Jetstar confirms withdrawal from five regional domestic routes in New Zealand

Jetstar has confirmed it will cease its regional Q300 Bombardier services in New Zealand at the end of November 2019.

Gareth Evans, Jetstar’s Chief Executive Officer, said today’s confirmation comes after a consultation period with affected employees.

“We’ve been consulting with our team members over the past few weeks and today we’re confirming our proposal to end flying on our regional turboprop routes,” said Mr Evans.

“As we explained when we announced our proposal in September, this decision is based on our regional operations continuing to be loss making, combined with higher costs and a softening of the regional travel market.”

Mr Evans acknowledged that regional travellers would be disappointed to hear the final decision.

“I’d like to thank our regional team members and our loyal regional travellers and stakeholders for all their support. We gave this network a real go over the past four years, but the commercial numbers just don’t stack up to keep operating.”

Jetstar will continue to offer up to 270 domestic jet services a week on its jet services between Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown and up to 100 international flights a week on the Tasman and to Rarotonga.

The airline has offered alternative re-employment options to all of the affected employees and nearly all have indicated they would like to take up the opportunity to remain with the Qantas Group.

Customers booked on Jetstar regional flights beyond 30 November 2019 are being offered a range of options including a full refund for their cancelled flight or the option to transfer their booking to any of Jetstar’s other available domestic NZ services.

Air New Zealand is also assisting affected customers who have refunded their Jetstar flight with a special fare. Eligible customers can email jqsupport@airnz.co.nz with proof of their affected Jetstar ticket.