ok, enough fun and games - so getting back to the original thread, have heard that great western is set or has been approved to start geraldton-kalbarri services in competition with skywest. this was the only route deemed viable for competition in the report into wa's air services which was completed late last year.
apparently the wa gov'ts aviation ministerial council (headed by gg himself) is working on an aviation master plan which they will have completed by april apparently. this will set out recommendations for the future of the states air routes and is expected to deny anyone access to competing with skywest on their other routes where there is insufficient demand for 2 operators to compete profitably ie - all of them.
so, where does this leave skywest? I think they will survive long term though they have certainly struggled since the demise of ansett, they relied heavily on the oncariage that they provided, especially to tourist destinations that they serve.
one of skywest's problems is they lack flexibility with the aircraft type they use, the Fokker 50 is configured with 46 seats and they struggle to fill them during off peak times when loads are low, having a smaller 19 seat turboprop would solve this problem, like when they had the J31'S.
The F100 is a good choice and one would think they would love to source more charter work to utilise this aircraft more, Skywest's position seems to be that they would not like to compete directly with QF into places like broome, karratha and kalgoorlie which places them at a disadvantage with qf using 737's into these destinations and consequently being to be able to offer more cheaper fares with quicker sectors compared to the F50's.
Virgin Blue has made it clear it would be interested to fly out of Perth to Broome and Kalgoorlie which would throw another hat amongst the pigeons, though whether these two centres could support 2 RPT jet operators both serving them profitably remains to be seen.
all very interesting times and will be interesting to see where skywest is in 5 years time.