Low fares airline Jetstar, has extended its agreements with IT project services firm PM-Partners group.

The service provider has delivered the airline’s business project maturity and major efficiencies for over the last four years.

Jetstar CIO Stephen Tame said with huge challenges confronting the
industry, extending its outsourced project services another two years was a "no-brainer".

"We need to ensure the IT group can continue to deliver services to the business without us having to maintain huge teams," he said.

"Moving our projects into a variable delivery model under the agreement with PM-Partners means my team can focus on core business whilst continuing to ensure projects deliver to the business."

Tame claims the low fares carrier faces the universal issues of all businesses in that it must seek flexibility in both cost and delivery of business projects.

"A significant loss of world capital will challenge many business and
IT projects and hit capital-intensive businesses, potentially
including airlines," he said.

"The move to extend the contract with PM-Partners is designed to assist in retaining and even growing Jetstar's cost advantage over its competitors.”

Under the agreement PM-Partners runs not just the Project Management Office (PMO) but the project management itself, claimed Tame.

“So my small team is 95 per cent focused on running the business,” he said.

“The five percent that we have left we like to use for research and development or looking at how we can innovate the business."