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Source: ONE News -
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Budget airlines are likely to have a competitive advantage because of their lower cost and are likely to weather the current tough environment better than rivals, Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan says.
"The low cost model is less exposed in the current environment," Buchanan told Sky News.
"At the moment, in a low fuel environment, the low cost model comes to the fore because our comparative advantage as far as other costs become a bigger area of the overall costs."
Buchanan warned that that advantage could be eroded very quickly in the current environment if fuel prices go back up.
The airline aims to cut costs further by finding ways of combining operations in Singapore with its Asian operations.
Jetstar Australia is wholly owned by Qantas while the Asian operations have Qantas and the Singapore government fund Temasek Holdings as majority shareholders.
"Our business is about establishing a pan-Asian footprint," Buchanan said.
"The Singapore and Australian businesses are quite overlapped."
It would include looking at combining more of the engineering and operational work, Buchanan said.
He also said Jetstar would consider hiring more people in Asia, not only for cost reasons, but also to improve customer service with employees who had appropriate language and cultural skills.