SINGAPORE – Jetstar is launching a daily, one-stop service between Singapore and Melbourne.
The new route via Darwin is planned to start fon April 17 – pending regulatory approval.
The service is in addition to an existing daily flight that Jetstar operates between Singapore and Darwin.
Jetstar – a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas Airways – is also planning to establish an Asian hub for its planned long-haul operations between Australia and Europe, according to the company’s chief executive, Alan Joyce.
“We are focused on developing it through one hub initially,” Joyce told Associated Press.
“We hope that there will be multiple daily services by the time this is finished.”
The airline was deciding which of five Asian cities – Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City or Kuala Lumpur – it will use as a transit point, Joyce said.
Joyce also said Jetstar’s deliberations on its expansion into Europe have been slowed by the recently announced delays in the delivery of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner plane.
Jetstar was looking at flying to Athens and Rome, Joyce said, but was considering other factors as well in choosing destinations.
“We have to make a judgment call depending on which markets look like they have the potential when we get closer to it.
“And unfortunately, with the 787 delays, it just pushed that decision back by a few months,” he said.
US plane manufacturer Boeing last week said the inaugural flight of the 787 will be delayed, pushing delivery of the first plane into early 2009.
Joyce said Jetstar was also interested in flying between Australia and northeast Asian cities in Taiwan and South Korea, and to North American destinations in Canada and the US West Coast.
