Parent Qantas Group confirmed in a market update that Jetstar Airways (JQ, Melbourne Tullamarine) will reactivate its widebody aircraft in mid-2021 to cope with rapidly returning domestic leisure demand.

The Australian holding said its LCC unit would initially deploy five B787-8s on services from both Melbourne Tullamarine and Sydney Kingsford Smith to Gold Coast Coolangatta and Cairns. Jetstar's internet booking engine indicates that flights will begin on June 1, 2021.

According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Jetstar operates eleven B787-8s, all of which are currently in storage at Alice Springs (eight), Sydney Kingsford Smith (two), and Melbourne (one) airports.

As reported earlier, Jetstar will also transfer six A320-200s from Jetstar Japan to the Australian unit to temporarily increase its fleet, which comprises fifty A320-200s and eight A321-200s on top of the B787s.

Qantas underlined that even as international markets remain closed for the time being, the Australian domestic market was recovering rapidly.

"As a result, the Group is revising its estimates of reaching 80 per cent of its pre-COVID domestic capacity for the fourth quarter of FY21 [April-June 2021] and is now expecting this to be beyond 90 per cent, provided there are no significant [state] border closures. The continued growth in domestic capacity is expected to continue into FY22, with Jetstar to reach 120% of pre-COVID levels, and Qantas to be at 107%," the group said.

Qantas itself is operating all eleven of its B787-9s, as well as some of its A330-200s and A330-300s on repatriation and cargo-only flights. Its other widebody aircraft, including the remainder of the A330s and all twelve A380-800s, remain in storage. Qantas Group is preparing for the restart of scheduled international operations in October 2021 but said that it retained flexibility to react to a potential extension of the border closure by the government. Jetstar' schedules also indicate the low-cost carrier plans to resume international B787 operations to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Denpasar, Ho Chi Minh City, Honolulu, Osaka Kansai, Phuket, Seoul Incheon, and Tokyo Narita from October 31, the ch-aviation schedules module shows.