Jetstar In Asia

Amid the savage cost-cutting and planned job losses at Qantas the much-touted operations of its portfolio of budget offshoots in Asia are proving to be a persistent problem and a disappointment to their investors. None of them are getting anything back for their money and there are signs things could deteriorate further.

When Jetstar group chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka appeared before a Senate committee inquiry into the future of Qantas in March she quickly confirmed what was probably one of the airline industry’s worst-kept secrets: nine Airbus A320s bound for the carrier’s latest start-up subsidiary, Jetstar Hong Kong, were still sitting parked where they were manufactured, at the Airbus base in Toulouse in the south of France. They have, officially, been delivered but they’ve been grounded for months as their owner awaits regulatory clearance to take to the air.

Launched in 2012, the new Jetstar project was supposed to fly by mid-2013, then late last year and now… is anyone’s guess. The carrier filed its application to Hong Kong’s Air Transport Licensing Authority in August 2012 just as all applications were frozen formore than six months for a review of licensing requirements. There were also, and still are, strong objections from Cathay Pacific Airways, Dragonair, Hong Kong Express Airways and Hong Kong Airlines, who all argued Jetstar Hong Kong was not a local airline and would be run from Melbourne.

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