Originally Posted by
Deano969
Mildura has around 190,000 outbound seats through Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney so 30,000 is actually quite an insignificant number
Mildura was racking up a total of around 120,000 - 135,000 outbound pax per annum pre-pandemic. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the majority (>90 percent) of those pax travelled to Melbourne. The load factors on those flights sat in the mid- to high-60s. Bonza are throwing over 50,000 outbound seats at Mildura (two weekly flights to MCY, three weekly to MEL). Whichever way you want to dress that up, that most assuredly is a significant number for what is arguably a well serviced market.
Originally Posted by
Deano969
3 flights per week to Maroochy / Brisbane North (sure why not) along with northern connections to Cairns, Townsville and the other northern destinations Bonza will be flying to is not only going to be enough to fill seats, they may actually need more flights
Bonza are looking at two flights a week MQL-MCY. More to the point though, Maroochydore is most assuredly
not Brisbane North, nor is it placed to service Brisbane North. North Lakes to Brisbane Airport is less than 30 kilometres, it's nearly 85 kilometres to MCY. Even Caboolture is closer to BNE than MCY.
Originally Posted by
Deano969
If my understanding of the Bonza model is correct, the below points will ensure success
Ensure success?!
Originally Posted by
Deano969
1) From Maroochydore, there is an almost equal number of flights to the north and south
2) With flights timed in blocks, this will open up flights from, say, Mildura to Cairns 1 stop on an ULCC
3) Morton Shire and Northern Brisbane also served, same as Avalon does with SW Melbourne
4) Maroochydore is a holiday destination
5) Sunshine Coast has a population of over 300,000 with a large amount from down south, both city and regional, visiting families
1) Yes, and ...?
2) Not likely, as pointed out elsewhere, ULCCs don't do connections. More to the point, how big exactly is the Mildura - Cairns market?
3) You're talking rank nonsense here. As highlighted above, Moreton Shire is far closer to BNE than MCY, with far better connections.
4) Yes it is, which is one of the reasons it is currently serviced by between 15 - 20 flights a day by the three majors.
5) See 4)
Originally Posted by
Deano969
But by far the most important point is the 1 stop connections at very low fares, Bonza just needs to get the passengers and luggage transfers efficient and all of a sudden they have over 30 1 stop pairs
Apart from the connection/transfer issue, their problem is going to be the market sector that they are targeting - leisure. For a start, it's seasonal. Second, many leisure travellers are looking to maximise their leisure time. Offering anything less than a daily service throws up all sorts of issues. People generally don't like starting or ending their holidays mid-week. Bonza aren't going to have the fleet to concentrate their schedules around weekends which means they are going to end up with a gaggle of mid-week flights between small regionals.
They'll need to hit very high load factors to come within cooee of making money so every empty seat on those Tamworth and Bundaberg flights is a seat that they
must fill elsewhere. Rather than trying to target Allstralia, they likely would have been better going for half of the towns that they've currently targeted.
It'll be interesting to see how they go but there's certainly nothing in the five points you've listed above that will "ensure success".