Directly from the Chief Pilot email 15/12/2017
WA operations
In terms of finding the required B737 capacity, the first thing to do is look at where we have any room to move. In WA we can free up two B737s by moving them from low utilisation intra WA day trips, and redeploying them on higher density, premium routes such as Perth-East Coast. To enable this, Network Aviation is looking to acquire two of Jetstar’s older A320s to supplement their fleet of F100s, which works well as the large corporate clients are asking for single class aircraft of this size to operate into their mine sites. Importantly, this type of operation is much more suited to the Network business model, as opposed to the Qantas model, which is designed around high value assets, being highly utilised on markets that are attractive to our corporate and premium leisure customers.
Tasman operations
We then turn our attention to the ZK registered B737s, which are being significantly underutilised as a result of the Emirates changes across the Tasman. Therefore, to increase this, it has been decided to re-register them in Australia and move them onto our AOC. This allows us to make much better use of their down time by using our mainline crew to operate them on our domestic network. In other words, we’re using a regulatory framework to free up a fleet of underutilised aircraft. As a result, the Jetconnect pilots will operate under our AOC and continue to do what they currently do; which is fly the Tasman while giving us extra capacity that can be flown by our mainline pilots.