Carry on: Jetstar's Dreamliners, Qantas offers Gold, Air AsiaX returns and more

Jetstar to put Dreamliner on all long-haul routes
Jetstar’s fleet of Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners will be on all its international flights out of Australia by September. Melbourne to Tokyo Narita will switch from July 10, followed by Melbourne-Singapore on August 5. The final two routes, Melbourne-Honolulu and Brisbane-Honolulu, will change on September 14.

The last Airbus A330-200 service on an international route is now scheduled on September 15 for Melbourne-Singapore. This is a one-time A330 operation replacing a Boeing 787.

LAN’s Dreamliner starts in April
LAN Chile will launch a Boeing 787-8 on its Sydney-Santiago-Auckland-Sydney route next month. The airline's booking system shows Saturday, April 18, as the Dreamliner's debut. It will replace a four-engined Airbus A340.

Qantas lures Gold frequent flyers
Qantas is offering free Gold status in its Frequent Flyer scheme to New Zealanders. The status match promotion requires only that the traveller holds “gold or higher status with any airline” other than Qantas partner Emirates and lives in New Zealand.  New Zealand already has the highest number of Qantas Frequent Flyer members outside of Australia. The promotion expires at 11.59pm (NZ time) on March 9 and includes a full year of Gold status.

Air Asia X may return via Australia
AirAsia X could enter the transtasman market, adding a dash of low-cost competition to the popular corridor already flown by Qantas, Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand, Jetstar, Emirates, LAN Chile and China Airlines. AirAsia X group chief executive Tony Fernandes raised the possibility on Twitter: "Yes new Zealand is being looked at via Australia.”

AirAsia X already flies to Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, along with Darwin and Perth, but has not been back to New Zealand since it cancelled its direct Kuala Lumpur-Christchurch service after the Canterbury earthquakes.

Emirates doubles Nairobi capacity
Emirates will switch from an Airbus A330-200 aircraft used on one of the two daily Nairobi services to a larger Boeing 777-300 ER from May 1. This will boost capacity on the Dubai-Nairobi route by 1638 seats a week and make Nairobi an all-Boeing 777 operation.

All four daily New Zealand services operated by Emirates provide direct connections in each direction at Dubai with the airline’s flights to the Kenyan capital.