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when will Air NZ start flying within Australia ?

when will Air NZ start flying within Australia ?

Old Nov 21, 2018, 1:51 am
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when will Air NZ start flying within Australia ?

now that air nz has completely separated from virgin australia, there's no real obstacle to them flying domestically in Australia. Surely it makes sense to fly between Australia ports it already flys to, such as anywhere on the east coast & perth. If they fly Perth/any east coast airport/any NZ airport it would give them 3 separate routes to sell, Australian domestic, & 2 points in Australia to NZ.

ie. A to B, A to C & B to C.

With new A321neo, thinner routes could be flown, eg. Perth to Queenstown with a stop somewhere on east coast of Australia.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 1:58 am
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Simple answer. Never.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:23 am
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Originally Posted by southpac
now that air nz has completely separated from virgin australia, there's no real obstacle to them flying domestically in Australia.
Originally Posted by sbiddle
Simple answer. Never.
They do Sydney & Brisbane to Norfolk Island
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:38 am
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Originally Posted by sbiddle
Simple answer. Never.
Why not ?
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:39 am
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Originally Posted by Nathan Catton
They do Sydney & Brisbane to Norfolk Island
they are domestic routes
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:44 am
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Originally Posted by southpac
Why not ?
Because they have no need to. The market in Australia is already saturated with Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin, and Tiger all flying the main routes. Air New Zealand would be flogging a dead horse. Plus, they've got a codeshare agreement with Qantas.
Originally Posted by southpac
they are domestic routes
Yes, anywhere in Australia to Norfolk Island is a domestic route as NLK is an Australian territory.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:44 am
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Why not? QF and VA would kill them with capacity - just like QF did to VA for years. They have no lounge network in Aus to take corporate travel (and space can be hard to get). And despite any dubious brand reports to the contrary the majority of Australians like flying Qantas and wouldnt touch AirNZ with a barge pole. Aussies have the same Stockholm syndorme to QF that kiwis have to NZ.

And who would they be? Jetstar and Tiger do a better job at discount flying, QF do better full service and VA are the closest to them but they still offer business class on all mainline domestic routes.

Also Airpoints is possibly the most horrible program in the world and not even remotely close to the same value as Velocity or QF FF - so that would need to be reviewed as well.

Im sure there are also other reasons as well - but thats my rookie take.
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Last edited by Tag1987; Nov 21, 2018 at 2:51 am
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:50 am
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Oh - forgot to mention - AirNZ are subsidised to fly to Norfolk Island as part of the Aus governments essential air services program. So these flights barely count as domestic operations...
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 3:12 am
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And many people remember that Air NZ 100% owned Ansett and drive it into bankruptcy through incompetency.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 10:13 am
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Originally Posted by Nathan Catton
They do Sydney & Brisbane to Norfolk Island
And Rarotonga
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 10:19 am
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Originally Posted by Mwenenzi
And many people remember that Air NZ 100% owned Ansett and drive it into bankruptcy through incompetency.
Well that opens a whole can of worms.. and many would argue is about as far from the truth as you can get.

There are a myriad of reasons contributed to Ansett failing and it's very likely to have failed no matter who had owned it at the time.

It was mutton dressed up as lamb but NZ through poor management failed to see what so many others could see and thought they had to have Ansett at all costs. History really repeated itself with VA where they kept pumping money into something because they felt like they had no other choice.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 2:47 pm
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Originally Posted by sbiddle
And Rarotonga
Rarotonga is an international flight.
Also like Norfolk Island, believe there is govt funding to provide that route, and NZ does Rarotonga to LAX which is funded as well.
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Old Nov 21, 2018, 5:11 pm
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Norfolk to OZ mainland is not a normal domestic route. Flights from OZ to Norfolk depart from int terminals & you can buy duty free.

Think the idea of say a Perth(PER) to Maroochydore(MCY) to Auckland(AKL) makes sense in an A321neo.

They already fly seasonally AKL/MCY/AKL, even though Brisbane(BNE) is less than 90 mins drive down the road, as long as not peak hour & Gold Coast(OOL) another 90 mins drive beyond BNE. That seems to work & don't think there's any subsidy involved. An extension to PER would make a lot of sense.

or PER/OOL/AKL.

Only Jetstar does PER/OOL year round (think it's 3 days a week & red eyes, which many people don't like) Virgin do it twice a week in Xmas school holidays.

or maybe better to not fly to AKL, but instead Wellington, Christchurch or Queenstown.

Only Jetstar(JQ) flies OOL/Queenstown(ZQN) nonstop. Surely NZ can compete with JQ.

Last edited by OZFLYER86; Nov 21, 2018 at 5:27 pm
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 1:01 am
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Originally Posted by OZFLYER86
Norfolk to OZ mainland is not a normal domestic route. Flights from OZ to Norfolk depart from int terminals & you can buy duty free.

Think the idea of say a Perth(PER) to Maroochydore(MCY) to Auckland(AKL) makes sense in an A321neo.

They already fly seasonally AKL/MCY/AKL, even though Brisbane(BNE) is less than 90 mins drive down the road, as long as not peak hour & Gold Coast(OOL) another 90 mins drive beyond BNE. That seems to work & don't think there's any subsidy involved. An extension to PER would make a lot of sense.

or PER/OOL/AKL.

Only Jetstar does PER/OOL year round (think it's 3 days a week & red eyes, which many people don't like) Virgin do it twice a week in Xmas school holidays.

or maybe better to not fly to AKL, but instead Wellington, Christchurch or Queenstown.

Only Jetstar(JQ) flies OOL/Queenstown(ZQN) nonstop. Surely NZ can compete with JQ.
But they cant. If there was a more premium based yield on that route the other airlines would already be doing it. QF is twice the size of AirNZ if they cant make it work who else is going to? JQ get put on the routes that QF cant operate their cost base on. You would be relying on liesure travellers to fill the plane to MCY as few are going to take such a long route to AKL.

Its probably worth highlighting that whilst you are correct OOL-BNE-MCY are all 90 min apart. The population of NZ lives in that catchment and QLD has the highest number of Kiwi expats in Aus.

The notion of more point to point flying to Australia totally makes sense for AirNZ But flying domestic sectors just doesnt make sense. It would be so poorly executed if they did and a poor utilisation of their fleet and capital when they have so much more opportunity to create a stronger international hub and spoke network out of AKL
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 7:34 pm
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QF domestic yields are considerable, but bolstered by commanding a majority the internal business traffic, with a huge FF programme that most users don't want to break out of. It has frequency, and a premium product (with a LCC brand to vacuum up the lower yielding traffic) that is beyond what NZ offers domestically at home (and arguably even Trans Tasman in some respects), with its only weakness being a high cost structure. VA has gained a lot of lower yielding traffic, and some corporate contracts, but it has struggled as it is halfway between JQ and QF in terms of product in most respects (A330 business being the exception). QF and VA fought a capacity war for a while that has settled down, there is little benefit in NZ joining that (and needing to tie up capital, staff, scarce airport space in major hubs, lounges). The interest in doing so historically was in a more restrictive environment, whilst both QF and AN ran high cost legacy carriers. I expect NZ to do more flights TT to feed AKL, to venture into Australia domestic would be a sure way to bleed a lot of red ink for many years to come.
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