Jetstar grabs the Tiger’s tail……….
A report in The Australian says that Jetstar has announced a second daily service to the West Australian capital from Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, taking on Tiger headon!
The direct evening service will begin on November 15 — a week before Tiger’s expected start date — and was launched yesterday with a brief fare sale offering tickets starting at $49 one-way.
The announcement also comes a week before Tiger, which launched on the Melbourne-Perth route earlier this year with $60 one-way fares, is due to unveil its new low-cost terminal at Melbourne Airport.
The move marks a first for the airline in that it will be the only Australian domestic carrier to operate from two airports in the same capital city.
The new service will complement the carrier’s daily Airbus A320 from Avalon to Perth and will eventually move to the secondary airport, near Geelong.
Demand for flights to Melbourne from Western Australia is running hot and has even prompted Perth-based Skywest to try its hand with a Kalgoorlie-Melbourne service. Jetstar pointed to government data identifying Perth-Melbourne as one of the nation’s fastest growing markets with a 14.6 per cent rise in passenger movements in the 12 months to July.
Chief executive Alan Joyce said Jetstar was moving to consolidate its position in Melbourne in response to the strong market demand and to maintain its low-fares leadership.
“Demand for our existing daily service between Melbourne Avalon Airport and Perth continues to exceed our expectations,” Mr Joyce said.
“Our aim is always to sustainably grow operations on any market that responds to our presence and continued growth on the route has been projected.”
Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said the Qantas offshoot would fly to Perth from Tullamarine while it waited for the fifth of nine additional A320s it was adding to it fleet to arrive next year.
The first four planes have been allocated to Melbourne, Cairns and Newcastle.
“During the second half of calendar 2008 we will have more A320s available and that’s why we’ll be consolidating our Melbourne services to Perth from Melbourne Avalon Airport as a double-daily activity,” Mr Westaway said.
Jetstar hopes to avoid confusion by clearly identifying the destination of flights from Perth through major booking channels such as its website, call centre and travel agents.
Flight numbers for the Melbourne-Perth service will be in the JQ900s while those to Avalon are JQ652 and 653.
“With separate flight numbers and much different flight times, we think it will work well and, more importantly, provide additional capacity to a market which is growing,” Mr Westaway said.
“We feel very confident that the market can absorb this additional service.”
While acknowledging that Jetstar would compete vigorously against Tiger, Mr Westaway said the airline still saw Virgin Blue as its major competitor.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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