Air New Zealand Air Points - Air New Zealand Expands Queensland, Australia Services

Air New Zealand Expands Queensland, Australia Services

Air New Zealand Ltd. (A.AIZ) Friday announced a major expansion of its services to Queensland, the main overseas holiday destination for New Zealanders.

From Oct. 27 , Air New Zealand 's subsidiary Freedom Air will launch new direct services to Brisbane from the New Zealand cities of Auckland , Wellington and Christchurch , the airline said in a statement.

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/020711/200207112009000854_1.html

More competion for Air NZ ??
Air NZ will loose passengers to Freedom
But is Air NZ going to reduce its "all frills" service & freqency.

Also by a chance of fate Brisbane is home base for the "no frills" Aussie airline Virgin Blue.


[This message has been edited by Mwenenzi (edited 07-12-2002).]

Well werent Virgin looking at launching trans tasmin services - seems only logical they would do it from where they had the most feeder traffic

Some of the 1pm/130pm ANZ flights from BNE to Auckland around Dec. 1 have been canceled in the last couple of days. They still show on the schedule on the web, but not when you call United to try to get on them.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jongar:
Well werent Virgin looking at launching trans tasmin services - seems only logical they would do it from where they had the most feeder traffic </font>

Yes. Most certainly the are. Virgin are primary going for the leisure traveller

Freedom was started by ANZ to destroy a low cost no frills airline that was flying from secondary NZ airports to Oz. Such predatory action is in most jurisdiction's illegal as it was designed to destroy opposition.

In today newspaper its stated Freedom is to stop all domestic flights in New Zealand

Possible End Game scenario
(a) QF takes control of Air NZ (Air NZ joins oneworld)
(b) Air NZ / QF forced to give up slots in Oz due to competiton - monopoly considerations by the Australian regulators
(c) The other Australian airline, Virgin Blue (DJ) get the slots
(d) Virgin joins *star to get feeder traffic (note a recent alliance of DJ with United)
(e) Freedom flies trans Tasman head to head with DJ
(f) QF / NZ flies trans Tasman on other routes
(g) Air NZ sole long haul route left as London via USA / pacific islands (QF goes the other way via Asia to Oz)
(h) No frills service to Asia from Australia on the new Qantas airline . Australian Airline,(soon to begin flying)


[This message has been edited by Mwenenzi (edited 07-12-2002).]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1266026a1934,FF.html
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SATURDAY, 13 JULY 2002
Freedom Air brings back cut-price Chch-Aust flights 13 July 2002

By DAVID KING
Freedom Air is reintroducing low-cost flights between Christchurch and Queensland, starting at $399 return.

From October 27, the budget subsidiary of Air New Zealand will fly 10 times a week to Brisbane and Coolangatta, using aircraft freed up by its withdrawal from domestic services.

Air NZ's daily flights to Brisbane will be cut back to Friday and Saturday only, but the airline said the net effect of the changes was a 64 per cent increase in seats to the Gold Coast.

Freedom will also offer a limited freight service on the flights for exporters to Queensland, the first time the airline has flown freight.

Air NZ senior vice-president of sales and distribution Norm Thompson said the airline was responding to the demand for lower fares and more flights by leisure travellers.

He said it was also good news for the local tourism industry.

"The important thing from the point of view of inbound tourism is that prices will come down considerably."

Freedom also plans to tempt Air NZ clients by making their air points redeemable on Freedom flights.

But while travellers can redeem their points on Freedom, they can not earn new air points on trips with the airline.

Freedom Air vice-president Wayne Dodge said the $399 fare would be available for Internet bookings until July 24.

The normal fare will be $499, 30 per cent cheaper than Air NZ.

Christchurch International Airport chief executive George Bellew said the move was welcome after cutbacks in services last November.

"Coolangatta is a new destination for Christchurch... The great thing is that Freedom is also good at attracting Australians back the other way.

"I'm delighted."

Freedom Air flew trans-Tasman flights out of Christchurch in 1996, but now flies only

domestic services from the city.

The airline's operations on main trunk domestic routes will be replaced by Air NZ Express, Air NZ's new cut-price service.

Auckland will get another three Freedom flights to the Gold Coast each week, and Wellington will get six.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1265928a13,FF.html
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Freedom pulled from domestic service
13 July 2002

Air New Zealand announced yesterday it would end budget subsidiary Freedom Air's domestic service and replace it with its new low-cost Air New Zealand Express service.

Freedom would instead significantly increase its services to Queensland but much of that would come at the expense of existing Air New Zealand services. Freedom's domestic services, between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch would end on September 23.

National party finance spokesman David Carter said removing Freedom from the domestic services would reduce competition. Air New Zealand senior vice-president of sales and distribution said the fare structure of Express would be announced on July 31.

Asked if fares would be cheaper than those previously charged by Freedom on those routes, Mr Thompson said: "All that I can say at this stage is that it will be a very very compelling offer". Freedom's cheapest one way fares between Wellington and Auckland was $89 and between Auckland and Christchurch $108.

Freedom would replace a total of 11 Air New Zealand flights a week out of Wellington and Christchurch, and will increase the number of flights from the three main centres to Queensland from five to 26.

Freedom general manager Wayne Dodge said the total number of Freedom flights to Queensland, including existing services from Hamilton, Palmerston North and Dunedin, would more than double to 39 a week.

Overall the number of seats between New Zealand and Brisbane would increase 19 per cent and the cheapest weekend fares would drop $200 to $499, Mr Thompson said.

Air New Zealand air points would be redeemable on Freedom flights to Brisbane. However, passengers would not be able to earn air points on the flights.

Meanwhile, Air New Zealand pilots have withdrawn their notice to strike for 48 hours from July 19 after the company eased their concerns over job security as a result of the Freedom shakeup.
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