The on-then-off merger between Qantas’s Jetstar Asia and fellow
Singapore cheapie Valueair is back on again as a sure thing, according
to today’s Business Times.

The Singapore paper reports Jetstar will takeover Valueair with Jetstar
to kick in more capital, more than $50 million of which would come from
Qantas (which owns 49% of Jetstar). There’s no
announcement from Qantas to the Australian Stock Exchange on the deal,
but the share price is off a couple of cents. Jetstar has been a mess
for Qantas from the start with no indication from the airline that
there’s been any improvement.

If the Business Times story is correct – it was the paper that
first broke the story that talks were under way – it becomes a question
of whether Qantas has found a potential fix, or that it is having
trouble admitting it made a mistake and is throwing good money after
bad.