Jin Air Co., a low-cost carrier under South Korea’s Hanjin Group, has launched a new flight service between Incheon and Cairns in Australia, a move that is expected to intensify competition between budget and full-service carriers over long-haul international routes.

Jin Air said on Thursday that it held a ceremony to celebrate the start of its inaugural service to Cairns, a popular tourist destination located on the east coast of Australia. The new route, which runs on a wide body aircraft Boeing 777-200ER, will operate twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays until February next year. The exclusive flight departs from Incheon at 9:50 p.m. and arrives in Cairns on the next day at 7 a.m., local time.

Jin Air, also the sister company of full-service carrier Korean Air Lines Co., has been putting out efforts to add new long-distance flights to its service as long-haul services lead to more lucrative earnings than short-distance flights. In December last year, the airline embarked on the flight service between Incheon and Honolulu, Hawaii, becoming the country’s first budget carrier to offer a long-haul international route. The Incheon-Cairns route is the second-longest route by distance (6,600 kilometers) to be offered by local budget carriers after the flight to Honolulu (7,590 kilometers).

According to a study conducted by Maeil Business Newspaper, the combined traveling distance of the longest routes offered by Korea’s five low-cost carriers - Jin Air, Jeju Air Co., Air Busan Co., Eastar Jet Co., and T’way Air Co. - amounts to 22,739 kilometers, which is the distance that adds up to more than half of the earth that is about 40,000 kilometers long.

An unnamed official from the aviation industry said low-cost carriers have started to invest in aircrafts with the profit they have earned from increased demand for budget flights, and are scheduling routes which in the past were offered by full-service carriers.

By Kim Jung-hwan

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]