Post by corsair67 on Oct 17, 2008 12:18:28 GMT 12
No doubt this news will cause some concern at Air New Zealand's head office?
From The Australian -
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24506601-23349,00.html
Jetstar confident despite Air NZ cutback
Steve Creedy | October 17, 2008.
JETSTAR is confident its expanded trans-Tasman operations will be successful.
This is despite the competitive pressures that have forced Air New Zealand to announce cuts on the route.
The Qantas offshoot announced this week that it would base an Airbus A320 in Auckland and grow its trans-Tasman service from 28 a week to 42 weekly return services in April.
This includes a new Auckland-Sydney service that will complement existing four-times daily Qantas flights and a new daily service to the Gold Coast.
The airline will initially fly Auckland-Sydney in the morning and to the Gold Coast in the afternoon.
But it intends to flip this in October and operate a morning Auckland-Gold Coast service that can tie in with its 12 weekly Japanese services to the Queensland tourist strip.
From April 28, the airline will also offer an Auckland-Sydney-Bali option that will allow New Zealanders to take advantage of its four-times weekly A330-200 service between Sydney and Denpasar.
The airline has been flying across the Tasman to and from Christchurch since 2005.
The latest move gives the Qantas Group an additional 5000 seats a year on the Tasman rout and Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said his airline was confident it would do well despite some claims the market was a bloodbath.
He believed the airline's product was right, it had "sharp" fares, a good cost base and would get good economies of scale from the move.
Jetstar also saw some latent growth in the market and believed New Zealand could benefit from the economic crisis if people chose to travel closer to home.
"We have thought long and hard about this and from a trans-Tasman perspective we are quietly confident we are going to do well and if people say that is a bloodbath, well, we are happy to swim in it," he said.
Mr Westaway said this was not a move to ultimately replace Qantas services on the Tasman but a case of adding incremental capacity.
He said Qantas services since the low-cost carrier's entry to the Christchurch market in 2005 had remained intact and it would maintain its four-times daily Sydney-Gold Coast flights. "It is incremental growth," he said. "It is our two-brand strategy in play and this is how we are going roll this out."
The New Zealand flights are currently supported by Australian flying bases but Jetstar has longer-term plans to apply for aNew Zealand air operator's certificate.
Mr Westaway said a formal application would be forthcoming soon and meetings had already been held with New Zealand regulators. The airline also announced yesterday that it would introduce a new three times a week Cairns-Gold Coast domestic service that would allow it to directly connect with its daily Gold Coast-Osaka operation.
The move -- underpinned by an agreement between the airline, the Cairns Port Authority and the Queensland and national tourism bodies -- was announced during a visit to Cairns by Qantas Group executives.
It comes after the Queensland Government threatened to lobby Canberra to allow foreign carriers on to domestic routes abandoned by Qantas, including flights from Cairns to western Japan.
Qantas had announced that it would cut services to Japan, switch other international routes to Jetstar and scrap its pilot base in Cairns to help offset the effect of soaring fuel costs.
Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan said the decision would provide 1000 additional weekly Jetstar seats to Cairns.
From The Australian -
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24506601-23349,00.html
Jetstar confident despite Air NZ cutback
Steve Creedy | October 17, 2008.
JETSTAR is confident its expanded trans-Tasman operations will be successful.
This is despite the competitive pressures that have forced Air New Zealand to announce cuts on the route.
The Qantas offshoot announced this week that it would base an Airbus A320 in Auckland and grow its trans-Tasman service from 28 a week to 42 weekly return services in April.
This includes a new Auckland-Sydney service that will complement existing four-times daily Qantas flights and a new daily service to the Gold Coast.
The airline will initially fly Auckland-Sydney in the morning and to the Gold Coast in the afternoon.
But it intends to flip this in October and operate a morning Auckland-Gold Coast service that can tie in with its 12 weekly Japanese services to the Queensland tourist strip.
From April 28, the airline will also offer an Auckland-Sydney-Bali option that will allow New Zealanders to take advantage of its four-times weekly A330-200 service between Sydney and Denpasar.
The airline has been flying across the Tasman to and from Christchurch since 2005.
The latest move gives the Qantas Group an additional 5000 seats a year on the Tasman rout and Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said his airline was confident it would do well despite some claims the market was a bloodbath.
He believed the airline's product was right, it had "sharp" fares, a good cost base and would get good economies of scale from the move.
Jetstar also saw some latent growth in the market and believed New Zealand could benefit from the economic crisis if people chose to travel closer to home.
"We have thought long and hard about this and from a trans-Tasman perspective we are quietly confident we are going to do well and if people say that is a bloodbath, well, we are happy to swim in it," he said.
Mr Westaway said this was not a move to ultimately replace Qantas services on the Tasman but a case of adding incremental capacity.
He said Qantas services since the low-cost carrier's entry to the Christchurch market in 2005 had remained intact and it would maintain its four-times daily Sydney-Gold Coast flights. "It is incremental growth," he said. "It is our two-brand strategy in play and this is how we are going roll this out."
The New Zealand flights are currently supported by Australian flying bases but Jetstar has longer-term plans to apply for aNew Zealand air operator's certificate.
Mr Westaway said a formal application would be forthcoming soon and meetings had already been held with New Zealand regulators. The airline also announced yesterday that it would introduce a new three times a week Cairns-Gold Coast domestic service that would allow it to directly connect with its daily Gold Coast-Osaka operation.
The move -- underpinned by an agreement between the airline, the Cairns Port Authority and the Queensland and national tourism bodies -- was announced during a visit to Cairns by Qantas Group executives.
It comes after the Queensland Government threatened to lobby Canberra to allow foreign carriers on to domestic routes abandoned by Qantas, including flights from Cairns to western Japan.
Qantas had announced that it would cut services to Japan, switch other international routes to Jetstar and scrap its pilot base in Cairns to help offset the effect of soaring fuel costs.
Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan said the decision would provide 1000 additional weekly Jetstar seats to Cairns.
