Budget airliner Jetstar sees brisk business ahead

Thom Smyth, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 02/11/2009 12:23 PM  

While Jakarta reports a decline in the influx of visitors, an Australian budget airliner, Jetstar from the Qantas Group that recently launched its first service to Jakarta from Perth in Western Australia, unveiled a "solid performance" in its first three months of operation. 

Jetstar spokeswoman Simone Pregellio said the load factors on both legs of the route were meeting expectations. 

She added that while there was "strong business traffic" (people flying for business reasons), there were more passengers flying into Jakarta from Perth than into Perth from Jakarta. 

"We have been very pleased with the take-up and everything is meeting our expectations," Pregellio said. 

With fares cheaper than their flights to Bali, and almost A$170 (Rp 1.3 million) cheaper than seats on some other airliners flying the same route, they are aggressively marketing the flights in Perth to encourage travelers to visit Jakarta. 

"We hope that with low fares we can stimulate new markets," Pregellio said. 

"The interesting thing with Jetstar is, when it started in Australia, it was attracting up to 10 percent of people who had never flown before. We are finding the same effect as we introduce international services - we are still getting a high percentage of first-time flyers." 

And with the global financial crisis biting into would-be travelers' savings, Jetstar believes these "first-time flyers" are going to be important in stimulating growth worldwide. 

"We certainly approach every route the same way, looking at how we can grow traffic to that particular market," Pregellio said. 

"We are quite excited about introducing ourselves to the Jakarta market. It's a new market for us but one that we think has good potential." 

Pregellio said that while Jetstar worked on cooperative marketing campaigns with government tourism offices, they "had not been approached" by the city tourism agency that had launched tourism campaigns under the Enjoy Jakarta program for the past five years.