Bonza Airline Discussion

[MARTINE]

Are there separate seat classes
Bogan (basic)
Boganville (deluxe)

 

[MARTINE]

You little ripper!
If only there was a snag to go with it.

Written on the chalkboard menu at front of plane. At least you can see when the chicken parmi has run out and has a line through

 

[jase05]

Written on the chalkboard menu at front of plane. At least you can see when the chicken parmi has run out and has a line through

If they aren’t running a meat tray raffle they aren’t doing it right

 

[HS-TQE]

Are there separate seat classes
Bogan (basic)
Boganville (deluxe)

"Boganville" being their "EconomyX, RexTra, etc"?

 

[drron]

Are there separate seat classes
Bogan (basic)
Boganville (deluxe)

But surely in the long run they will have a premium cabin called CUB class.

 

[Flying Fox]

Will the toilet sign be changed to dunny?

 

[Leroy87]

Will be interesting to track AB's progress in 6 months time to see which 'underperforming' routes out of MCY will be cut, or changed to another ex-MCY route or moved to MEL.

Keeping in mind Bonza will also be targeting customers living in the surrounding Gympie, Cooloola Coast and North Brisbane (Caboolture, Burpengary, North Lakes, etc) areas as an 'alternative' to BNE.

This is what interests me as well. I think they're stretching it to imagine that routes like Mildura/Coffs/Albury/Port Mac to MCY will fill a 737 twice a week.

While in the meantime you have VA and JQ flying MEL-MCY 3 times daily each, with VA ramping up to sometimes 6 flights/day during peak times (eg. school holidays).

Surely there's room to undercut that market and fly MEL-MCY daily (instead of 4 per week) and make some more money?

 

[jakeseven7]

This is what interests me as well. I think they're stretching it to imagine that routes like Mildura/Coffs/Albury/Port Mac to MCY will fill a 737 twice a week.

While in the meantime you have VA and JQ flying MEL-MCY 3 times daily each, with VA ramping up to sometimes 6 flights/day during peak times (eg. school holidays).

Surely there's room to undercut that market and fly MEL-MCY daily (instead of 4 per week) and make some more money?

I think they will be avoiding the wrath of the QF Group as much as possible by avoiding head to head routes. It’s a surefire way to get run into the ground.

 

[Scarlett]

If they aren’t running a meat tray raffle they aren’t doing it right

Might be a sausage sizzle (a la Bunnings) beside the boarding line. Although at airport prices does anyone want to pay $5 for a snag in white bread with a shake of sauce and some onions on top?

 

[Captain Halliday]

Might be a sausage sizzle (a la Bunnings) beside the boarding line. Although at airport prices does anyone want to pay $5 for a snag in white bread with a shake of sauce and some onions on top?

Onions go on the bottom.

 

[Ade]

Although at airport prices does anyone want to pay $5 for a snag in white bread with a shake of sauce and some onions on top?

$5 is cheap for an airport ... IME

 

[Scarlett]

Onions go on the bottom.

 

[Saab34]

Surely there's room to undercut that market and fly MEL-MCY daily (instead of 4 per week) and make some more money?

I don’t think they even want to fly that route. They did state they are only flying that route to rotate MCY based 737s in/out MEL as the engineering base is in Melbourne.

Really reinforces the point that they don’t want anything to do with the other players.

The next thing will be if they have success on some routes, the competition might want some of that profit pool, I think the MEL-GLT/MKY/ROK/BDB might have legs. I thought Jetstar might have already taken up the chance to fly Melbourne to Mackay and Rockhampton direct, Tiger did for about a decade. I used the Mackay route a few times seemed to always be busy. The convenience around some of these routes is very handy.

 

[Leroy87]

I don’t think they even want to fly that route. They did state they are only flying that route to rotate MCY based 737s in/out MEL as the engineering base is in Melbourne.

Really reinforces the point that they don’t want anything to do with the other players.

The next thing will be if they have success on some routes, the competition might want some of that profit pool, I think the MEL-GLT/MKY/ROK/BDB might have legs. I thought Jetstar might have already taken up the chance to fly Melbourne to Mackay and Rockhampton direct, Tiger did for about a decade. I used the Mackay route a few times seemed to always be busy. The convenience around some of these routes is very handy.

Interesting, I hadn't seen the quote stating a direct preference for non-competition. Happy with the regional scraps that are on the table I guess?

I agree that the regional routes out of MEL seem to have more legs than a lot of the MCY ones. There's a much bigger pool of people to draw from than somewhere like Albury.

 

[SYD]

Will the toilet sign be changed to dunny?

More importantly, will it be an outside dunny?

 

[dajop]

There's a much bigger pool of people to draw from than somewhere like Albury.

If you assume that anywhere within 2hrs of ABX provides potential customers for the service from Albury, you take in cities including Wodonga, Wagga, Wangaratta, Benalla and even Shepparton (which is equidistant from MEL and ABX). With these cities and surrounding rural populations, it is a catchment of 380,000 people. Even without Shepp, it’s 310,000.

 

[HS-TQE]

Speaking of the population pools for Bonza, If we focus on their HQ on the Sunshine Coast, the Sunshine Coast Population is about 320,000 (across both SCRC and NCC council areas). If we include the neighbouring Gympie Regional Council (50,000) and Moreton Bay Regional (420,000 across Caboolture, Burpengary, North Lakes, etc). That's a combined 780,000+ population catchment for Bonza.

 

[dajop]

Mildura is probably the most marginal in terms of catchment, but would still push 160,000 including areas up to 3 hrs away including the SA Riverland area, down the Murray to Kerang and north to Broken Hill, which even though has it own airport, has very expensive services, and are all (except the SA Riverland) further from ADL or MEL than ABX is from MEL.

 

[dajop]

Speaking of the population pools for Bonza, If we focus on their HQ on the Sunshine Coast, the Sunshine Coast Population is about 320,000 (across both SCRC and NCC council areas). If we include the neighbouring Gympie Regional Council (50,000) and Moreton Bay Regional (420,000 across Caboolture, Burpengary, North Lakes, etc). That's a combined 780,000+ population catchment for Bonza.

Not quite accurate there ..... according to Wikipedia, SCRC without Noosa is 320,000 and Noosa adds another 55,000. And these were 2018 figures, and I think 2021 figures put SCRC at 350,000, so let's just add another 80,000 to your figure and make it 860,000+.

 

[drron]

The area around the Sunshine Coast and Caboolture is amongst the fastest growing areas in Australia.

The other major factors that you are forgetting is the FIFO market. Quite a few charters out of MCY to the coal mining areas.
Also I was surprised by the number of FIFO employees who lived in northern Tasmania. They would fly to MEL and then on to WA, NT or Regional QLD. So MEL to regional QLD says to me that they have done their research. This was probably why the services to Mackay and Rockhampton in the past were full.