Jetstar dismisses forecasts of weak leisure market

Qantas senior executive for sales and marketing Rob Guerney dismissed claims from analysts that subsidiary Jetstar was suffering based on the results of rival Virgin Blue (The Australian Financial Review, 25-Mar-2011). Virgin Blue has partly blamed weakness in the leisure market for an expected full-year loss of between AUD30 million-80 million (USD31-81 million). "We see the leisure market holding up strongly," Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan affirmed, "our impacts are all one-off and we are dealing with higher fuel costs through ancillary charges."

Qantas: "We don't see this massive weakness in leisure being talked about. When you drill down, some areas [of the market] are stronger than others, but business travel is strong and leisure is certainly reasonable." Rob Guerney, senior executive for sales and marketing. Source: The Australian Financial Review, 25-Mar-2011.