When was the last time somewhere like Albury saw an RPT 737? The runway can take one (limiting), but can the population fill one?
If Jetstar has ignored the Albury-Sydney route all these years, Bonza must have a side business selling Noosa Time-Share apartments to Albury residents if they think they can fill a 737 to the Sunshine Coast.
Now, if someone was trying it with a chartered Alliance E-jet, I might give them some credit. But a 737? Wow!
Admittedly, a $100 fare to SEQ direct would beat shelling out whatever Rex/Qlink would charge to travel via SYD (and presumably tapping into this market is their business plan), but to fill an aircraft week-in week-out, even if they only operate 2-3 times a week, would take some selling - especially if the majors decide to compete with the price and offer several services per day.
There is a fundamental flaw with operating 2-3 times per week - people usually want to fly when they want to fly, not wait 3 days for your jet to arrive (unless maybe you’ve sold them a packaged holiday and they’re happy with what dates they can depart/return).
I’m even fascinated by the Sunshine Coast base - surely the Gold Coast attracts more tourist traffic. It must be a concept of being pure to their business model - serving a previously un-served market. Maybe it was previously un-served for a good reason - or maybe they believe in “if you build it, they will come”.
Perhaps Bonza believe that if they can get established under this business plan, then they can expand and eventually compete on the real money-making routes - this is private equity so they don’t need to persuade anyone other than themselves - otherwise this kind of risk would be a hard sell to any investor off the street.
There are some people with large cheque-books running this - as always, with other peoples money.
Are they, in fact, just doing what private equity does best - setting up an airline, leasing them their own aircraft (which they are), maybe at inflated rates, making it look good with lots of lipstick and then floating it to the unsuspecting mum and dad shareholders - and then watching as the share price sinks below 10% of the float price (aka Richard Branson floating Virgin).
I watch with fascination.