBO as planned)?