Stephanie Tully: Jetstar CEO on plans to grow NZ operations

Jetstar's hoping to bring down fares by expanding its New Zealand operations. 

It will fly directly against rival Air New Zealand with new flights between Auckland and the Sunshine Coast's Maroochydore, Christchurch and Cairns. 

An eighth aircraft in New Zealand will help add 240,000 new seats each year. 

Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully told Mike Hosking “This is the biggest expansion for Jetstar in over ten years.” 

Tully said “It’s a fantastic example of when we work together as an industry – we can really put more low fares into the market.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jetstar expanding the New Zealand operations, launching flights between Auckland
and the Sunshine Coast from December, christ Church and Ken's
from open next year. They're also going to increase capacity
on the domestic routes, starting with christ Church to Auckland
and Auckland to Wellington. The Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully's with
us on all of the Stephanie, very good morning to you,
good morning, how are you very well? Indeed thank you? Domestically,

(00:20):
how many seats does this add?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
What we're announcing today, It adds two undred and forty
thousand lofes seats into the market, so we're super excited.
This is the biggest expansion for Jetstar in over ten
years with these new routes.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Why now, Oh, look, we're.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Seeing demand for lofes travel really strong on both sides
of the Tasman but also domestically and Jetstars done a
lot of work. We've really improved our operation here domestically,
we just want to add some more frequency. Our customers
are asking us to do that, so we're really excited
for our people based in New Zealand as well to
have some more flying to add into their rosters and this.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Is consistent and this is for the long haul. You're
not just dipping your toe into the market and then
deciding if it all gets a bit hard to go home.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
No, we're adding these routes year round and we see
sustained demand. We've had an awesome partnership with chross Church
Airport and the Queensland Government to support us to enable
us to do this year round. So it's a fantastic
example I think of when we work together as an
industry were we can really put in more loafares into

(01:30):
the market and we know that Kiwei's want that, so
they want more competition. So I think it's a fantastic day.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
And these are permanent reductions in fares or entry level
reductions and fairs and or do you reckon an New
Zealand will match you or have to match you.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh look, we've got a sales starting today, so there's
some fantastic fares in the market from midday to day.
Customers can get those thirty nine dollars fares domestically. But
what we find is just we are the only loafares
leader carrier in this market. So when you look ahead,
our pricing is consistently sort of over thirty to forty
percent below a New Zealand. So that our job is

(02:06):
to stimulates man to offer lof says options for kiwis,
So we'll keep doing that.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
What I found interesting, and I can't remember when it was,
but it was a month or so back, there was
a reliability report. And the famous thing with jet Star
is that you know you don't have enough planes and
sometimes they don't turn up and the captain sick and
all that sort of thing. Reliability wise, you actually turned
out to be pretty good at what you do. How
hard's turning that image around?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Look at I'm really proud of the Jets team. We've
spent a lot of work months improving our reliability and
you can see that coming through, as you say in
the stats. At the last few months we had a
period of fifty days actually where we didn't even have
a cancelation. And look, we're an airline. There's always going
to be things like weather outside your control that might

(02:52):
impact your schedule. But we're seeing our on time performance
at over eighty percent on average, cancelations at one percent
or less, and that's that rivals in New Zealand and
when your fares are thirty to forty percent left. It
becomes really a good alternative option for customers that are
looking for that value.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Go well, well it's Stephanie Telly, who's the boss of
a Jetstar? Or competition is a good competition For more
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