Jetstar sets out to tame the Tiger
A report in The Herald Sun by Geoff Easdown says Jetstar will step up the battle for market share against newcomer Tiger Airlines by flooding its chief and high yield Gold Coast market with extra seats.
The Qantas budget offshoot intends to introduce new and bigger A321 jetliners to the route to augment existing services by its present 177 seat A320 aircraft.
The decision also will create another 150 aviation jobs based in Melbourne.
Jetstar, which will announce the plan today, will have to hire additional pilots, cabin crew, engineers, ground staff and airport service workers.
The planes are set to service both the Gold Coast and Cairns routes, with 11 weekly flights to Cairns and up to eight daily return flights to Coolangatta, the nation’s fastest growing holiday market.
As a result Cairns services will grow 46 per cent over the past season or by more than 2100 seats a week.
Melbourne-Gold Coast will be boosted by another 132 seats a day or 924 seats per week, which equates to about a 5 per cent boost in passenger capacity.
The new A321 planes, the biggest in the A320 Airbus stable, are much longer than the planes used at present by Jetstar and Tiger.
According to Airbus the A321 generates the best operating economies of any single-aisle aircraft, which aviation sources say will give Melbourne- based Jetstar a competitive edge over the newly launched and Singapore-owned Tiger.
Subject to regulatory approval by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority the first A321 service to the Gold Coast will begin on April 8 next year.
The Qantas board signed off on the deal for the new planes two weeks ago as part of a firm order it made for 68 aircraft and up to 108 planes by 2014.
Confirming the deal Jetstar’s chief executive Alan Joyce told BusinessDaily last night that the key part meant the new planes would be operating in time to meet the peak Easter holiday travel market.
“Instead of flying 177-seat aircraft we will be flying bigger planes and increasing capacity without having to add extra flights,” he said.
A Report by The Mole from The Herald Sun
John Alwyn-Jones
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