Well I hate to rub it in but...

I told you so

In the daily rag here in Melbourne today (FULL PAGE!) Impulse Airlines announced their new frequent flyer scheme.

It's quite basic really. Fly 10 flights get one free.

But it isn't going to work. Impulse don't have any Airline partners and don't fly to the places people would like to fly free to namely Bali, Europe, Thailand etc etc

So here are my next predictions.

Firstly, Virgin Blue will introduce a frequent flyer program soon in my opinion as the other three now have them (despite all the guff about how they are a no frills airline). I bet they are working on it right now.

Secondly I expect that Impulse's frequent flyer program will not be the success they envisage as they will soon discover that their achilles heel is that they can't provide award tickets to the destinations people want to go.

I wouldn't stake my life on it but I think there is a good chance that either Impulse or Virgin Blue will team up with the "other" major airline alliance namely Skyteam. They have a fairly good world route network and some good partners. If I was running Impulse I'd be on the phone to them right now.

cheers Peter