Here’s a map of how Jetstar is running things in Singapore these days.

You can see there is a substantial short haul presence along with that long haul trip to Perth. Other long haul has been focused out of Australia so far. The expectation was that we’d see some Jetstar really open up Singapore long haul into Europe, maybe Japan and Korea, etc. But no, they’ve gone the other way.

Starting December 17, there will be a single daily to Melbourne and on March 17, a single daily to Auckland. These are interesting routes. Singapore to Melbourne is not exactly a less-traveled route. Singapore flies it three times a day, once on an A380, and Emirates flies it once a day as well. Qantas has a single daily mainline flight that doesn’t appear to be disappearing at this point. It seems that Qantas simply sees an opportunity to go to the low end of the market with its Jetstar product since the high end is already covered quite well.

Auckland is an even more interesting one. Only Singapore flies the route today, up to two times daily depending on the season. Air New Zealand isn’t on the route, so they are likely to only have cautious concern at this point for potential future expansion.

What this allows Qantas to do is take Kiwi passengers and funnel them into the Southeast Asian network. Even though it’s a low cost product, it’s going to still provide good competition with Singapore and other Asian carriers for those travelers heading to southeast Asian destinations.

So maybe this was an attempt to simply shore up defenses in Oceania before taking on Europe and North Asia, especially with Air Asia X flying from Kuala Lumpur to several Australian cities. Or maybe Jetstar simply wasn’t excited about what it was seeing in those markets. Air Asia X, Air Asia’s long haul operation out of Kuala Lumpur, has a great deal of trouble since its startup.

Sure, the airline is profitable, but look where its growth has been. China, India, and Australia see nearly all the flights from the airline. The only exception is the inaugural London route. A foray into Abu Dhabi ended three months after it started.

There have also been all kinds of seat problems, and Air Asia X learned that people didn’t like the premium economy product and instead wanted a full flat business product. The airline had to change out all its seats.

So with no entry into Japan and still only a single European route, Air Asia X hasn’t exactly shown the strength of those markets, and it has faced a lot of headwinds in delivering the right product. That doesn’t mean these routes can’t work, but it may have been a sign for Jetstar that other things can work much better.

The idea makes sense theoretically. You have a device with 10 hours of battery life that can play all kinds of content from movies to tv and games. It doesn’t have any of the hassles of a built-in inflight entertainment system, and since it’s one of the hottest devices on the planet, a lot of people are likely to shell out the $10 it’ll cost to rent. But there are problems, and they all boil down to one issue – this isn’t likely to be cheap for the airline.

Yes, an iPad is going to be cheaper than installing something in the seat, but that’s hardly the only option. A DigEPlayer, for example, has built-in content and can be rented just as the iPad can. It’s not nearly as versatile as an iPad, but do people really care that much? Both provide hours of good entertainment.

But the iPad is soooo cool, right? That’s the problem. People are really going to steal this every chance they get. Seriously. Wouldn’t you? It’s not going to be tied down because not everyone will want one. So it needs to be able to roam to the person who decides to rent it. The company that put this together, BlueBox, says that it has a “proprietary bluebox security solution.” Unless it’s a solution that tasers someone for trying to sneak it off the plane, it’s unlikely to stop them.

Sure, you can add security that makes it worthless on the ground, but that won’t stop people. When I was at United, the airline started handing out personal DVD players to people traveling in First and Business class on the new p.s. flights from New York to LA and San Francisco. Those DVD players only played the mysterious “region 8″ DVDs, a region that is really just for airplanes, cruise ships, etc. In other words, you couldn’t play any regular DVD on it so it was no good.

That didn’t stop anyone. They disappeared faster than an airline employee’s pension.

Now, United uses a system that has a built-in drive with pre-programmed content. I don’t know if people still steal these things, but the fact that it’s pretty clear that there’s no external application for the device keeps people from taking it.

You don’t think that the second the iPad takes to the skies, someone will have a webpage up on how to disable the security system so that you can use it? You know they will.

Sure, it can be policed. If they find one missing that you rented, they can charge you for it, unlike at United where the players were given complimentary. But you know people are pretty savvy about getting around those things as well. And what happens when the flight attendants start trying to get in the game and make a little money for themselves?

There are ways around all of this, but it requires complexity that may not be warranted. If airlines need to provide inflight entertainment (and Jetstar does, because it needs something to make people forget that their knees are smashed in their chests) go for something simpler, cheaper, and less likely to be stolen. Or just skip this phase entirely. Simply provide content people can access from their own devices. Then you don’t have to worry about the device disappearing at all.

For those who aren’t familiar, Air Asia is the monster of the low cost carrier world in Southeast Asia. They started out with a couple used 737s, but they’ve now grown into a behemoth. They should be flying 100 airplanes by the end of this year, most of which are A320s. They have plenty more on order as well, effectively trying to turn themselves into the Asian version of Ryanair (though, funny enough, unlike Ryanair, with European-built airplanes). They’ve also recently started Air Asia X for long haul low cost flying with A330s. (Strange fact: Air Asia X inexplicably sponsors the Oakland Raiders despite a) them not flying anywhere on this continent and b) the Raiders absolutely sucking.)

Jetstar has taken a different path. They are a very rare specimen – a successful low cost airline within an airline. They are a part of Qantas and are about half the size of Air Asia in terms of fleet. They have a bunch of A320s buzzing around Australia, and they added long haul flying on A330s. They’ve grown their Jetstar Asia (and Jetstar Pacific in Vietnam) product in the same region as Air Asia, but they don’t actually overlap that much.

Jetstar started the consolidation party by merging with Valuair a few years back. You’ll still see Valuair flying airplanes but the branding is Jetstar these days. Now, Jetstar is getting together with Air Asia, but it’s not like you think.

This alliance is supposedly all about cost savings. They’re going to get together to try to build purchasing power for fuel, ground handling, airplanes, and more. The airplane piece is particularly interesting in that they’re really going to try to push the development of the successor to the 737 and A320 airplanes. They want the next generation so they can drive down costs.

There are some really good points in a blog post over at Plane Talking covering the announcement. Air Asia is really focused on driving down costs – lower costs means they can lower fares and stimulate travel. They’re gonna make money on volume. And it’s been working for them so far.

This does put an abrupt end to the rumors swirling about Air Asia and Virgin Blue coming together to create an ultra low cost carrier in Australia. That’s probably a good thing. There’s already a blood bath in that country, so they don’t need any more rock bottom fares.

All eyes are now on Tiger Airways, the biggest competitor in the region. Tiger not only flies around Southeast Asia, but they opened up an Australian division as well. They don’t appear to be making money on that, and this is likely to put more pressure on them. If Air Asia and Jetstar can lower costs and fares, that can’t be good for Tiger.

Now, will this spill over into a customer-facing alliance? I don’t see why it wouldn’t some day. Though Qantas has done a good job with Jetstar, why not join forces with Air Asia and let the leader in the space run your low cost carrier? Keep a stake and watch your fortunes rise. But for now, there’s nothing to announce on that front. We’ll see how long it takes.

These flights operate 3x a week to Sydney and 2x a week to Melbourne on A330 aircraft. One thing to note, Qantas itself will continue to fly between Sydney and Honolulu on its own 3x a week, but those flights aren’t going to have this sale fare on them.

You have to book 4p today (though it doesn’t say in which timezone) and travel Feb 1 through May 21 of next year. Go to www.jetstar.com to try it out.