THE re-introduction of Jetstar's four weekly direct services to Osaka in Japan and a doubling of flights to Melbourne from April 1 next year are the first significant announcements today by the airline as the result of a new agreement with Cairns Airport.

The budget airline reached agreement with the airport to add 300,000 extra seats on domestic and international routes last week and today revealed the first of the new scheduled services.

The four Japanese flights will arrive from Osaka on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

A new afternoon flight from Melbourne will operate daily, arriving from the southern capital at 4pm each day and returning at 6.55pm.

Jetstar’s executive manager operations, Mark Dal Pra, said other new services would be announced soon.

The new services will add a further 2400 seats a week into Cairns.

Mr Dal Pra said the flights were launched in Japan today with 1000 promotional fares of just 100 yen ($AUD1.26) return. The fares booked on the web will be 8800 yen ($AUD329) return .

The announcement was made at the Cairns international terminal as a Jetstar Tokyo flight was departing.

Welcoming the news were Cairns Airport chief executive officer Stephen Gregg, Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive officer Rob Giason, Mayor Val Schier and Member for Barron River and tourism parliamentary secretary Steve Wettenhall.

Read tomorrow’s The Cairns Post for full details.

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