This does appear to be good timing. Qantas/Jetstar are distracted by the Tiger startup in Australia and the NZ Jetconnect operation is plagued with reliability issues and poor pilot retention causing further difficulty. They also pulled out of WLG-CHC leaving an opening for a new entrant. The frequency of the PB AKL-WLG services indicates the targeting of corporate customers. It's a shame PB don't have descent COS otherwise I'd be interested.
I think there will be plenty of red ink spilled by everyone over the next 12 months.