Jetstar Airways is to introduce flights between Singapore Changi and Osaka Kansai International from the start of November allowing it to provide enhanced connectivity into the Japanese market from both Southeast Asia and the Northern Territory of Australia. The airline’s fourth long-haul route from Singapore, the new service will be operated from November 1, 2012 as a three times weekly extension of the existing Darwin – Singapore route and will enable passengers to feed into the operations of the new Jetstar Japan start-up.
The new Singapore – Osaka service will be flown on an Airbus A330 and will connect conveniently with the Darwin –Singapore flight, operated using a smaller A321, with just a 70 minute connection at Changi International Airport. The return leg doesn’t quite offer the same connectivity though with passengers having to wait six hours in transit in Singapore before the flight on to Darwin.
Jetstar Group CEO, Jayne Hrdlicka, said the new service would capitalise on the Jetstar Group’s growing presence in the Japanese market following the start of domestic services earlier this month. “We always look for opportunities across the Jetstar Group to join the dots in our existing network to improve what we can offer travellers. This new service means Darwin will be connected to Osaka as well as Tokyo, and by extension, to three other major Japanese cities via Jetstar Japan’s domestic network,” she said.
“For Australian and Singaporean tourists this new connection will make it easier to explore everything Japan has to offer. We also expect this new link to encourage more outbound tourism from Japan, particularly combined with a domestic network that makes it more affordable to reach international flights to Darwin and Singapore,” she added.
Japan is Australia’s fifth largest source of international tourists, according to statistics and visitor arrivals grew 7.5 per cent over the first four months of 2012 compared with the same period last year. Similarly, visitors from Japan to Singapore jumped by approximately 20 per cent over the same period. The number of people visiting Japan is also climbing with figures for the first five months of 2012 showing a 45 per cent increase in visitors from Singapore and a 15 per cent increase from Australia.
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