O7 Jetstar Asia: A look back at the airline’s 21 years of operations

Jetstar Asia (JSA/3K), a Singapore-based low-cost airline, an affiliate of the Australian low-cost airline Jetstar, has ceased operations after almost 21 years in the Singaporean aviation industry. Here’s a throwback to their past.

By: Haotian

Published on: 31 July 2025, 11.56pm (GMT +8)

Jetstar Asia has ceased operations after more than 20 years. Photo: @vexflyer/Instagram

As flight 3K264 from Labuan Bajo, one of Jetstar Asia's newest destinations, approached runway 20R of Changi Airport in Singapore, along with the touchdown, marked the end of the operations of the Singapore-based low-cost carrier.

Jetstar Asia was established in 2004, as a joint venture between the Australian national carrier Qantas, and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, as well as Singaporean businessmen Tony Chew and Fong Fui Wong.

Jetstar Asia was the third budget carrier in Singapore back then. Already prominent in the Singapore low-cost carrier market was Valuair, as well as Tigerair. With such strong competitors, Jetstar Asia had to find a way to stand out - by operating flights that were longer than what the two existing airlines had.

The new low-cost carrier announced 7 routes that it would operate, namely: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila, Jakarta, Surabaya, Pattaya, as well as Taipei. However, three of the routes faced significant trouble in being approved. The routes to Jakarta and Surabaya could not be approved by the Indonesian government, as they had started clamping down on foreign budget carriers, in order to boost their own local budget carrier industry. The route to Shanghai had also faced a somewhat similar situation, with the Chinese government not allowing foreign low-cost carriers to operate to Shanghai.

Despite setbacks, the airline had its inaugural flight on 13 December 2004, on a 4 hour flight to Hong Kong.

Just shy of one year after beginning operations, Jetstar Asia and Valuair announced a merger, in the first-ever major consolidation of low-cost carriers in Southeast Asia. A statement released by the then CEO of Qantas and Chairman of Jetstar Asia, Geoff Dixon, said that the airlines would continue to “operate in their own right for the foreseeable future” and that the merger would bring “little or no change to the service offered by either airline". The merged airlines were now under a holding company called Orangestar Investment Holdings.

Fun fact: Jetstar Asia was the first international airline to land at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.

In 2009, as part of an ownership change, Newstar Investment Holdings acquired Orange Star shares. As a result of this restructuring, Jetstar increased its stakes from 45% to 49%, while Singapore-owned Westbrook Investments now owned 51% of the stakes.

Jetstar Asia has, in history, operated to 15 countries and 52 cities. However, as of its closure, only 9 out of 15 countries, and 18 out of 52 cities were still part of Jetstar Asia’s route map.

However, the airline was reportedly profitable for only 6 out of the 20 years of operations, and 2011 was one of the years, as they experienced a significant increase in passenger volume, which in turn, allowed their profits to rise drastically too.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jetstar grounded all 18 of its Airbus A320-200s, including retiring 5 of them, bringing their total fleet of A320s down to 13. The retirement of their aircraft also brought along retrenchment, with about 25% of its staff being laid off as a result of the pandemic.

On June 11th, Jetstar Asia announced its closure on the 31st of July, with stakeholders citing rising costs and competition in the region, which “put unsustainable pressure on the airline’s ability to offer the low fares fundamental to its business model” as the reason for the decision. With its closure, it marks the withdrawal of yet another air carrier from Singapore, leaving Singapore Airlines and Scoot as the only air carriers registered in Singapore that are still operating, leaving the Singapore Airlines Group running a monopoly in the Singapore aviation industry.

With the closure of Jetstar Asia, the 13 remaining aircraft in JSA’s fleet will be wholly transferred over to QantasLink and Jetstar, both of which are Australian-based carriers and owned by Qantas.