Qantas, Jetstar Add 900,000 Seats on East Coast Routes

Qantas and Jetstar will add about 900,000 more seats on its east coast routes by July in a bid to improve the company's finances. The addition of capacity, announced Thursday, is part of the revamp initiated this week by Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce.

Mr Joyce ordered on Monday the closure of the Qantas maintenance hub at Tullamarine Airport and split on Tuesday into four divisions the company in a bid to improve profitability. At the same time he appointed chief executives for domestic and international operations, Jetstar and the frequent flyers programme.

The new seats would be on Qantas's Sydney-Melbourne and Sydney-Brisbane legs beginning July 9. Jetstar would likewise add seats on its Gold Coast and Ballina routes.

"Qantas is increasing capacity and frequency on key business routes to provide greater flexibility for customers who prefer the benefits of travelling with a full service carrier," Mr Joyce said in a statement.

With the extra seats would come more flights as Qantas flies 11 extra services weekly in the Sydney-Melbourne and 11 in the Sydney-Brisbane routes, while Jetstar would add 21 more flights per week to the Sydney-Melbourne legs.

The extra capacity aims to boost Qantas and Jetstar's domestic market share to 65 per cent, which is increasingly being dominated by Virgin Australia.

Virgin, which registered a 13 per cent growth on average airfares per passenger in the first half of 2011-12 and expects double-digit growth for the second half, said it is not worried about the increased capacity of Qantas and Jetstar despite the soft local market to due European crisis worries and weaker consumer confidence.

While Qantas is adding capacity on it east coast trips, it plans to cut services to Darwin and Uluru because of low demand. Qantas and Jetstar are also targeting the growing Chinese tourists market to build its international business.

The company is expected to benefit from the ongoing $300-million expansion of Perth Airport's international terminal since the improved service expects to ease bottlenecks in the system as number of passengers continues to increase.

"Perth is already a home away from home for many sophisticated Asian visitors.... But we also feel confident that the new Jetstar flights will help bring in an increasing number of wealthy Chinese tourism to WA," ABC quoted Mr Joyce.