Jetstar CEO Steph Tully targets Las Vegas and India in major international travel push

The mother-of-two CEO who commutes by jumping on Jetstar planes has delivered a 55 per cent earnings surge that puts premium airlines to shame.

She’s the golden girl of the Qantas Group: the CEO her employees greet with hugs.

Three years after being appointed Jetstar chief executive, Steph Tully has not only lifted the financial performance of the low-cost carrier from the weakest link in the group to the second strongest behind Qantas Domestic, she has turned around operational performance.

In the 2025 financial year, Jetstar’s operating margin in the domestic business was 16 per cent, higher than the 13.9 per cent of its premium airline counterpart, while overall earnings soared 55 per cent to $769m. Ms Tully is quick to acknowledge the contribution of 27 new fuel efficient A320neos and A321LRs to the result, with Jetstar well ahead of its larger parent on the fleet renewal front.

As well as reducing costs, the aircraft require less maintenance which has in turn helped to boost reliability – giving Jetstar a lower flight cancellation rate than Qantas.

But it’s a lot more than metrics that is endearing Ms Tully to shareholders, customers and employees alike.

As the mother of two girls who go to school in Sydney, Ms Tully splits her time between Jetstar’s Melbourne headquarters and Qantas HQ at Mascot, flying at least twice a week on her own airline.

“We’ve got a rule that we fly Jetstar, and the silver lining of commuting is I’m spending six hours a week in the operation talking to our people, (getting) very close to the issues,” she said.

“I think it’s been good for Jetstar to have me in the operation that much because you can really fix things and listen to the voice of the people.”

Jetstar CEO Steph Tully spends at least six hours a week talking to frontline staff as she flies between Melbourne and Sydney. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Often taking the jump seat on the flight deck, Ms Tully says one of her early lessons from pilots was there were not enough engineers on hand at the various airports to which Jetstar flew.

“Engineering is so critical to fleet health, which is critical to the operations so we spread engineers further around the network,” she said.

“They’ve done an incredible job and now our fleet health is the best in the world on our A320s.”

The resulting improvement in on-time performance and reliability has not gone unnoticed by customers, with Jetstar’s brand health at its highest.

Passenger loads are also booming – as fast as the airline adds capacity and new routes, seats are snapped up.

A case in point is the new Brisbane-Cebu route which proved so popular with customers, Jetstar added an extra weekly service before the Philippines service even began in December 3.

“People are prioritising travel over other things, and I think Jetstar’s a great option for people who are looking for an affordable fare, and to try new destinations,” Ms Tully said.

On that note, Jetstar is expected to add more routes to its network in the next year, having announced 10 new international routes in 2025, including five more to Bali.

Ms Tully is happy to admit Bali is the “gift that keeps on giving” to Jetstar, with flights from the Sunshine Coast and Avalon starting next year, and the airline already on the hunt for other options.

“It’s the most important market for Jetstar, and I like to think that when Australians think of Bali, they think of Jetstar which is a great place to be,” she said.

“We’re the largest carrier to Bali and many passengers go back multiple times a year so we will keep looking for opportunities in Indonesia, more broadly than Bali as well.”

Lombok is firmly on Tully’s radar, while the refurbishment of Boeing 787-8s next year creates a whole new world of long haul possibilities for the airline.

The interior refit will double the size of the business class cabin, and add Wi-Fi and crew rest areas so flights of up to 16 hours are a possibility.

Already Jetstar has announced plans to begin Melbourne-Colombo from August 2026, with launch fares starting at $315, and more long haul routes are on the drawing board into India, South Africa and even the US.

Ms Tully confessed to liking the notion of a “Bris-vegas to Las Vegas” service.

“It’s very Jetstar we think,” she said.

There is no shortage of headwinds however with costs forever on the rise throughout the aviation industry, particularly as airports embark on major infrastructure projects such as new runways and terminals ultimately paid for by airlines and their passengers.

Jetstar Boeing 787s will also get new economy seats as they undergo refurbishment in 2026.

Ms Tully said escalating costs were a big part of the decision to close Jetstar Asia this year, with the low fares model proving too difficult to maintain in an increasingly expensive environment.

“We’ve got to make sure we keep the pressure on all of our stakeholders, to make sure they understand that’s critical for Jetstar,” she said. “We need to be the lowest fares in the market because that’s the Jetstar role in our proposition.”

For the time being at least, Ms Tully plans to keep steering Jetstar on a path of international travel domination having added 50 per cent more capacity in and out of Australia since 2019.

She said she is “totally focused on doing a good job at Jetstar” and there’s “still lots to do”.

“I love Jetstar’s culture, I love this morning how staff were hugging me in Sydney before I got on board,” Ms Tully said on the Gold Coast where she spoke at the Australian Airports Association conference.

“The pilots were having a good old chat about lots of things. We want it to be a great place to work and I think people are doing great work at Jetstar. It’s contagious.”

Originally published as Jetstar CEO Steph Tully targets Las Vegas and India in major international travel push