After suspending flights in 2020, Jetstar restored services to the Thai holiday hotspot of Phuket last week. Jetstar is back flying its Boeing 787-8 aircraft to Phuket twice a week from Melbourne and three times a week from Sydney.
Five flights a week to Phuket from Australia
Jetstar says its flights to Phuket from Sydney will operate every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Flights from Melbourne to Phuket will fly run every Thursday and Sunday. Jetstar's CEO Gareth Evans says resuming the flights is good news for travelers and also for Jetstar's crew, many of whom loved flying to Thailand regularly pre-pandemic.
“Thailand has consistently been one of our most popular overseas holiday destinations since we started flying there in 2007," Mr Evans said. "A recent survey of Jetstar customers showed that Thailand currently ranks in the top three international destinations that travelers have on their bucket lists for 2022.”
Pushing back at 15:05 in Sydney three days a week, JQ27 takes just over nine hours to cover the 4,510 miles (7,259 kilometers) up to Phuket, landing there at 20:10. Later that evening, the Dreamliner operates JQ28 back to Sydney. The flight leaves Phuket at 21:40 and travels through the night to land back in Sydney at 10:05 the next day.
Out of Melbourne, JQ17 departs at 15:20 every Thursday and Sunday to fly north to Phuket, touching down at 20:10. The return flights leave on the same evening. JQ18 heads out of Phuket at 21:40 and arrives in Melbourne at 10:05 the next day.
Phuket is usually an international bright spot for Jetstar
Along with Bali, Phuket was a preferred holiday destination for many Australians until borders closed. In 2019, the last year of uninterrupted flying, nearly 1.4 million travelers flew the Australia-Thailand country pair.
Usually, Jetstar flies nonstop to both Bangkok and Phuket from Australia. In 2019, Jetstar offered 476 flights on the country pair and carried 291 669 passengers. After resuming its Phuket flights, Jetstar also now says international flights to other destinations in their network - Bali, Japan, and Vietnam, are scheduled to resume in the first part of 2022 as quarantine requirements in these destinations ease.
Last year, Phuket cautiously reopened to international travelers under the Sandbox scheme, which allowed fully vaccinated travelers to fly in and quarantine in hotels before traveling onto other parts of Thailand.
Later on, Thailand introduced a simplified “Test & Go” scheme but dropped that system in December amid concerns about the omicron variant spreading. Several airlines tested the Phuket waters by resuming some services into the airport. However, traveler numbers to Thailand remained relatively low.
Jetstar's Dreamliners slowly getting back to business
In November, Australia relaxed its own rules, allowing its fully vaccinated citizens and permanent residents to enter and leave freely. That gave the international networks of local airlines like Jetstar some forward momentum.
Jetstar's Dreamliners offer passengers an upgrade on the standard Jetstar Airbus A320 experience. Jetstar has 11 of the widebody planes, with over half back in service. VH-VKA, VH-VKB, VH-VKD, and VH-VKE remain in storage in Alice Springs.
The remaining Dreamliners are seeing some flying, including operating the Phuket flights. In addition, the Dreamliners are cropping up operating international sectors such as Sydney - Tokyo Narita and Melbourne - Singapore. The Dreamliners also operate some domestic sectors such as Melbourne - Cairns and Melbourne - Gold Coast.