Jetstar sells more than 60,000 seats in 10 hours

Jetstar, Australia's newest low-fares airline, has sold more than 60,000 seats in 10 hours.

Jetstar Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said the airline's website had received more than 5.5 million hits since it went live at 2.00pm yesterday and more than 3.5 million hits since special fares went on sale at 6.00am today.

"More than 94 per cent of the seats have been sold via the Jetstar.com website," Mr Joyce said.

"We've had an unbelievable response to our special 100,000 A$29.00 (S$37.96) fare offer and our Jetstar Jet Saver fares. Some routes have sold out and customers are now taking advantage of our every day low fares commencing at A$69.00 (S$90.30).

"We have been averaging more than 200 bookings each minute and 600,000 visits to the website each hour.

Mr Joyce apologised that some customers experienced delays accessing the site today.

"This level of activity is unprecedented and I regret the inconvenience caused, but overall the response has been very positive," he said.

Mr Joyce said the most popular flights for consumers were between the city pairs of Brisbane and Avalon and Sydney and Avalon, Sydney and Hamilton Island and Brisbane and Hamilton Island.

"While we knew the website would be the most popular avenue for sales, we also opened the call centre two hours earlier at 0600am to cope with the overwhelming demand," he said.

Jetstar will operate up to 88 flights per day from 25 May increasing to 116 flights a day or around 800 flights a week by August 2004.

See also: Qantas announces Jetstar route network and offers 100,000 seats for A$29