By Craig Platt
A price war has erupted on Australia's busiest air route, as Jetstar and Tiger battle for price-sensitive flyers between Sydney and Melbourne.
Jetstar today announced its first flights from Melbourne Airport to Sydney, with five services a day on the route. Previously the airline's Sydney flights used Avalon Airport. Daily flights on the route from Avalon will be reduced from seven to four.
Flights from Melbourne Airport will begin on October 25. To promote the new flights, Jetstar released 10,000 free one-way flights on its Twitter feed at midnight.
Only followers of the feed were informed of promotion, with the airline issuing a statement about the promotion at 7.28am, just 17 minutes before the sale ended.
A spokesperson for the airline said more than 3000 of the 10,000 flights offered were claimed. The airline also offered $19 one-way fares this morning to its JetMail newsletter subscribers. Due to finish at 10am, the sale was extended until 4pm after a server crashed, denying users access to the Jetstar site.
In response, Tiger Airways announced its own sale on the route with 30,000 $25 one-way fares available until August 26 for travel between October 4 and March 27.
The airline will also increase its Sydney-Melbourne flights in October from four to nine daily.
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