13th August, 2005: Qantas has announced new trans-Tasman schedules. The new schedules would be effective from December 1, the airline announced.

According to Qantas executive manager John Borgetti, the aim of the new schedules is to provide customers with more flights as well as travel schedule options. Qantas’ new schedule would translate into 1,500 additional seats in and out of Christchurch.

Services between Christchurch and Sydney will be operated by both Qantas and low cost airlines Jetstar. Jetstar is scheduled to offer 10 A320 return services between Christchurch and Sydney, while Qantas will operate nine Boeing 767 return flights a week during the holiday season, initially. This will be converted to daily flights from February next year, as per current plans.

Borghetti said the Qantas services will also useful as excellent connection flight services Of domestic and international flights.

Jetstar also plans to operate nine Melbourne-Chirstchurh-Melbourne services a week. This will replace the daily services of Qantas between Brisbane and Christchurch, operated on Boeing 737. Reports said Qantas is slated to continue its other planned services including its weekly services between Sydney and Queenstown, scheduled to start from October.

With this arrangement Qantas and Jetstar aims to provide customers a mix of services for business as well as leisure markets.

Jetstar Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said the airline will fly A320s twice a week offering more than 350 seats each week in each direction.

This, he said, would promote new tourism opportunities for both Australia and New Zealand.

Qantas, Australia’s biggest airline, operates above 200 flights a week between Australia and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Qantas has announced it would cut nearly 200 management jobs by September. This is part of a three-year cost-cutting plan that the airline company Is putting in place. Qantas aims to save more than $1.46 billion (Australian dollar 1.5 billion) by next June through this measure, media reports said. The cut amounts to almost 15 per cent of the management staff.

Qantas has announced the job cuts as part of its plan to achieve a low cost structure, a top Qantas aide had said on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Aviation Summit in Sydney.

Jetstar on the other hand has scaled down it number of its Adelaide-Avalon flights. The airline said this was primarily due to the lack ofpassengers, which is a seasonal Phenomenon in the Victorian travel market.

The number of Adelaide-Avalon flights have been cut from seven days to five, with the airline axeig the Wednesday and Saturday flights. The flights have been cancelled only till September. After that, the airline expects the number of passengers to pick up as the Spring Racing Carnival and AFL finals series begin.

BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT