Darwin to be Jetstar's International Hub

[Greg McDonald]

From News.com.au:

Jetstar will establish an international hub in Darwin, says Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson.

It follows news on Thursday night that Tiger Airways will axe its services to Darwin from Melbourne and Singapore, with the budget airline blaming high fuel and operating costs.

Mr Henderson sought to soften the blow to Territorians, announcing the government and Jetstar had entered into a five year agreement.

Under this the airline will base seven planes in Darwin.

"The Territory government will provide $5 million to support the establishment of the hub and $3 million to support marketing of routes and destinations," Mr Henderson told reporters.

Jetstar is the first national airline to set up an international base in Darwin and Mr Henderson welcomed the move as "great news for Territory travellers and for our economy".

The new deal is expected to inject $160 million into the territory economy, create more than 570 jobs and open the door to an additional 250,000 tourists.

Jetstar flights to Ho Chi Minh City start on September 1 and, under the agreement, Jetstar will operate new routes to South-East Asia using three aircraft by the end of June 2009.

Four other aircraft will come on line by the end of June 2012.

"The aim of the agreement is to grow the international market and the Darwin hub," Mr Henderson said.

Meanwhile, Tiger announced on Thursday night that its services to Darwin will be suspended from October 26.

Tiger chief operating officer Steve Burns said the costs of flying to Darwin were the highest of all the airports the airline served.

"This is an important point to stress: combined airport and fuel costs in Darwin cost more than any of the 27 airports that the airline serves across Australia and Asia. It is just incompatible for a true low-fare airline to operate to such a high cost destination," he said.

The airline might re-establish services to Darwin "if costs become more reasonable", he said.

Tiger flights booked prior to October 26 will go ahead.

[Rhys Xanthis]

Well done JQ!

Tiger definetly lost that battle!

Lets see what happens with Perth...Tiger have dropped their 2nd daily flight to SIN, JQ to get started on SIN, denpasar, jakarta towards the end of the year...i wonder what the future holds!

[Steve Jones]

Looks like JQ are starting DRW-DPS based on the email out today. Given they're offering fares from SYD/MEL-DPS via DRW, does this mean they're dropping the A330 direct flights?

Edit: Answering my own question, it looks like the A330 flights remain. The DRW-DPS flights seem to be 4-5 days a week - I wonder what that will mean for the Air North E170 flights?

[Jon Harris]

From the Travel Daily...
///

New daily A320 Jetstar flights from Darwin to Denpasar

Jetstar has announced the introduction of daily flights between Darwin and Bali from 03 Dec.

Bali is JQ's third overseas port from Darwin, and the flights will also link with an additional daily JQ service between Brisbane and Darwin, as well as with Jetstar flights from Sydney and Melbourne.

DRW-DPS sale fares went online last night leading in at $199 one way.

More information in today's Travel Daily.

[lloyd fox]

It is being advertised as BNE-DRW-DPS...BRISBANE-BALI 1 stop.

JQ 81 originates in BNE at 1235pm and returns to BNE as JQ 82 at 1020am however on the return there is a 3 hr wait in DRW

Cheers Lloyd

[Simon L.]

Originally Posted by Steve Jones

I wonder what that will mean for the Air North E170 flights?

I guess here is the answer, it's indeed sad news for Airnorth.

Regards.

[Phillippe M]

Jetstar blames Wet for Darwin flight cut
ALYSSA BETTS November 12th, 2008 NT News

JETSTAR has cut services between Darwin and Melbourne and will not rule out dumping further flights from other destinations.

Some Jetstar passengers have been forced to re-book flights or find alternative transportation.

The budget airline's corporate relations general manager, Simon Westaway, yesterday confirmed the twice-daily service between Melbourne and Darwin would be reduced to 10 flights a week.

"From December we will be removing four flights over the short to medium term," he said. "The Darwin destination for us is a growing destination but there's a drop-off in traffic (during the wet season)."

He said while there were no plans to cut services between Darwin and other destinations, he could not rule out further changes.

Jetstar has significantly increased flights in and out of Darwin since starting up flights in 2006.

It has recently turned Darwin into a new international hub.

Mr Westaway said Jetstar had advised passengers of the changes to flight schedules.

But Jeff Moss, who has been working in Darwin for 15 months, disagrees, after learning on the weekend his flights to Melbourne and back were cancelled.

He said he only discovered the second flight's cancellation by chance - his daughter checked on the internet after Jetstar rang about the canning of his first flight. Mr Moss, 52, said he rang Jetstar about the second cancellation and found they had re-booked him on a flight scheduled to leave two days earlier.

"When (I rang) I said, 'When were you going to get around to telling me about this change'? They said they would've contacted me once they'd started looking through that flight," he said.

He said Jetstar staff initially said the cancellations were "just a one-off", then that the airline was cutting night services, and then that they were due to mechanical problems.

"I said, 'How the hell do you know of a mechanical problem one month ahead'?" Mr Moss, 52, said.

"At that time of year, I think other people need to be aware (of the cuts) - you're going to have a mass exodus from Darwin around Christmas."

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/200...51_ntnews.html

[Stefan Perkas]

Evening all,

JQ 677/678 will be reduced to 3x weekly.
JQ 61/62 will remain daily

Adelaide-Darwin-Adelaide flights will be reduced from daily to 4x weekly. The flight will be operated overnight.

[Kain C]

JQ have known about this for months. The aircraft that did the DRW-ADL-DRW service got reassigned to the new BNE-DRW-DPS service which started on 3 December. This meant that JQ didn't have an ADL-DRW service, so they made the night time MEL-DRW service go via ADL 4 days a week (and also dropped 4 weekly MEL-HBA in the process as the aircraft MEL-ADL-DRW-ADL-MEL doesn't get back into MEL until about AM the next morning!)

[Phillippe M]

This is very disappointing, but you could see it coming without the Federal Government funding.... Nothing yet on the NTAirports; Jetstar; Qantas or NT Government Websites about it yet.

Airport expansion plan scrapped

July 1st, 2009

A PLAN to turn Darwin airport into a hub for international flights was scrapped today.

Talks between the airport and budget carrier Jetstar collapsed, which means the $60 million project has been put on hold.

Airport chief executive Ian Kew said the airline had agreed to a scoping study for the expansion and the Federal Government had given planning approval.

But Jetstar's parent company, the Qantas Group, which represents 80 per cent of the airport's traffic, would not sign the deal because of the global financial crisis.

The airport's $90 million retail centre is also unlikely to go ahead as scheduled this year.

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/200...05_ntnews.html