Jetstar Pacific flies higher with additional $139 million

May 02, 2016 | 11:00

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Jetstar Pacific will be pumped with an additional $139 million from its founding partners to further develop its fleet and secure a bigger market share for affordable flights, despite its current accumulated losses of $151.9 million.

According to the low-cost carrier’s general director Le Hong Ha, Jetstar Pacific will receive the investment fund from Vietnam Airlines and Qantas Airways, to more than double its fleet size of 12 Airbus A320 aircrafts over the next four years. The Australian flag carrier airline, in particular, will inject some $42 million into Jetstar Pacific with Vietnam Airlines making up the remaining $97 million.

Qantas currently holds 30 per cent of the carrier, while Vietnam Airlines owns the rest of the carrier’s stakes.

Jetstar Pacific posted its first-ever annual profit of VND267 million ($12,247) in 2015, after operating at a loss as a low-cost carrier since 2008.

The carrier, however, still had an accumulated loss of VND3.312 trillion ($151.9 million), as at December 31, 2015, and a tax payable of hundreds of billion VND being suspended from a few years back.

Jetstar Pacific was first established some 25 years ago under the name of Pacific Airlines, under state-owned Vietnam Airlines, flying chartered cargo service. From 1996 to 2005, it started to operate passenger services. In 2007, Qantas acquired a number of the airline stakes and changed its model into a low-cost carrier, also switching the name into Jetstar Pacific.

The airline is reported to have only 15 per cent of the domestic market share, it has a healthy 83 per cent load factor. Jetstar Pacific says that it is looking to grow business with an increase in routes as well as extra aircraft capacity on existing schedules.

Jetstar Pacific operates 10 Airbus A320-200s and two A321-200s on flights to 16 destinations across Vietnam, China, Thailand, Macau, Singapore and Hong Kong.

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