Air Transport

Australia's Jetstar will launch a daily Sydney-Perth service from 2 October, and plans to use subsidiary Jetstar Asia on the Perth-Jakarta route from 14 August.

The carrier, the low-cost subsidiary of Qantas Airways, says that it will operate an Airbus A320 on the Sydney-Perth flight. The flight is an expansion of its domestic and international services from Western Australia, it adds.

"Our Sydney-Perth service will represent the sixth new Jetstar destination to be served from Perth inside the last year, and will ably support our vision for developing a significant flying hub," says Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan.

Jetstar already flies twice-daily to Melbourne from Perth, daily to Adelaide and three times weekly to Cairns. It also has twice daily A320 services between Perth and Singapore, including a daily direct Perth-Singapore flight, and will increase its Perth-Denpasar service to daily from 4 times weekly on 13 August.

Its subsidiary Jetstar Asia will replace Jetstar on the Perth-Jakarta-Singapore route from 13 August, when the service will come down to a twice-weekly service from thrice-weekly.

A spokeswoman says that the reduction is due to lower demand on the sector. Using Jetstar Asia on the route will enable the carrier to align its operations more closely with the Singapore-based subsidiary, she adds.