Search cheap and promo Jetstar flight tickets here!

Jetstar (IATA code: JQ) is well-known as a low-cost airline headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Qantas, an international premium airline service, is the parent company of Jetstar. It is safe to say that Jetstar is a more affordable version of Qantas. Jetstar operates domestic, regional, and international flights in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia Pacific. Jetstar has four sister airlines, which are:

• Jetstar Airways in Australia and New Zealand, which is wholly owned by the Qantas Group;
• Jetstar Asia Airways, which is based in Singapore and managed by Newstar Holdings;
• Jetstar Pacific Airlines, which is based in Vietnam, where the majority of its stake (70%) is owned by Vietnam Airlines and 30% of it belongs to Qantas Group;
• Jetstar Japan, a partnership among Qantas Group, Japan Airlines, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Tokyo Century Corporation.

Founded in 2004, Jetstar is known as a low-cost airline headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. Jetstar was launched by Qantas as a response to the birth of another low-cost airline. Jetstar is part of Qantas’s brand diversification strategy, a low-cost alternative to Qantas’s premium full-service offering. The airline originally headquartered in Avalon Airport near Melbourne—they had even started flying out of Avalon mid-2004—but decided to relocate to Melbourne. Before Qantas launched Jetstar in 2004, Qantas acquired Impulse Airlines in 2001 and operated it under the QantasLink brand. However, as Qantas made the decision to launch a low-cost carrier, QantasLink was relaunched under a different name, Jetstar. The domestic passenger service began in 2004, while the international service started operating in 2005 to Christchurch, New Zealand. Although Jetstar is owned by Qantas, its management operates largely independent of Qantas through a company formerly known as Impulse Airlines. Jetstar’s sister airline, the Jetstar Asia Airways, first took off from its Singapore hub to Hong Kong in 2004, marking Qantas’s journey into the Asian low-cost airline market. A year later, it was announced that Jetstar would establish the world’s first global low-cost airline. At the end of 2005, it was also announced that Jetstar would fly to Perth from Avalon Airport. In 2006, Jetstar became the first Australian airline to allow customers to select their seat upon booking. Qantas acquired an 18% stake in Vietnam’s Pacific Airlines, which was relaunched under the Jetstar Pacific brand. Since 2010, Qantas’s shareholding in Jetstar Pacific has increased to 30%. In 2009, Jetstar officially operated daily direct service from Auckland to Gold Coast and Sydney. Still in the same year, Jetstar also launched domestic New Zealand flights to serve Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Queenstown using the Airbus A320 aircraft. In 2011, Qantas announced that it would launch a new airline called Jetstar Japan, a joint venture of Jetstar, Japan Airlines, and Mitsubishi. The airline was expected to start operating in December 2012, but then was launched ahead of schedule in July 2012. Jetstar also once announced that it would launch another Asian sister airline called Jetstar Hong Kong, a partnership between Qantas and Eastern China Airlines. Jetstar Hong Kong was expected to start operating in 2013, but unfortunately the operation never took place due to revoked license application. In 2014, Jetstar signed a codeshare agreement with Emirates as a continuation of the agreement between Emirates and Qantas. Jetstar also has a codeshare agreement with American Airlines, Japan Airlines, and LATAM Chile. A year later, Jetstar announced that it would operate regional services in New Zealand, beginning in December 2015. The new service would be operated by Eastern Australia Airlines—also a Jetstar brand—using five turboprop Bombardier Dash 8. At least four new destinations would be served initially, with Hamilton, Rotorua, New Plymouth, Napier, Palmerston North, Nelson, and Invercargill as the cities under consideration. Finally, in August 2015, Jetstar announced that it had selected the first four regional centers it would serve later that December, which are Napier, Nelson, New Plymouth, and Palmerston North.