International flights from Darwin today are dominated by Jetstar's hub linking cities in Australia’s south and east to South East Asian destinations of Singapore, Bali, Manilla and Saigon. Indonesia AirAsia operates services to Bali while SilkAir is scheduled to start full service flights to Singapore from 26 March.
In addition Darwin provides one of the few access points to the Timor Leste capital of Dili with services by AirNorth and Timor Air.
While low cost carriers (LCC) dominate Darwin services today, in years gone by full service national carriers such as Qantas, Singapore, Malaysia, Royal Brunei and Garuda provided the bulk of services, albeit with less frequency than today's LCCs.
With Darwin International Airport about to start construction of a much needed 50% terminal expansion, the future holds hope for:
- an expansion of Jetstar's hub to meet the its target of seven planes based in Darwin serving Asia destinations
- further development of Virgin Australia's services beyond it's codeshare with SilkAir
- additional routes for the AirAsia group, possibly directly to Kuala Lumpur and additional points in Indonesia
- direct services to China, possibly building on the January charters to Hong Kong