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Jetstar will “probably never” return to regional New Zealand flights, the airline has said.
Speaking to NZ news site Stuff Travel, Jetstar chief executive Stephanie Tully said she would “love to say yes” to bringing back the services, which it had axed in 2019 due to “patchy” demand, but that the potential margins would likely not add up.
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“Customers love the option on the routes and the competition and the pricing, but for us it was really unsustainable from a cost perspective, so that was a tough decision a long time ago. There’s opportunity for maybe some more trunk flying, but not necessarily those regional flights,” she said.
The airline launched the regional flights, which used Dash-8 Q300 turboprops, in December 2015, flying from Wellington to Nelson and from Auckland to Nelson, Napier, New Plymouth and Palmerston North.
Despite operating up to 130 return services per week during peak periods, the airline struggled to make money on the turboprop routes, with then-CEO Gareth Evans saying in 2019 it had lost about $20 million on them in the previous year.
“We’ve had losses for a period of time and it doesn’t appear that those losses are going to mitigate going forward,” Evans told reporters at the time.
“We cannot see from where we stand today, any changes to the business conditions or the prospects of this part of the business in the medium to long term which is why we’ve made the decision that we’ve made.
“We are not cutting and running, we’ve given it four years and that is a long time in anybody’s language. I think people will understand that you can’t run losses forever and so we’ve made this decision.”
Tully’s comments come not long after the airline was fined more than NZ$2 million for misleading customers about compensation for delays and cancellations in 2022-23. The CEO said the airline was “really sorry that happened” and has accepted the ruling.
“It was tough after Covid, recovering, but that’s not an excuse. We made many mistakes, so I think you’ve got to own it, remedy it and move forward and just be honest about that,” she said.
“That’s what we’ve tried to do. We accept the decision and we’ve been working hard on fixing our processes so that it never happens again.”
Jetstar this month announced a major expansion of its trans-Tasman and NZ domestic jet services, adding around 660,000 seats.
