Two more aircraft will be added to Jetstar Asia's fleet of seven planes by the end of 2023. - JETSTAR ASIA
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): Low-cost carrier Jetstar Asia plans to hire more than 200 pilots and cabin crew as part of efforts to rebuild capacity post-Covid-19.
Two more aircraft will join its fleet of seven by the end of 2023.
Announcing these plans in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Jetstar Asia chief executive Barathan Pasupathi said plans are also afoot to add more planes to the airline’s stable in the next year and a half. He did not provide more details.
“We are embarking on an exciting chapter of sustainable growth,” Pasupathi said.
The Singapore-based airline, he added, will rehire a number of pilots who left the business at the peak of the pandemic.
Jetstar Asia, jointly owned by Singapore investment company Westbrook Investments and Australian flag carrier Qantas, will also induct new cadet pilots and hire crew via a direct-entry recruitment programme.
The Straits Times has asked Jetstar Asia for more information on its plans.
In July 2020, when borders were shut and air travel demand nosedived because of the coronavirus, Jetstar Asia cut about 180 jobs, or a quarter of its Singapore-based workforce, in what it said was a “difficult but necessary” decision.
Between 2020 and 2022, the carrier also shed 11 Airbus A320 aircraft, reducing its fleet size from 18 to seven.
Since then, international air travel in Asia-Pacific has been recovering steadily.
Passenger traffic at Changi Airport, for instance, crossed the five million mark for the first time in June 2023 since the start of the pandemic in January 2020. This is 88 per cent of the passenger traffic recorded in June 2019.
Even so, Jetstar Asia has been slower to rebuild capacity than its closest rivals Scoot and AirAsia Group.
Based on data from OAG, a database of airline schedules, Jetstar Asia’s seat capacity in Singapore is at 42 per cent of 2019 levels, compared with 113 per cent for Scoot and 105 per cent for AirAsia Group.
The Jetstar Group was also mired in months of negotiations with Changi Airport Group (CAG) over the relocation of its operations from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4, which the airline group opposed initially.
Jetstar Asia has since begun to resume more of its services. In April, it restarted flights to China after a three-year stoppage due to the pandemic, with services to Haikou in the island province of Hainan.
In July, it announced plans to return to Japan by resuming direct flights between Singapore and Okinawa in November.
From that month, it will also start flying between Singapore and Osaka via Manila.
The airline expects to fly more than 180,000 passengers between Singapore and Japan via the two routes yearly, it said earlier.
Commenting on Jetstar Asia’s plans as the industry emerges from the throes of Covid-19, independent analyst Brendan Sobie said they are not about growth, but about establishing a meaningful presence.
In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Sobie of Sobie Aviation noted that Qantas had disclosed at its annual investor day in May that Jetstar Asia would add another four aircraft soon after the initial two. This will result in an eventual fleet size of 13 planes.
“It is strategically critical for Jetstar Asia to quickly rebuild its fleet to avoid losing slots at Changi (Airport)... and many of its destination airports,” he said.
Sobie said Changi Airport had largely reinstated its 80-20 slot-use rule, which requires airlines to use their allocated slots at least 80 per cent of the time. Most North Asian routes, though, are still exempted from this, he said.
Even so, the analyst noted that only about 13 per cent of Jetstar Asia’s slots in Singapore are for North Asian routes.
Sobie added: “Jetstar Asia has so far enjoyed a reprieve, likely part of its agreement to move to T4, but it could start losing slots at some point next year.
“Not surprisingly, other airlines are eyeing Jetstar Asia’s slots and have offered to fly on the same routes.”
ST has asked CAG for comment.
