Jetstar Japan Seen Expanding Fleet

Manila Bulletin
January 30, 2012
By CHRIS COOPER and KIYOTAKA MATSUDA

Jetstar Japan Co., the budget carrier set to begin flights this year, said it may grow to 100 planes by the end of the decade, helped by fares about 50 percent cheaper than full-service airlines.

“I’m quite bullish that this is going to be possible,” Chief Executive Officer Miyuki Suzuki said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. The carrier, part-owned by Japan Airlines Co. and Qantas Airways Ltd., is ahead of schedule in its startup plans, she said, without giving a date for the first flight.

Jetstar, one of three Japanese budget carriers preparing to start services this year, expects lower fares will lure passengers and spur new travel demand, Suzuki said. Discount carriers will about triple their share of Japanese air travel to 35 percent by 2020, she said.

“Customers will be delighted with the cheaper fares, which are going to create more demand,” said Ryota Himeno, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. “It’ll escalate competition in the domestic market though, which will be worrying for the current operators.”

Jetstar Japan has received three of the 24 Airbus SAS single-aisle A320s it plans to operate in the first few years, Suzuki said. The carrier will expand its fleet by working with the wider Jetstar Group, which had 170 planes on order as of August, she said.

“Whenever low-cost carriers come in, the number of available seats expands quite rapidly,” said Suzuki, who joined Jetstar last month. She previously worked as president and CEO at telecommunications company KVH Co. and as Asia-Pacific head for online information provider LexisNexis.