JETSTAR is spending an extra $10 million-plus a year in Cairns to expand its flights to Japan and
Melbourne.
Earlier this week the budget airline announced the reintroduction of four weekly direct flights between Cairns and Osaka from April 1 following the decision by Qantas to cancel 14 weekly flights to Japan a year ago.
The airline also announced its daily service to Melbourne would double with an afternoon flight from April 1.
The new Japanese services will provide 2424 extra seats a week while the Melbourne flights add 2478.
Jetstar’s corporate relations manager Simon Westaway said the airline was investing at least $10 million more each year in Cairns with the new flights.
"We’ll need to add some more pilots and add some cabin crews which will be based in Cairns," he said.
"The staff on the operational side will have additional rostered hours and some on-ground handling extra rosters as well."
He said more money would be spent on catering and fuel as well as other goods and services.
"The $10 million is a significant investment but we’re also spending a large amount on marketing in Japan," Mr Westaway said.
He said Jetstar spent $30 million on marketing in Japan each year, about half of that on promoting Cairns. Mr Westaway said it would be further boosted by marketing funds from Tourism Queensland and Tourism Tropical North Queensland.
"It’s really important the industry gets behind these flights to make them work," he said.
"There’s lot of enthusiasm around the tourism industry for these flights."
Mr Westaway said the promotion in Osaka on Tuesday this week to coincide with the launch of the flights was an outstanding success.
He said the 1000 promotional $1.26 return tickets from Osaka to Cairns were snapped up quickly and there had been a lot of interest in the $110 special return flights also on offer.
"We’ve been very pleased with the reaction in both Japan and Cairns," Mr Westaway said.
