Australian budget airline Jetstar has recommenced its scheduled domestic and international operations after Christchurch Airport reopened both domestic and international flights earlier today.

“Our first domestic flight into Christchurch arrived at 1130 hours local today,” the budget airline said.

Jetstar's first departing international service out of Christchurch will be Jetstar Flight JQ 166 Christchurch-Melbourne, scheduled to depart Christchurch at 1525 local and arrive into Melbourne Airport at 1715 (515pm Melbourne local time) this evening.

The first arriving Jetstar international services into Christchurch will be Jetstar Flight JQ 7101 (Melbourne-Christchurch), scheduled to arrive at 1945 (745pm) local time.

Beyond regular scheduled services for Christchurch, Jetstar is already operating additional domestic and Trans Tasman flights to/from Christchurch to assist with customer recovery.

At this point in time, all flights departing Christchurch today are close to full.

For affected customers and those undertaking near travel from/to Christchurch until and including Friday 25 February 2011, Jetstar continues to offer full
flexibility in travel including refunds, re-routing or changes to travel dates/times for no fee.

Other airlines have also put on extra flights as Chrsitchurch exodus gathers pace. In addition, military aircraft are being used to ferry people away from Christchurch. The Air Force, which now has four planes operating from Christchurch, has flown about 800 tourists out of the city.