Qantas has announced that it will be shutting down its Jetstar Asia (3K) airline. The closure ends more than two decades of flying for the Singapore bases low cost carrier.
The closure will come into effect from 31 July, with the airline gradually winding down operations over the next seven weeks.
It should be notes that this closure only affects the intra-Asia operations of Jetstar Asia. There will be no changes to the operations of Jetstar Airways or Jetstar Japan into Asia.
Jetstar Asia currently operates on 16 intra-Asia routes, with destinations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Sri Lanka, Japan and Australia..
Closure of Jetstar Asia
Jetstar Asia, a Singapore-based low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, has faced growing challenges in recent years. These include factors such as rising supplier costs, high airport fees, and intensified competition in the region.
As a result, the two main shareholders, Qantas and Singapore based Westbrook Investments have decided to close the airlines.
The closure of Jetstar Asia only impacts the intra-Asia routes operated by the airline from its base in Singapore. It does not impact Jetstar Airways’ domestic and international operations in Australia and New Zealand or Jetstar Japan. Jetstar Airways will continue to fly from Australia into Asia including to all its popular destinations across Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.
Jetstar Asia customers with existing bookings on cancelled flights will be offered full refunds and the Group will look to reaccommodate customers onto other airlines where possible.
All affected Jetstar Asia employees will be provided redundancy benefits as well as employment support services. Qantas is also actively working to find job opportunities across the Group and with other airlines in the region.
Aircraft Redeployment
Jetstar Asia’s 13 mid-life A320 aircraft will be progressively redeployed to core markets in Australia and New Zealand. They will also be used to replace leased aircraft in Jetstar Airways’ domestic operation to reduce its cost base. Some of the aircraft will also help accelerate fleet renewal in Qantas’ regional operations that service the critical resources sector in Western Australia.
Qantas Frequent Flyers
While Jetstar Asia had a small operation, they were useful for Qantas Frequent Flyers. There were two main things that the offered Qanats Frequent Flyers:Well, there are basically two things:
- Ability to earn Status Credits and Points on intra-Asia flights
- Loss of access to the Qantas Lounge on 3K flights
While there are some oneworld carriers flying intra-Asia, in some cases (say Malaysia Airlines) earnings of status credits and points has been severely crimped. There are a few codeshare options (such as with Bangkok Air), but booking these generally requires a booking with some other Qantas flight in it. All in all, there will be less opportunities in Southeast Asia.
When flying on Jetstar Asia, Gold and Platinum frequent flyers could use the Qantas Lounge. And if you were Platinum, that could be the first lounge. Ok, it was in a different terminal, and the times didn’t always align, but it could make a good start to a journey.
Final Words
I always found Jetstar Asia a reliable way of flying around Southeast Asia from their Singapore home. They were always contributing to my Qantas Points balance. While this leaves a hole in the Qantas Southeast Asian network, it is only a small hole.
That said, it did seem to me to be one of the businesses that did not seem to recover from the pandemic. Fortunately, there are no shortage of options when flying around Southeast Asia. Indeed, some of my recent travels have been on Scoot. I imagine my future sees even more Scoot travel!
