Low cost airline Jetstar will expand its domestic offering for Cairns by almost 30 per cent from early 2011.

The carrier announced new additional daily services from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and building to a daily return Gold Coast-Cairns flight.

Jetstar’s new capacity represents 25 additional weekly return services to Cairns, increasing to 93 weekly return flights serving seven Australian cities from the airline’s expanding Cairns hub.

Jetstar Group Chief Executive Officer Bruce Buchanan, visited Cairns to make the announcement, and said this growth of 8850 more weekly seats represented Jetstar’s single largest injection of new domestic flying for Cairns.

“Jetstar will now be at record operational capacity on Melbourne-Cairns and Sydney-Cairns routes and complement Qantas on the largest Brisbane-Cairns market.

"Through Jetstar’s low fares, customers are responding to make these routes amongst Australia’s fastest growing air markets,” Mr Buchanan said.

“Our commitment to building to a daily Gold Coast-Cairns service will also better support inbound international visitation.”’

From April 2011 Jetstar will offer 12 daily domestic return services to Cairns and provide convenient and real connectivity to vital international markets such as Japan and New Zealand on Jetstar.

Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree Chairman, Wendy Morris, said the organisation would continue with its focus on aligning themselves with the aviation industry.

"We have worked hard in key markets such as Melbourne and New Zealand, and south east Queensland also holds massive potential for Tropical North Queensland," she said. "This is also being recongnised by the airlines."

Ms Morris said the recent increase in flights to Cairns is a result of the work done by many stakeholders.

"We have a cohesive approach to attract airlines to the area. Tourism Queensland, Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Cairns airport, and local government all lobby for extra capacity," she said