Air New Zealand is adding a new return jet service between Dunedin and Auckland from July. The Sunday flight will be on the airline's 171-seat Airbus A320 aircraft, and will boost the number of seats on the route by 5 per cent. The service will start from July 9 and depart Auckland for Dunedin at 9.15am, returning at 11.40am. Air New Zealand chief revenue officer Cam Wallace said the airline has added 25 per cent more seats between Auckland and Dunedin in the past six months. "It's fantastic to see demand for services to and from Dunedin continue to grow and we're confident we can sustain an enhanced schedule that benefits visitors and locals alike." Dunedin Airport chief executive Richard Roberts said the extra jet flight, which follows the airline's move to triple daily A320 services between Dunedin and Wellington last October, was excellent news for the region. "The city has worked alongside Air New Zealand to stimulate and drive demand for services to and from Dunedin so it's really satisfying to see yet more capacity added." Air New Zealand has also rescheduled its Thursday and Friday evening flights between Christchurch and Dunedin to give more choice to customers travelling at peak periods, and has added an extra 68-seat ATR service on Sunday evenings.
Air NZ are now up to 3 times daily on this route. I wonder how/if Jetstar will respond?
ReplyDeleteDoes Jetstar have enough A320's for additional AKL/DUD services?
ReplyDeleteJetstar doesn't compete with NZ's frequency on the main trunk doubt they will do much about DUD-AKL
ReplyDeleteThe JQ business model is based on full aircraft. They try not to run half empty aircraft as it doesn't cover costs. If they thought they could fill an additional A320 a day, they would have done it. I would suggest that because AirNZ is now doing it, Jetstar definitely won't.
ReplyDeleteRegarding fleet availability, they have over 60 A320s with eight permanently based in NZ. Should they require additional aircraft, they are available and have been made available before. Before earlier this year, there was nine aircraft permanently based here. The reduction is due to some flight pairings being done from Australia.
Why worry about JQ? There are multiple AKL-DUD flights on Air NZ every day,three non-stop, some with cheaper fares than JQ. There is evidence that the NZ public regards JQ as its last choice option, at least on some sectors. For example yesterday Air NZ and Soundsair were fully sold on WLG-NSN on Easter Thursday and had been for some days; JQ was still selling two of its 3 flights and at its cheap-end prices. Why would you pay more to fly Soundsair than JQ? The answer must lie with JQ. A similar situation AKL-NSN except that Air NZ still had some seats available on 3 flighst in the earlier part of the morning.
ReplyDeleteQantas Group should have launched Qantas and Qantas Link in NZ. With Qantas Clubs in the main centres and main regional ports and an emphasis on connecting to QF, JQ, AA, EK and other OneWorld partners. They could have attracted a large portion of the corporate market and achieved higher yields.
ReplyDeleteThat opportunity has been largely lost having chosen to chase the low cost end of the market. Lots of work for little return.