Bonza Airline Discussion

[Saab34]

Someone did a list on Facebook. Looks like very minimal until Easter which makes business sense I guess.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Mmm. Priced MCY-MQL for $115 which included seat 1A and a checked bag. App seemed to work, although I didn’t test ‘pay’.

Mastercard or visa only, no AMEX.

Bulkhead and exit row seats $17, ‘stretch’ seats in rows 2-4, with 10cm more legroom, look like value at $13, only $4 more than a standard seat which was $9

 

[bam71]

No flights ex MEL, only AVV …..

 

[drron]

No flights ex MEL, only AVV …..

Don't tell me they are missing the chance to sell MEL - AVV flights?

 

[Saab34]

I do like that it filters the days they fly on the search dates calendar which is helpful considering the confusing frequencies they offer.

Is a very slow ramp up however. I recall Tiger kicked off with about 10 flights a day. Looks like Bonza will only have 1-2 flights a day until Easter when Melbourne and the rest of the network ramps up. They must be leasing by the hour.

 

[justinbrett]

They must be leasing by the hour.

Probably more likely crew recruitment/training factors

 

[henrus]

There are still plenty of seats on Bonzas 2nd ever flight (first day of operations) from PPP-MCY. I’ve booked this as I sadly couldn’t get the first flight.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Don't tell me they are missing the chance to sell MEL - AVV flights?

As someone who used to book those $29 JQ fares between SYD and AVV, I for one wouldn't mind a $5 fare between MEL and AVV, particularly if it avails myself of access to the Rex lounge!

 

[Berlin]

Ah, everything about this airline looks just so… Classy, not. And they even managed to beat Virgin in getting this murder plane to Australia. How fast the public forgets- I would never set foot on one of those (unless last minute schedule changes force me to which is about to happen, somewhere in the US most likely).

Wishing them all the best to help keep prices on other airlines down. But personally, it will be a big no no (and the routes admittedly are of no interest/ use to me either).

 

[serfty]

Don't tell me they are missing the chance to sell MEL - AVV flights?

Nah, in the Bonza tradition, it'd be AVV-MEB!

A map from the Great Circle Mapper

A map from the Great Circle Mapper

www.gcmap.com

 

[alexczarn]

If you had the (edit - Android) app installed in the past, you need to uninstall it and download the latest version - it doesn't update.
How hard could it have been for them to allow bookings on a website? Then again, I suspect they don't want scrapers checking their inventory. Or they're just really cheap.

Android app updated for me to the latest version without needing to reinstall.

 

[henrus]

Anyone else from AFF booked on the first day of Bonza flights?

 

[Melburnian1]

Someone said above that two flights a week (each way) on a route would be OK for leisure travellers.

But what if one is cancelled and there's no spare aircraft (or crew) to operate a special say a few hours later?

Anywhere in the world, I prefer if an operator (air/rail/bus/ferry) offers at least a daily frequency.

Perhaps unwise but many travel from X (home) to Y, holiday, and then Y to X with scheduled arrival at the latter the night before (or even on the day) of some occasion for which they must be present.

I reckon Bonza (or another airline in Oz) will fail within three years.

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
Some off topic posts have been removed.

Please stick to the topic at hand
[/mod hat]

 

[dajop]

Anywhere in the world, I prefer if an operator (air/rail/bus/ferry) offers at least a daily frequency.

But here’s the paradox. Daily frequencies would almost certain to mean a quicker demise. If they were going to do routes that could support daily frequencies, someone, in all likelihood Jetstar would be already flying the route. Their strategy is to avoid such routes hence going after suboptimal frequencies. It’s a paradigm shift in Australia for sure, and remains to be seen if it will work, but at least they’re not going up against Qanstar who could bleed them dry in seconds.

Also if you are based in a rural city you just don’t have the luxury of daily frequencies on a LCC. So twice weekly is probably better than no flights at all. Yes, you can fly from MQL or ABX to MCY via MEL or SYD with daily connecting services, but if it’s a family of four it could set you back up to $3k return. With Bonza you might get away with it only costing $1k.

 

[travelislife]

I hate the app only booking. I do all my travel bookings on laptop through browser. Also as my post earlier, there are going to be a heap of people who don’t even know they are flying certain routes as they won’t show up as an option on the aggregators, so people will just book the connecting set of flights with Qantas/Virgin/Rex/Jetstar. Shooting themselves in the foot personally.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I hate the app only booking. I do all my travel bookings on laptop through browser. Also as my post earlier, there are going to be a heap of people who don’t even know they are flying certain routes as they won’t show up as an option on the aggregators, so people will just book the connecting set of flights with Qantas/Virgin/Rex/Jetstar. Shooting themselves in the foot personally.

And we saw what that did for Rex jet services, until the partnership with Delta and some sort of agency booking tie-up. Planes went from empty to full!

I guess Bonza might be forced into something similar at some stage.

 

[Brissy1]

This is crazy,
- their web page Bonza Airline doesn't even show where they fly!
- bonza is excluded from all flight comparison web sites.
I want them to succeed or at least survive, but they won't if they're relying on word of mouth and an advert in the sunshine coast daily.

 

[travelislife]

Are the people who run these things/make these decisions so disconnected from what the average punter wants and how they get their information? I am guessing they have done a heap of analytics on their strategy, but may be just confirmation bias.

 

[Saab34]

They did say they are offering fares via travel agents, I assume that excludes online agents. Rex had some success with going with Webjet from memory. Even Tiger was on there, would be mad to avoid that. Domestic flights are generally all 0% commission anyway, its the agents chasing the add ons and fees.