Originally Posted by
ozbiggles
I wouldn’t put to much faith in the trans Tasman helping much
With no other viable International flying with in 18 months other than that you will have Air NZ operating 777s on every route, Qantas running 330s, Jetstar running 787s and Virgin....well who knows. If VA aren’t there, the alliance QA have with AirNZ will be torn up.
it will be an economic bloodbath 2nd to only a certain virus we are all aware of now.
I imagine Air NZ will operate direct Darwin, Cairns and a few others we never thought about too and they are government owned now.
You clearly do NOT know the trans-Tasman market. Air NZ are standing down their B777 fleet until LH picks up, once they have done the various repatriation and freight trips. The B777's also did the ULH to IAH, it and the proposed JFK are gone for some time.
The B787 and the A321 neos will do Trans-Tasman; not many Kiwi's have a need, nor desire to go to Darwin direct. The key trunk routes between AKL and MEL, SYD and BNE will continue, and if anything the smaller aircraft will allow greater flexibility for travellers. The WLG and CHC flights to Australia will also pick up and the QK B737's and Air NZ's 320's will be a good fit for that.
Cairns was only a couple of times per week pre Covid (as was OOL and Sunshine Coast), so can't see the frequencies being increased there.
I think there will be a gentleman's agreement to help each other out