Qantas and Jetstar have announced discounted fares on 200,000 seats and points offers for frequent flyers, to reboot the domestic tourism industry and help families and friends reunite.
Jetstar is launching a sale on 35 routes, across 15 destinations, in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland.
There are 10,000 fares for $19 one-way on 22 routes including Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Gold Coast, Melbourne to Byron Bay (Ballina), Brisbane to Whitsunday Coast (Proserpine) and Adelaide to Cairns.
Other sale fares include Brisbane to Mackay from $49, Sydney to Hamilton Island from $79 and Brisbane to Darwin from $79. Fares are on sale on jetstar.com from 9am today and run until 23:59 (AEST) 22 June 2020 unless sold out prior.
Jetstar will be offering sale fares to/from Western Australia and Tasmania following confirmation of the dates that borders will open up.
Qantas is offering its 13 million frequent flyers triple points on all flights nationwide from 27 June until 31 October 2020. The triple point sale is available on qantas.com now and runs until 24 June 2020.
Both airlines are offering customers greater flexibility when they book, with the ability to change the date of their flight once, without paying a change fee. Customers will have to cover any fare increase (if relevant) for the new booking.
Commentary
Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said in the past fortnight almost 400,000 seats have been sold on Qantas and Jetstar’s domestic networks, following confirmation of some state borders opening and both airlines increasing capacity to as much as 40 per cent of pre-crisis levels.
“There is huge pent up demand for air travel, with people wanting to get away after months of being stuck at home. Our research tells us more than 75 per cent of Australians intend to fly in the next six months,” Mr Joyce said.
“We know that these low fares will encourage even more people to get on a flight to take a short holiday or visit family and friends. We’ve already seen our flights from Sydney to Cairns fill up on the days after the proposed Queensland border opening date of 10 July 2020, so we’re adding more.
“This is a great opportunity to go to the amazing places in our own backyard that you haven’t got around to seeing like the Barossa Valley or the Great Barrier Reef.
“To give customers extra peace of mind, we’ve increased flexibility on bookings, and implemented a range of measures to ensure a safe environment at airports and onboard aircraft. The response from customers who have flown has been extremely positive.
“As the national carrier we have an important role to play in driving tourism and reviving the industry that has been devastated by COVID-19. There are one million people who work in tourism across Australia. The entire industry, from hotel providers to small tourism operators, are struggling to make a post pandemic comeback.
“We have a lot of aircraft on the ground with fixed costs attached to them, so if we can put some of them back in the air by offering special fares, it’s a positive for us, for our people, for tourism and for consumers,” added Mr Joyce.
Qantas and Jetstar will continue to reintroduce flights across its domestic network in line with demand and the easing of border restrictions.
Passenger numbers on the Group’s domestic network have doubled over the past week – from 32,000 to 64,000 – and will increase further again in the weeks ahead.
The Group is working closely with both national and state tourism bodies to help promote domestic travel, especially given international travel restrictions are likely to remain in place for some time.
All customers are encouraged to download the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app and anyone with cold and flu like symptoms should stay at home
Customers should check important information including travel restrictions on qantas.com and jetstar.com.