- the 4 per week Ho Chi Minh flights have been axed
- 4 new services per week to Narita via Manila
- 3 new services per week to Singapore
The 4 new flights to Narita is the first time since the mid 1990s that Japan has had direct services from Darwin, albeit this time via Manila. This also means that there will now be 4 flights per week Darwin to Manila, up from the previous 3. The Jetstar Darwin Hub model of crew being based in Darwin and flying out and back services to Asian (and Australian) locations within say 4 hours of Darwin will also be tested on this longer run. While details have not been announced, presumably it will mean a change over of crew in Manila or Narita.
For passengers starting their journey in southern cities it will be hard to see a Darwin-Manila-Narita service being attractive so Jetstar must have faith that there is sufficient demand for traffic between Darwin - Manila - Narita without relying on the feed from southern cities. Hopefully they are correct.
The additional services to Singapore will take weekly flights to 10. This move is obviously targeted at the Silk Air - Virgin Australia service which starts at the same time with 4 per week. While timetables have not yet been revealed it will be interesting to see if the additional flights will be daytime services to better compete.
Jetstar are yet to publish full flight time details but have announced some introductory prices including $199 one-way Darwin – Narita.