BUDGET airline Jetstar has agreed to provide an extra 300,000 international and domestic seats for Cairns over the next two and a half years. 

Premier Anna Bligh last night announced the signing of a deal that paves the way for future additional flights into Cairns.

Details of the flights and the destinations are yet to be finalised but Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said Japan was definitely one destination.

He would not elaborate on where in Japan or other destinations, saying an announcement on the scheduled services would come before Christmas.

Cairns Airport chief executive Stephen Gregg said the deal between the airline and the airport was better than expected.

The seats replace the loss of 14 Qantas flights from Japan to Cairns announced last year. That meant a loss of 1603 seats a week or 208,309 passengers over two and a half years.

The new deal is expected to overtake the lost capacity.

Jetstar and the airport have been negotiating since about September after talks broke down over landing fees and other charges linked to four proposed weekly flights from Osaka, promised in March to begin in mid December.

The State Government stepped in to broker peace talks, with the promise of marketing funds to help promote the new Jetstar flights judged "the deal clincher" by Ms Bligh last night.

"This is great news for the Cairns tourism industry and for the local businesses which will reap the benefits," she said.

"People have been gloomy about the future of tourism. This deal, delivering up to 300,000 passenger seats, is just the shot in the arm Cairns tourism needs."

Ms Bligh said the Government’s undisclosed support through marketing was not new money, but a strategic allocation from Tourism Queensland’s annual budget, part of the $3 million to be spent promoting the tropics this year.

"According to growth projections from the Cairns airport the additional international flights are expected to inject more than $220 million into the local economy in direct tourism spending and will help create up to 2000 new jobs," she said.

Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan confirmed it had secured a long term agreement with satisfactory terms with the airport.

He said the agreement was important and provided a platform for future growth.

Mr Gregg said the agreement was long term and better than the earlier short term arrangement which both parties had discussed.

He said it was "a vote of confidence" by both the airport and the airline in Cairns as a tourism destination.

Mr Gregg said Jetstar wanted certainty over passenger service charges and that had been achieved.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chairman Bill Calderwood said the industry had been hoping for a deal to bring flights from western Japan back to Cairns.

"There’s been ongoing discussions and we’ve obviously been very hopeful that something would be resolved very soon," he said.

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