Qantas, Jetstar launch cheap flights from Darwin

DARWIN residents will be able to fly to Brisbane for as low as $79 as Qantas and Jetstar launch tourism recovery sales from today.

DARWIN residents will be able to fly to Brisbane for as low as $79 as Qantas and Jetstar launch tourism recovery sales from today.

Darwin to Adelaide fares will be $89, Darwin to Melbourne $89 and Darwin to Sydney $99.

The two airlines have announced discounted fares on 200,000 seats across a raft of national destinations.

Jetstar’s sale is across 35 routes, for 15 destinations, in the NT, Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

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Fares are on sale on jetstar.com from 9am today and run until June 22 unless sold out prior.

Qantas is offering its 13 million frequent flyers triple points on all flights nationwide across 92 routes and 57 destinations from June 27 until October 31. The triple point sale is available on qantas.com now and runs until June 24.

Both airlines are offering customers greater flexibility when they book, with the ability to change the date of their flight once, without paying a change fee.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said in the past fortnight almost 400,000 seats had been sold on Qantas and Jetstar’s domestic networks, following confirmation of some state borders opening and both airlines increasing capacity to as much as 40 per cent of pre-crisis levels.

Top End Tourism chief executive Glen Hingley said the Territory Government must ramp up quickly its marketing in the interstate markets.

“And this is not just about advertising campaigns,” he said. “We know that Queensland and SA are spending a lot of money on packaging and offering very sharp deals.

“We are hoping Tourism NT can come up with some very innovative solutions to get Australians to choose the Territory ahead of the rest of Australia.”

Kakadu Tourism chairman Rick Allert said the past three months had been incredibly difficult for them and he didn’t expect things to get much easier even when the border reopened.

“As it is, we’ve already lost half of the peak dry season and because of uncertainty about border access it won’t be easy to attract the usual sort of high occupancies that are typical for the remainder of the dry season,” he said.

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“There has been unfortunate confusion caused by Parks Australia’s announcement that no camping is currently allowed in Kakadu National Park because camping is certainly permitted at Cooinda, where we have plentiful space for campers and caravanners, as well as visitors wanting hotel accommodation.

“The fact there will be no international visitors for the foreseeable future means that Australians will have Kakadu National Park to themselves, and will be able to experience the major attractions without crowds.

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“We will also be advocating strongly for a fast-tracking of the Federal Government’s promised infrastructure projects across Kakadu …”

Australian Tourism Industry Council executive director Simon Westaway said opening on July 17 allowed the NT tourism industry the time and ability to capture the remainder of the high season.

“This is a much-needed step to get the NT tourism industry rebooted as interstate visitation was and always has been the backbone of the sector,” he said.