Jetstar Heads To Manila

Darwin is Jetstar's sixth largest operating base in Australia from where it operates 63 weekly flights. Its major bases are located in Sydney from where it operates 18% of all scheduled flights, Melbourne (16%), Brisbane (10%), Gold Coast (9%) and Cairns (4%).

Darwin has already established Jetstar international connections with narrowbody services to Singapore twice-daily feeding the Jetstar Asia hub, Bali on a daily basis and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, four-times weekly.

There are currently limited frequencies between Australia and the Philippines with just three weekly flights from Brisbane to Manila, operated twice- weekly by Philippine Airlines and once weekly by Qantas. Philippine Airlines however has announced that its Brisbane service will be cancelled from October 31^st.

From Sydney, Qantas operates a thrice-weekly rotation into Manila with B767-300 equipment with Philippine Airlines operating five-weekly flights on the same city pairing with B777 aircraft. Melbourne has a four-times weekly service operated by Philippine Airlines, however its outbound services are currently routed via Sydney and Brisbane to Manila with a non-stop on the inbound sector.

AUSTRALIA TO PHILIPPINES MARKET

Between July 2009 and July 2010, over 387,000 O+D passengers travelled between Australia and the Philippines, with the market share of the top five carriers listed below

Source IATA BSP data July 2009-2010

The table illustrates the potential for new non-stop services between the two countries with close to 40% of traffic connecting, with Singapore Airlines taking 17% of the O+D market.

With the mining and mineral boom in Australia, there has been a great increase in demand for labour and much of this labour is coming from the Philippines. With regular trips home for this labour and traffic that will be relatively price sensitive, new low-cost flights from Manila to Australia represents a logical expansion into a market that is not over reliant on long haul feed or Australians looking for an Asian holiday destination.

With its northern geography, Darwin represents a natural Australian source market with its shorter sector length to Manila of approximately four hours, with links from the larger Jetstar bases that will provide feed in Australia. Jetstar operates ten weekly flights from both Sydney and Melbourne as well as a daily service from Brisbane into Darwin providing potential for feed into the Darwin to Manila service.

Jetstar plans to inaugurate the service from early January, and will hope to leverage market knowledge from its sister company Jetstar Asia, which operates 17 weekly flights from its Singapore base into Manila, and has gained invaluable experience in the Philippine market