Jetstar to stalk Tiger

Jetstar is understood to have a plan to stalk every Tiger flight between Melbourne and Sydney in July…when the Singaporean owned carrier launches on the country’s biggest domestic route.

This would mean two things at least. Jetstar will have regular Sydney-Melbourne services that use Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport rather than Avalon.
And it will have capacity on the route… including at peak times… that could compete directly with Qantas.

The question left unanswered is how does Jetstar skin the Tiger in this situation without inflicting the odd flesh wound on Qantas in the process?

It will also fuel more paranoia about Jetstar within Qantas… where people still get paid more for less work… but also make the claim that Qantas is cross subsidising Jetstar with a view to ultimately having Jetstar take over Qantas branded flying and set the pay and conditions standards for the entire Qantas group.

Since there are no signs Tiger is going to blink in this major new contest with Jetstar it looks as though very cheap (and tiny) seats will be in abundant supply at useful times of the day on Australia’s major domestic route for a very long time come July.