Originally Posted by
nzkarit
What happened before covid has nothing to do with pricing now. This is the new normal.
Also they have seen good ticket sales, with current prices so they don't need a sale to get bums on seats. I have a flight booked and other last couple of weeks have seen the price go up which generally indicates flight is filling up
Taxes have gone up, airlines have been running in negative for over a year. They can't loss lead at the moment.
Also on the past a lot of TT sakes were one way, so got hit for the return leg. So $50 off now is like a $100 off pervious sale which was one way.
yes pent up demand, from those who don't believe at the media hype, but this will wane soon, if prices don't drop. $599 or even $499 return aren't loss leaders.
To be accurate $50 off today, was actually $55 off an $800 fare ($550 + taxes) & most if not all Australians going on holiday in NZ are looking at return fare costs, unless they have eg. only enough frequent flyer points for one way.
The Air Asia OOL/AKL/OOL AU$199 fares of ~2 years ago were loss leaders, of course, but we have gone from a position of over supply (now no Air Asia, Virgin etc.) to a point where NZ is becoming an expensive place to holiday.
Since TT bubble announced many have rushed in & bought tickets, but surely airlines will have to have some very good fares later to fill aircraft.
If yields were that good surely Virgin would be rushing to fly the TT (or just taking a wait & see approach) & not wait until Sept 18, which is when they start Queenstown only I think.
Still I don't see why Virgin could do a few routes on a low frequency basis & then add flights if needed.