Qantas is expected to launch a daily non-stop service between Perth and Auckland as benefits of last week's alliance deal with Emirates start to emerge.
There we go. Hopefully that is just one of many that will keep the show on the road. If they do that twice a day and also do the same for Adelaide then that is a start. Those flights would be considered Tasman crossings and go some way towards maintaining the total capacity on the Tasman if they wrapped up Jetconnect as Ollie Onion alluded to. That said, long term getting rid of Jetconnect would seem a strange move to me as the have a lower cost base and could actually do the Perth and Adelaide returns from NZ if they had the right aircraft for the job. The fact that they said in the submission to ACCC that they will maintain total capacity and not city pair capacity indicates to me that NZWN will be a reduced service.