Bonza Airline Discussion

[HS-TQE]

I think over time MCY will reduce to only CNS/AVV/ABX. The rest will be seasonal.

TSV isn't doing too badly (at least scaled back to 3x weekly with the morning departure) - the late evening departure on the weekend has mixed results.

MCY-MEL (evening rotation with the aircraft leaving MCY at 2100) is still required at 3x weekly for maintenance and aircraft rotation between bases.

 

[PineappleSkip]

CFS - OOL - MCY - ROK - TSV - CNS. Seems a no brainer for low cost operators, but !!!!

QF runs multiple flights daily and offers through fares among ROK-MKY-TSV-CNS and Bonza’s approach has mostly been to avoid routes the competition fly. Bonza has just pulled out of CFS-MCY due to low loadings so two even shorter routes are unlikely to fly - OOL-MCY is only 110 miles.

 

[cambriamarsh]

Isn't it better to release the schedule late so they can charge more.

They don't have to release late to do that. This is a worry.

 

[jakeseven7]

Isn't it better to release the schedule late so they can charge more.

Yield mgt can push prices up and down at any point for any purpose, so no.

Remember if you aren’t selling tickets = zero cash flow….

 

[aikman]

Yield mgt can push prices up and down at any point for any purpose, so no.

I was specifically thinking about Christmas holiday fares which in my observation rarely go down. I take the point though that Oct-Mar includes plenty of non-holiday periods.

Remember if you aren’t selling tickets = zero cash flow….

Good point. One conclusion that can be made here is that Bonza's cash position is secure enough that they don't feel the need to sell tickets too early at the expense of getting the schedule right.

I think the delay in releasing the new schedule makes sense. Better to get the schedule right the first time to minimise the need to tweak it in the future and cancel routes that people have already purchased tickets for. That will just piss people off.

 

[jakeseven7]

. Better to get the schedule right the first time to minimise the need to tweak it in the future and cancel routes that people have already purchased tickets for. That will just piss people off.

Very fine balance as many will book holidays/trips in advance, locking in their time.

Therefore to get people to book closer in to a departure date / last minute they will have to discount/advertise significantly to try and get people to travel with them.

I think you are right, however they wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't something seriously wrong as well.

 

[justinbrett]

Mind you the Gold Coast airport currently publishes airport charges of $22.43 whereas the Sunshine Coast publishes $49.07 per departing domestic passenger (noting all airlines negotiate this), I'd see Bonza more likely to strike something with BNE publishes a charge of $22.66 indicating that OOL seems to price themselves at a similar price as BNE these days (I guess a small part of JQ moving most international services to BNE).

I'm fairly certain those passenger charges are just a function of providing the services divided by the expected number of pax.

OOL has a steady flow of pax throughout the day in a single centralised facility - BNE has lots of pax spreadout over a number of facilities, so you can see the costs would be similar. Per lane the pax numbers would be similar.

MCY is a quiet airport with lots of dead time, so fewer pax to spread it out over.

It's not a question of an airport "pricing" itself similar to another.

 

[Harrison_133]

They’ve finally started to load the reduced schedule into the app. So far, just for the first 2 weeks of August. Quite a few routes are affected.

The increases on MCY-AVV, MCY-ABX & MEL-PQQ don’t take effect until September.

Service reductions:

• Melbourne to Mildura: reduces to 2x weekly, Wednesday service cut.
• Melbourne to Rockhampton: reduces to 2x weekly, Thursday service cut.
• Melbourne to Toowoomba: reduces to 3x weekly, Sunday service cut.
• Sunshine Coast to Cairns: temporary reduction to 4x weekly, Tuesday service cut. Returns to 5x weekly with the addition of a Thursday service.
• Sunshine Coast to Melbourne (Tullamarine): remains a 4x weekly service, Sunday service switches to Saturday.
• Sunshine Coast to Newcastle: reduces to 3x weekly, Saturday service cut.
• Sunshine Coast to Rockhampton: reduces to 2x weekly, Wednesday service cut.
• Sunshine Coast to Whitsunday Coast: reduces to 2x weekly, Tuesday service cut.
• Townsville to Rockhampton: reduces to 2x weekly, Wednesday service cut.

 

[brokenagain]

The end is nigh……

 

[Saab34]

Not sure what the facination is with Rockhampton. Even Jetstar pulled out years ago. Tiger tried Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

Sydney is the margin and profit market. Melbourne soon after. Fiddling around intra QLD would never prop up a whole airline, profitably and consistently. 2 weekly is very inconvenient, why bother.

 

[travelislife]

The stupidity of the app only booking surely needs to change. Was reading some comments that if you are OS (even NZ!) that you can’t even download the app as ‘not available in your country’. Any first hand info on this?

They must be doing themselves out of so many bookings. I would look at them out of Melbourne if I could book on desktop.

JetGo was similar. Actually a pretty good service. But their flights weren’t in the GDS so most people didn’t even know they existed.

I am not a marketer, but I would love to know how much research they do in to this stuff with the ‘punter off the street’.

 

[henrus]

Was reading some comments that if you are OS (even NZ!) that you can’t even download the app as ‘not available in your country’. Any first hand info on this?

I think it's been released globally or at least on iOS it seem to be.

They must be doing themselves out of so many bookings. I would look at them out of Melbourne if I could book on desktop.

How many foreign travellers would even know they exist... like even if the foreign store thing was an issue I doubt many from outside Australia would even find it. On the first day of operations I asked the CEO about GDS integration and the response was along the lines of if it costs money then we're not going to do it.

That being said they're not totally invisible or 100% mobile like they want to make out. Here you can see it appearing on Skyscanner that points through to 4 different online travel agents - FlightNetwork, Mytrip, GotoGate and Trip.com (all owned by same people it seems). For reference this same date/flight is $129 on Bonza's website:





Now doing some dummy bookings they offer one baggage add on and no seat selection which makes me think maybe these OTA's have no affiliation with Bonza and are actually just scraping the price once a day and pushing it up to their site, if/when someone books it they go and get someone to book it via app. I could be 100% wrong there but it does all seem a bit odd.

 

[alexczarn]

I think it's been released globally or at least on iOS it seem to be.


How many foreign travellers would even know they exist... like even if the foreign store thing was an issue I doubt many from outside Australia would even find it. On the first day of operations I asked the CEO about GDS integration and the response was along the lines of if it costs money then we're not going to do it.

That being said they're not totally invisible or 100% mobile like they want to make out. Here you can see it appearing on Skyscanner that points through to 4 different online travel agents - FlightNetwork, Mytrip, GotoGate and Trip.com (all owned by same people it seems). For reference this same date/flight is $129 on Bonza's website:



View attachment 337118

Now doing some dummy bookings they offer one baggage add on and no seat selection which makes me think maybe these OTA's have no affiliation with Bonza and are actually just scraping the price once a day and pushing it up to their site, if/when someone books it they go and get someone to book it via app. I could be 100% wrong there but it does all seem a bit odd.

tempted to test that theory on one of their $29 flights or something like that

 

[Harrison_133]

Well this is interesting…

 

[HS-TQE]

CEO Tim states that OOL will be a third base from two extra aircraft, initially 'wet leased' (ie another carrier will operate for Bonza initially).

Source: Bonza to launch 11 new routes with new Gold Coast base

 

[Saab34]

Avalon is already served by JQ so that’s an interesting one, meanwhile a record 5 choices for airlines now on MEL-OOL. I’d imagine these routes will fair better vs MCY and it will be interesting to see how much they cannibalise the other routes. Mildura will struggle with two destinations like that. Albury will do well I think considering how strong the other route has surprisingly been.

That is a very short flight to Bundy.

The wet lease partner will be Alliance?

 

[justinbrett]

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a soft move from MCY to OOL

OOL to BDB is great for me (my Dad lives in BDB and I’m at OOL) but won’t count on it staying around. I reckon they could make that work as flying BNE-BDB is very expensive considering the distance (often $200+).

 

[HS-TQE]

CNS, ABX, AVV, MEL and TSV were reportedly the routes doing well out of MCY. The remaining (non axed) routes out of MCY reportedly mediocre at best and the point to point non-base routes (e.g routes not touching the existing bases such as intra-Qld originating of WTB or CNS) have largely been dismal.

The five mentioned cities out of MCY could theoretically be served by 2 lines of flying by reducing the base to 1 aircraft overnighting out of MCY, whilst the second line of flying out of MCY could be formed with a early morning flight from MEL before said aircraft returns to MEL in the late evening (as the flights between MCY and MEL currently do). Perhaps the second line out of MCY could operate 4-5 days a week (on the days MEL-MCY operates).

 

[Harrison_133]

Flights not on sale yet but “coming soon.” And still nothing past October for the existing routes.

Frequencies for the OOL routes:

• Gold Coast - Albury: 3 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Bundaberg: 2 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Cairns: 5 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Gladstone: 2 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Mackay: 3 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Melbourne Avalon: 3 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Melbourne Tullamarine: 4 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Mildura: 2 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Rockhampton: 3 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Townsville: 5 flights per week
• Gold Coast - Whitsunday Coast: 3 flights per week

The wet lease partner will be Alliance?

Or maybe Nauru?

 

[HS-TQE]

Rumours elsewhere suggest the aircraft for the upcoming OOL base for Bonza over NW23/24 will be the two 733s from Nauru Airlines (ON)