Jetstar delays flights to west

[Wirraway]

Sat "Sydney Morning Herald"

Jetstar delays flights to west
By Scott Rochfort
October 2, 2004

Qantas budget offshoot Jetstar has held off its long-awaited arrival in Adelaide and Perth until March next year at the earliest, preferring instead to ramp up its existing east coast network.

The airline announced on Friday it would build up its existing 800 weekly services to 940 by January 5 when it takes delivery of its sixth 177-seat Airbus 320.

Jetstar's new flights from Sydney will include services to the Whitsundays three times a week, an additional two daily flights to the Gold Coast and an additional daily flight to the Sunshine Coast.

Jetstar has a fleet of 14 Boeing 717s and three A320s. By mid-2006, it plans to have 23 A320s.

But with Jetstar loaning two of its yet-to-be-delivered jets to its Singapore-based sister airline, Jetstar Asia, from December, the airline denied it was winding back its domestic expansion plans.

The two A320s will not be returned to Jetstar until March.

Jetstar's head of corporate relations, Simon Westaway, said the airline chose to consolidate its existing network and to build on services which have proven to be successful. "We're putting the aircraft where the demand currently is," he said.

Such as Sydney to the Gold Coast, which recently overtook Melbourne-Adelaide as the fourth-busiest air route in Australia. According to recent Bureau of Transport Economics statistics, passengers on the Sydney-Gold Coast route grew by 40.8 per cent in the year to July, while the main Sydney-Melbourne route grew by 11.7 per cent.

Mr Westaway also cited Newcastle as one of Jetstar's successes. With the Melbourne-Newcastle route already reporting a 340 per cent lift in passenger traffic in the year to July 31, Jetstar plans to add an additional daily service to its two daily return services from late October.

=========================================
Sat "Weekend Australian"

Jetstar ups the ante in fare wars
Geoffrey Thomas
October 02, 2004

JETSTAR has launched a fare war as it ramps up its flight schedule over Christmas with 100 additional flights a week plus a new destination as more Airbus A320s are delivered.

The airline announced yesterday conditional internet $49 one-way fares over a range of routes including Sydney-Launceston, Melbourne-Hobart and Newcastle-Melbourne or Brisbane. Other one-way conditional internet fare levels include $79 for Sydney-Rockhampton, $89 Sydney-Whitsunday Coast and $119 Sydney-Hamilton Island.

The fares are available for travel between October 23 and December 16, 2004, and January 11 to February 28, 2005, and are on sale until midnight on October 6, 2004, unless sold out.

A Virgin Blue spokesperson said late yesterday the airline would match the Jetstar fares. Those fares will help fill the 100 additional flights a week that Jetstar announced yesterday.

The current schedule of 116 daily services to 14 destinations is operated by 14 Boeing 717s and three A320s, and the airline will receive another A320 in December and two more in early January.

From December 1, the airline will start a three-times weekly Sydney-Proserpine service.

Newcastle's daily flights to Melbourne and Brisbane will be doubled, while the double daily Hobart-Sydney flight will become three times daily.

Reflecting the desire to go north, the Sydney-Gold Coast service gets an additional two flights a day to nine times daily.

Record high fuel prices have kept the fares above the $29 level offered when Jetstar launched its flights earlier this year.

Jetstar chief executive officer Alan Joyce said yesterday that "the additional weekly flights represented a 16 per cent boost to flight schedules up to 940 weekly flights".

"Jetstar will move to an all-A320 fleet by mid-2006, which will number 23 aircraft and our A320 program remains on track."

Next June the airline will start phasing out its Boeing 717s as A320s are delivered.

Big winners in Jetstar's rise have been residents near Newcastle and Avalon airports.

And Jetstar is looking westwards. According to insiders at the airline Jetstar will start services to both Adelaide and Perth in 2005, and is expected to launch Perth-Broome flights by late 2005.

=========================================