Mr Hazelton;
put his finger right on it.
Mr Hazelton said the key factor for the new airline was to get schedules right.
"(Passengers) like to leave the country in the early morning and arrive in Sydney at around 8.30am where they can be in the city by 9am, and they want to leave the city at five or six o'clock at night," he said.
So there is intense activity in the early morning and late arvo and nothing in the middle of the day.
What do you do with the fleet during the rest of the day?
Been here done that and there is NO simple answer, and ALL the marketing hype, smoke and mirrors in the world wont increase the population of downtown Dubbo by one person and you wont be able to get the entire population of downtown Dubbo to fly to Sydney or wherever once a year let alone once a week.
That has and will always be the real problem in the regionals
Mr Hazelton knows that better than most.
Cheap fares will only dilute your revenue base at the very times you have the passengers attention, i.e in the morning and evening.
Promotional cheap fares and services to "fill in the day" and get the utilisation up are speaking to towns already emptied out of "fares" by the morning services. Or worse, and this is usually the case, you wind up with the SAME amount of traffic spread over 2 flights with LESS TOTAL revenue.
Inland Marketing know the market and its idiosyncracies well AND have the real interests of the regions, because they are them, at heart.
Blind Freddy where are you old chap?