Qantas to shut down budget airline Jetstar Asia in July, 500 jobs to go
Qantas will shut down budget carrier Jetstar Asia in a move that is expected to cut around 500 jobs.
The Singapore-based airline will cease operations by the end of July, citing 'rising supplier costs, high airport fees, and intensified competition in the region', Qantas said in a statement on Wednesday.
The decision is expected to release up to $500 million in capital, which Qantas says will be reinvested into its core operations in Australia and New Zealand.
The airline's fleet of 13 mid-life A320 aircraft will be gradually redeployed to these key markets to support fleet renewal.
The airline claims this will help lower airfares and create more than 100 local jobs.
Jetstar Asia has operated in the region for more than 20 years, but its cost base has soared in recent years.
Prior to the decision, the airline was expected to post an underlying loss of $35 million for this financial year.
'This is a very tough day,' said Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson.
'Jetstar Asia has been a pioneering force in the Asian aviation market for more than 20 years, making air travel accessible to millions of customers across Southeast Asia.
'Despite their best efforts, we have seen some of Jetstar Asia's supplier costs increase by up to 200 per cent, which has materially changed its cost base,' she said.
A total of 16 intra-Asia routes from Singapore will be impacted, though flights from Australia to Asia will continue as normal, including popular destinations such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.
Customers with bookings on affected routes will receive full refunds and assistance in finding alternative flights.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
The 40-year-old Australian billionaire who once worked in a petrol station
Side hustles Zhang spent his early years in China's Shandong Province before he was sent to Melbourne to attend Westbourne Grammar School, where he lived with an Australian host family. When he was 16, his father lost his job at a regional bank back home, leaving Zhang to provide for himself. He picked up a series of gigs — lugging lemon boxes at a factory, washing dishes at a local restaurant and as a petrol-station cashier. After finishing school, he enrolled at the University of Melbourne to study computer science. That relentless work ethic and always-on mentality of his school years stuck with him. 'I always had a side hustle,' Zhang said. By the time Zhang started Airwallex with his co-founders — Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai and Max Li — he'd already amassed a roughly $US10 million fortune working full-time in various engineering roles while also pursuing side ventures like the real estate development group he started, Hohen International. While working as a solutions architect for the foreign exchange team at National Australia Bank, Zhang started Tukk & Co., a coffee shop in Melbourne, with his college friend Max Li. That eventually led them to found Airwallex. A constant headache for the duo was that their payments to coffee bean vendors in Brazil and Indonesia were repeatedly blocked. After some investigation, they concluded another person with similar name to Li was on the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's blacklist, resulting in problems with cross-border payments that were being routed through the US. Zhang went down a rabbit hole and concluded the system of sending payments through a conga line of banks to reach the intended destination added unnecessary cost and over-complicated compliance. 'I'm a solutions architect,' Zhang said of his thoughts at the time. 'I can build a better system to essentially give retail customers the interbank rate, give them full transparency and make sure they don't need to pay a whole bunch of spread.' 'Always on' Loading In order to make that vision a reality, Airwallex holds licences around the world permitting it to open bank-like accounts in more than 70 countries and enables international transfers to 200-plus countries using local infrastructure in roughly 120 of those. The company is Singapore-based, but with members of the executive team spread around the globe. Zhang primarily splits his time between London and New York, while also trying to remain available for his global employee base. The latter is becoming increasingly hard. The firm now has more than 1800 employees in 26 offices around the world. 'He's always on, perhaps sometimes to a fault, and also very generous with his time,' said Paul Bassat, Melbourne-based co-founder and partner at Square Peg. 'If people ask Jack for his time, his default answer is 'yes.' It's a lot of demands on his time and you can't solve that problem by just working harder.' The Australian Financial Review reported last year that intense workplace culture had led to high staff turnover. The same year, Zhang shared in a blog post that the company had under-invested in the people and talent team, but had expanded those operations to support employees. Zhang himself doesn't show any signs of slowing down. After the most recent fundraise, his goal is to build Airwallex into a complete operating system for global businesses by increasing its investment in technologies like artificial intelligence. One place where Zhang's viewpoint diverges from Stripe's Collison brothers is on stablecoin and cryptocurrencies. Last year, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge for $US1.1 billion. Zhang has taken a more cautious approach, opting to wait for additional regulatory clarity before investing heavily in the technology. In June, Zhang dusted up a spirited debate on X after expressing doubts about use cases. 'I still don't see a single use case yet on how crypto is helping anything in the last 15 years,' Zhang wrote. Loading While Zhang has lofty ambitions, he faces steep competition from Stripe and other fintechs like Nium, another global cross-border payments firm that was valued at $US1.4 billion last year. Zhang says the demand for banking and payments platforms designed to accommodate international operations is on the rise. 'Tech-native businesses are more likely to be global from day one,' Zhang said. 'Any mum and dad selling on Amazon or Shopify is a global business.'
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The 40-year-old Australian billionaire who once worked in a petrol station
Side hustles Zhang spent his early years in China's Shandong Province before he was sent to Melbourne to attend Westbourne Grammar School, where he lived with an Australian host family. When he was 16, his father lost his job at a regional bank back home, leaving Zhang to provide for himself. He picked up a series of gigs — lugging lemon boxes at a factory, washing dishes at a local restaurant and as a petrol-station cashier. After finishing school, he enrolled at the University of Melbourne to study computer science. That relentless work ethic and always-on mentality of his school years stuck with him. 'I always had a side hustle,' Zhang said. By the time Zhang started Airwallex with his co-founders — Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai and Max Li — he'd already amassed a roughly $US10 million fortune working full-time in various engineering roles while also pursuing side ventures like the real estate development group he started, Hohen International. While working as a solutions architect for the foreign exchange team at National Australia Bank, Zhang started Tukk & Co., a coffee shop in Melbourne, with his college friend Max Li. That eventually led them to found Airwallex. A constant headache for the duo was that their payments to coffee bean vendors in Brazil and Indonesia were repeatedly blocked. After some investigation, they concluded another person with similar name to Li was on the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control's blacklist, resulting in problems with cross-border payments that were being routed through the US. Zhang went down a rabbit hole and concluded the system of sending payments through a conga line of banks to reach the intended destination added unnecessary cost and over-complicated compliance. 'I'm a solutions architect,' Zhang said of his thoughts at the time. 'I can build a better system to essentially give retail customers the interbank rate, give them full transparency and make sure they don't need to pay a whole bunch of spread.' 'Always on' Loading In order to make that vision a reality, Airwallex holds licences around the world permitting it to open bank-like accounts in more than 70 countries and enables international transfers to 200-plus countries using local infrastructure in roughly 120 of those. The company is Singapore-based, but with members of the executive team spread around the globe. Zhang primarily splits his time between London and New York, while also trying to remain available for his global employee base. The latter is becoming increasingly hard. The firm now has more than 1800 employees in 26 offices around the world. 'He's always on, perhaps sometimes to a fault, and also very generous with his time,' said Paul Bassat, Melbourne-based co-founder and partner at Square Peg. 'If people ask Jack for his time, his default answer is 'yes.' It's a lot of demands on his time and you can't solve that problem by just working harder.' The Australian Financial Review reported last year that intense workplace culture had led to high staff turnover. The same year, Zhang shared in a blog post that the company had under-invested in the people and talent team, but had expanded those operations to support employees. Zhang himself doesn't show any signs of slowing down. After the most recent fundraise, his goal is to build Airwallex into a complete operating system for global businesses by increasing its investment in technologies like artificial intelligence. One place where Zhang's viewpoint diverges from Stripe's Collison brothers is on stablecoin and cryptocurrencies. Last year, Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge for $US1.1 billion. Zhang has taken a more cautious approach, opting to wait for additional regulatory clarity before investing heavily in the technology. In June, Zhang dusted up a spirited debate on X after expressing doubts about use cases. 'I still don't see a single use case yet on how crypto is helping anything in the last 15 years,' Zhang wrote. Loading While Zhang has lofty ambitions, he faces steep competition from Stripe and other fintechs like Nium, another global cross-border payments firm that was valued at $US1.4 billion last year. Zhang says the demand for banking and payments platforms designed to accommodate international operations is on the rise. 'Tech-native businesses are more likely to be global from day one,' Zhang said. 'Any mum and dad selling on Amazon or Shopify is a global business.'
Herald Sun
6 hours ago
- Herald Sun
Qantas announces huge sale on first, business class seats
Don't miss out on the headlines from Breaking News. Followed categories will be added to My News. Luxury travellers rejoice, Qantas has announced a sweeping sale on premium cabin fares across its international network. From Thursday, travellers will be able to access more than 80,000 discounted first class, business class and premium economy seats across almost every one of Qantas' international destinations. Using cash or points, customers can travel across Asia, the UK, South Africa, North and South America, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, with some destinations fetching big discounts. Travellers making their way to New Zealand can enjoy $999 premium economy seats on return flights from Sydney to Auckland. Qantas international chief Cam Wallace said the airline had strong interest in premium travel options on its long-haul international flights. 'This sale is one we know our customers will love, with discounted premium seats across almost our entire international network, including over peak periods like the northern hemisphere summer and Christmas holidays,' Mr Wallace said. With the sale extending out across those peak travel periods, Australians making their way to international family or seeking a global getaway over the holidays will have access to Sydney to London return premium economy flights from $3799 and Sydney to New York from $4299. There are further benefits for those repeat Qantas customers. 'And for our frequent flyers, it's a fantastic opportunity to maximise their points with Classic Plus seats now on sale,' Mr Wallace said. 'It's another way we're providing great value and more choice for our members to fly in premium cabins to their favourite destinations.' The sale runs until midnight Wednesday, June 18, unless sold out earlier. Flights can be booked up until May 2026, with some selected dates blacked out. The fares include baggage, in-flight entertainment and food and drinks. The full list of routes on sale is available on the Qantas website. Originally published as Qantas announces sweeping sale on premium seats for popular international destinations
