Bonza Airline Discussion

[henrus]

The first Bonza flight out of the Gold Coast departs for Townsville shortly.

Currently onboard.

 

[Flyfrequently]

Currently onboard.

View attachment 353636

Be interested to get your thoughts @henrus

 

[HS-TQE]

The first Bonza flight out of the Gold Coast departs for Townsville shortly.

Interestingly, they’re using an actual Bonza aircraft (VH-UIK) for the inaugural service and not the Flair aircraft.

I wonder if it's the Melbourne based crew (flown up) or if the Sunshine Coast crew had to make the trek down the Bruce Highway, Gateway and Pacific M1 to crew this inaugural flight out of the OOL.base.

 

[knagelli]

Currently onboard.

View attachment 353636

Keen to know your feedback on inflight service and the flight overall.

 

[justinbrett]

I wonder if it's the Melbourne based crew (flown up) or if the Sunshine Coast crew had to make the trek down the Bruce Highway, Gateway and Pacific M1 to crew this inaugural flight out of the OOL.base.

Well, they came down with the aircraft from MCY yesterday.

 

[henrus]

Be interested to get your thoughts @henrus

So I’ve flown Bonza on three flights so far and back tonight. First time was the very first flight from MCY-PPP and then today OOL-TSV.

My experiences are very different to what anyone would have on a normal flight because these are inaugural flights everyone is in a good mood (round of applause on take off/landing) plus the CEO/COO etc onboard.

Today’s was no exception with press conferences outside the new international arrivals and a massive triple M tent + purple krispy cream donuts on boarding. Today I was actually a little disappointed because I was expecting a Canadian crew onboard the flair aircraft but indeed a sunny coast crew flew the plane down yesterday and will operate both of todays flights.

Inflight service and the whole experience is crazy because everyone is ordering half the menu to try it out so also not representative of a normal flight however the app works well (still no entertainment except for a few out of copyright books and some free podcasts).

The one big catch to it all is the fact that the Gold Coast routes will be operated normally (excluding today) with flair aircraft and crew. It’ll be interesting to see if the service and product is the same. At the very least the Bonza aircraft have in seat power and USB which the flair aircraft don’t so 100% the Gold Coast will be getting a downgraded product compared to other ports.

 

[Saab34]

Any Flair crew on the flights? Even just for training?

 

[henrus]

Any Flair crew on the flights? Even just for training?

Not that I could see, if they were then they were very incognito.

One other difference to note is they don’t make it clear the flight is flair operated. This is annoying because on Bonza’s 737s the seats are all apparently the same pitch.

Flair’s 737s on the other hand have extra legroom on the right hand side D,E,F of rows 2-5 plus the exit rows are one row further back.

 

[Harrison_133]

One other difference to note is they don’t make it clear the flight is flair operated. This is annoying because on Bonza’s 737s the seats are all apparently the same pitch.

I noticed this too.

I’ve got a Flonza flight booked for next month, purely for the novelty of flying a Canadian aircraft domestically in Australia. Nowhere during the booking process is it mentioned that the flight will be operated by Flair. Nor does the email itinerary mention Flair. Seat map is the Flair configuration, but the average Joe isn’t going to pick up on that.

Are there any legalities about needing to display the operator during the booking process? Virgin make it clear when Alliance/Link/VARA are operating a service, and Qantas always point out which subsidiary the flight is operated by. Jetstar & Rex both make the operating carrier clear. Bonza: zilch mention of Flair.

At the very least the Bonza aircraft have in seat power and USB which the flair aircraft don’t so 100% the Gold Coast will be getting a downgraded product compared to other ports.

I wonder how their inflight catering will work on the Flair aircraft. Do they have a wifi network for the app ordering?

Also for those interested, the interior of the first Flair aircraft is floating around on Instagram:

 

[henrus]

Seat map is the Flair configuration

Nope the app is buggered in this regard, you can see this by clicking on row 16 on the flair aircraft and it isn’t marked as an extra legroom seat but the price is an extra legroom price and the exit row warning pops up.

I wonder how their inflight catering will work on the Flair aircraft. Do they have a wifi network for the app ordering?

Flair aircraft’s do have a local wifi network and catering is ordered via that same as Bonza. I imagine it’s been an easy process to convert this over to a Bonza system but I guess we’ll only know after the first reviews.

 

[Saab34]

Flair/Bonza use the same app for ordering, same company produces all the digital for both companies across most aspects, will just be different user experience.

If someone can give us a Flair mini review that would be great!

Are there any legalities about needing to display the operator during the booking process? Virgin make it clear when Alliance/Link/VARA are operating a service, and Qantas always point out which subsidiary the flight is operated by. Jetstar & Rex both make the operating carrier clear. Bonza: zilch mention of Flair.

This is the confusing bit. As far as I’m aware, they don’t even need to touch the livery. They could just market it as operated by Flair.

Will be interesting to see what Uniforms CC are in, and if they even mention the word ‘Flair’ in any onboard communications. The CEO highlighted that the Flair deal is only until Feb, in which Bonza will then takeover with local crews and aircraft, so two more aircraft coming soon I guess.

 

[Harrison_133]

Nope the app is buggered in this regard, you can see this by clicking on row 16 on the flair aircraft and it isn’t marked as an extra legroom seat but the price is an extra legroom price and the exit row warning pops up.

My app isn’t glitchy with this anymore. It’s now showing the different configurations and labelling the seats correctly.

I get what you’re saying though. It was buggered for me too when they first put the Gold Coast flights on sale.

 

[justinbrett]

Not that I could see, if they were then they were very incognito.

One other difference to note is they don’t make it clear the flight is flair operated. This is annoying because on Bonza’s 737s the seats are all apparently the same pitch.

Flair’s 737s on the other hand have extra legroom on the right hand side D,E,F of rows 2-5 plus the exit rows are one row further back.

It's not really Flair operated, more of a Flair wet lease, which is different.

I don't think you need to sell as (operated by x) for a wet lease.

 

[Ansett]

Same as Qantas with the finair wetlease.

 

[henrus]

So now that I'm back a few more details and interesting things I noticed.

First up it appears VH-UIK (one of Bonza's own 737s will operate tomorrow mornings) Mackay flight, it's not quite clear when the Flair aircraft will sub in but today it was sitting down beyond the international end. It appears Bonza will use gate 6 (old international end) for most of their flights moving forward. Swissport are doing the ground handling and in both OOL and TSV they had stairs that were clearly marked as for the 737MAX Front or 737MAX Rear.

View outbound were amazing all the way up the QLD coast this morning:





Onboard not much has changed since the initial flight back in January, all items on the menu are more or less the same and the same price except spirits now come in a bag (well at least that's what the photo shows):

Back in January the photo and onboard they were bottles so I'm not sure why the change but that's the only menu change I could see.

Also the flight info tab now has a moving map that worked half the time. On the way up the black plane symbol didn't show half the time and on the way back despite just having left Townsville, the progress bar shows us almost at the Gold Coast. There was no tracking line or any other details other than what you see in the screenshots


By comparison I recently flew a Jetstar A320 which had a wifi system and their moving map gave a lot more info like a line between places and approx time to go.


On the return Townsville airport showed it's full messy state (although no fault of Bonza's). Boarding was from gate 5 (which is upstairs) but then the plane didn't have a bridge so everyone had to go upstairs, scan their boarding pass then walk outside and back down some stairs but it did make for this nice photo:



On the morning flight the menu wasn't activated until after take off whereas this afternoons one you could order as soon as you stepped onboard. This was the same as the inaugural flight and led to things like the "snag in a bag" selling out right after take off.

Now I took one for the team and ordered some food including the snag in a bag. I placed my order via the app and it took 11 minutes to get the cheese bites and a juice. The snag in a bag and waffle required heating so can about 5 minutes after that. I was impressed because the bread was still crunchy but wow was it messy. I had bread crumbs all over my tray table but it couldn't be worse then over the aisle where they had a chocolate freckles type thing that was everywhere.



Oh and one final thing Tim Jordan Bonza CEO and Carly Povey CCO are some of the most down to earth execs I've ever met. In the 2nd photo the person in the black polo coming down the stairs with the cut out cardboard thumb is Tim. When the return flight landed back into the Gold Coast this evening he remained and thanked everyone getting off as well which was nice. Carly is leaving Bonza as CCO (and the aviation industry as a whole) on 7 December and the incoming person will certainly have big shoes to fill.

 

[Saab34]

Amazed they still don’t do rear stairs boarding?

 

[Mattg]

Spirits in a bag - that's a new one!

I can confirm they used to come in small bottles.

 

[henrus]

Amazed they still don’t do rear stairs boarding?

Yeh I just figured it was these inaugural flights but it seems to be a common thing. Having a look at tagged photos of flybonza on instagram I could only see one single photo with the rear door in use (Toowoomba), I wonder if it's a staffing or regulatory thing?

Spirits in a bag - that's a new one!

I can confirm they used to come in small bottles.

Yeh I really wish I'd ordered one but was driving afterwards.

Doing some more digging they appear to be 50ml "eco pouches":

IN NOOSA MAGAZINE | Spring 2023 | IN37

Spring has sprung and with it comes exciting new stories to share, people to celebrate and events to enjoy - and enjoy we will! We’re looking forward to more time exploring the beaches, updating our wardrobes and homes - and indulging in seasonal food - plus a sneaky gin at our favourite local...

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[justinbrett]

Perfect for Goon of Fortune - a slightly more sophisticated variant.

 

[Saab34]

Unknown as to when Flair starts, seems like they have pulled an aircraft from MEL to OOL base for the moments.

Perhaps still trying to get approval