Qantas Airways' low-cost carrier Jetstar is looking to add more Airbus A330s now that Qantas group has cancelled some 787 orders and delayed others.
A Jetstar spokesman in Sydney says the carrier has six A330s and is receiving a seventh in December.
Besides Airbus A320s, it has no other aircraft coming until mid-2013 when Jetstar receives its first 787, which will also the first 787 for the Qantas group, says the spokesman.
"We are now looking at our future fleet plan in terms of additional A330s because we see some growth opportunities for Jetstar International," he says.
When asked of the airline will lease or buy A330s, he says Jetstar in recent times has leased A330s because this aircraft was originally suppose to be interim lift until the 787s come.
Jetstar was originally suppose to receive the first of 15 787-8s in August 2008 but delays to the Boeing programme pushed deliveries back to May 2010.
Then last month Qantas announced it was cancelling 15 787-9s on order and delaying delivery of 15 787-8s.
Jetstar's spokesman says Jetstar was originally planning to have 15 787-8s and then replace these with 787-9s but under the new schedule it is going straight to 787-9s.
He says the -9 is a more suitable for services into Asia and for the services to Europe.
The reason it went with -8s to begin with is because that is the first model in the 787 family that Boeing is producing, he adds.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
