Jetstar’s New Route Launch Spree

Jetstar may have just celebrated its 20th anniversary, but right now the budget airline is growing at a rapid pace. It just launched several new routes and has already announced the launch of another seven by the end of this year.

A lot of this growth has been fuelled by the arrival of the more fuel efficient Airbus A321neo LR into Jetstar’s fleet. Jetstar already has 13 of these brand new jets in service, and it’s about to receive five more.

Jetstar’s Airbus A321neo jets do not have Business Class, and the Economy Class seats are not the most comfortable for longer flights. Nonetheless, these planes have added significant capacity to Jetstar’s fleet, allowing the airline to add new routes.

In particular, by switching a lot of Bali flying from Boeing 787s to the A321neos, Jetstar has freed up several of the larger Dreamliners for new long-haul routes including several from Brisbane. The narrow-body plane’s longer range has also opened new markets for Jetstar like Sydney to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

These new routes also open up more ways to use Qantas points, since you can redeem them for Classic Reward seats on Jetstar!

New Jetstar domestic routes

In the last couple of weeks alone, Jetstar has launched flights on two new domestic routes: Brisbane-Avalon and Melbourne-Hervey Bay.

Last week, Jetstar also announced it will start direct flights from Sunshine Coast to Cairns from 3 December 2024. This was one of the more successful routes for Bonza, Australia’s other low-cost carrier, before it went out of business a few months ago.

Jetstar also launched a new route from Sydney to Busselton (Margaret River) in Western Australia in March.

New Jetstar international routes

Over recent weeks, Jetstar has announced several new international routes including Sydney-Port Vila, Cairns-Christchurch, Auckland-Sunshine Coast and Brisbane-Bangkok. All of these routes will launch in mid-December 2024, except Cairns-Christchurch which commences in April 2025.

The new route from Sydney to Port Vila in Vanuatu fills the void left by the collapse of Air Vanuatu. Qantas, Virgin and Solomon Airlines have also added new flights from Australia to Vanuatu, although Jetstar is the first low-cost carrier to fly there. This route will use the A321neo LR, as will the new Cairns-Christchurch service which will operate as a red-eye eastbound.

The Auckland-Sunshine Coast service will use an Airbus A320 and a New Zealand-based crew, while Brisbane-Bangkok will be a new Boeing 787 route.

Over the coming months, Jetstar is also launching an Airbus A321neo LR base in Perth along with three new international routes from the West Australian capital. Jetstar will launch Perth-Singapore and Perth-Phuket services next month, with Perth-Bangkok following in September. At the same time, Jetstar will move its domestic flights to Terminal 2 at Perth Airport.

In another boost for Western Australia, Jetstar Asia just launched direct Broome-Singapore flights last week.

Another new Jetstar route, Sydney-Osaka, launched in April of this year.

Jetstar will end Cairns-Darwin services

Most of these new routes are not coming at the expense of existing services. But there is an exception. Jetstar will cease direct flights between Cairns and Darwin from 29 October 2024. This route is now being served by QantasLink instead using Embraer E190s.

What’s next for Jetstar?

With more A321neo LRs still on the way, there have been rumours that Jetstar could soon launch flights to yet another new destination such as Sri Lanka or India. For now, we’ll have to watch this space.

Jetstar will soon refurbish its Boeing 787s with new cabins to make them better suited to long-haul flying. This will include adding lie-flat crew rests and increasing the number of Jetstar Business Class seats from 21 to 44.

Last month, Jetstar also refreshed its fare bundles – although that change wasn’t quite so popular with frequent flyers.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.