No-frills Jetstar Asia to launch seven budget routes from S'pore
No-frills Jetstar Asia to launch seven budget routes from S'pore
Agence France-Presse/Singapore
Asia's newest budget carrier, Jetstar Asia, will take to the skies next month with seven destinations from Singapore that include Shanghai, Taipei, Manila and Pattaya, the airline announced on Thursday.
Jetstar, in which Australian national carrier Qantas has a 49.9 percent stake, will also initially fly to Jakarta, Hong Kong and Surabaya, and plans to open up more routes early next year.
"This is just the beginning but it's also indicative of the types of destinations we'll be flying to; some expected, some not so expected," Jetstar chief operating officer Con Korfiatis said in a statement.
Korfiatis said Jetstar would be the first budget carrier to fly to Shanghai, Taipei, Manila, Surabaya and Pattaya.
"We're setting out to ... grow the market by making air travel more accessible to more customers," he said.
Jetstar did not announce any price details or exactly when in December the airline would begin flying, saying those details would be given out in the next two weeks.
The airline, which is the third budget carrier to begin operations in Singapore this year, has previously promised its prices will be as competitive as its rivals.
The other two Singapore-based budget airlines, Valuair and Tiger Airways, fly to a range of Asia-Pacific cities that include Bangkok, Hong Kong, Perth and Jakarta, but not to mainland China, Taiwan or the Philippines.
Pioneering no-frills carrier AirAsia of Malaysia also flies between Bangkok and Singapore but it is not based in the city- state.
Aside from Qantas, Jetstar's stakeholders are the Singapore government's investment arm, Temasek Holdings, and two prominent local businessmen.
Jetstar said in September it planned to start flying with two new 180-seat Airbus A320s in December, double its fleet in the first month of operations, expand to eight aircraft in early 2005 and have 20 in the air in three years.