By James Wilkinson

Pacific Blue has applied to the International Air Services Commission (IASC) for the rights to fly between Australia and Phuket, Thailand, up to seven times per week.

Pacific Blue has applied to fly to Thailand

If approved, the flights to Phuket would be flown by 180-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft and would mark the second Asian destination for Pacific Blue, following the successful launch of flights late last year to Bali from Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

A spokesperson for Pacific Blue told SpiceNews the allocation of flights is part of the airline’s ongoing planning process and a departure city is yet to be determined.

“We are always assessing new opportunities to expand our operations into routes which provide good potential for growth and also increase the range of travel options available to Australian and international travellers,” the spokesperson said.

“This application for capacity is a natural part of this continuous long-term planning process, to ensure we have all appropriate approvals in place, to allow us to take advantage of interesting new opportunities as they arise.

“We have no specific launch date in mind at this time and we have not specified from which Australian ports such services might operate,” the spokesperson said.

Pacific Blue is yet to officially announce the Phuket flights, but speculation is rife the route could be flown from Perth.

The Perth-Phuket route is approximately 160km longer than Sydney-Denpasar, which Pacific Blue will fly non-stop from June 1.

While Melbourne flights to Bali also commence on June 1, Pacific Blue has separately applied to the IASC for an unlimited capacity allocation between Australia and Indonesia.

In that application, Pacific Blue is seeking to increase Indonesian flights, and not necessarily from Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. The move has raised speculation the airline’s upcoming Bali flights could be launched from other Australian cities, such as Broome, Canberra or Darwin.