Queensland’s Attracting Aviation Investment Fund (AAIF) has landed a few more big scalps this week, with Jetstar signing on to introduce direct flights from Brisbane to Tokyo (Narita), Osaka and Seoul in South Korea.
The new tie-up will see Qantas’ low-cost carrier launch five direct flights to Tokyo from 31 October, before increasing to daily services from 03 December 2023.
From 02 February next year, four return services a week between Brisbane and Osaka (Kansai) will take off, representing 380,000 of added seats each year between Brisbane and Japan.
The increasingly popular outbound market of South Korea will also join the Brisbane network, with Jetstar to introduce Brisbane and Seoul (Incheon) flights from 01 February 2024, offering travellers three return flights a week between Brisbane and South Korea, accounting for around 100,000 seats each year.
Apart from the new services, two existing routes will also ramp up, with the Brisbane to Bali (Denpasar) route to increase from seven to 10 return services a week from 01 February 2024, while from 23 October, four return services per week between Brisbane and Auckland will shift to daily, adding over 90,000 seats a year.
But the news wasn’t joyous for every city in Queensland, with the added flights to see Jetstar stop flying from the Gold Coast to Tokyo (Narita) altogether from 29 October, which the carrier stating the decision would strengthen its operations by consolidating widebody aircraft flying and related engineering resources in Brisbane.
To support the announcement, Jetstar also revealed it will launch an additional half a million low fares seats between Brisbane and international destinations.
“This is the biggest injection of low fare seats for Queenslanders and visitors from our most popular markets that we have ever seen,” Brisbane Airport CEO, Gert-Jan de Graaff said.
“We are also excited to see Jetstar deploying the new quieter and fuel-efficient Airbus A321neo on these new BNE flights,” he added.
Other recent successes associated with the AAIF have included Korean Air restoring five weekly flights to Seoul in April, Jetstar launching its first direct service between Auckland and Brisbane, and Emirates expanding its services to Brisbane by adding a daily Boeing 777- 300ER service.
