As one who watched Impulse come - and vanish - from Wollongong, then watched Qantas come - and vanish - from Wollongong, I can't help this feeling of deja vu with the proposed services.
The fares announced are (in my view) unsustainable. They'd need to be triple that to keep the service running, and I doubt the numbers will stack up in terms of passenger liftings anyway. If the fares increase to what I think they ought to be, passenger liftings will plummet.
I used to count the heads getting on and off the Qantas Dash-8s on occasions, and although the aircraft were not full, I figured they were probably breaking even, and making a profit on quite a few of the morning flights. Well over half the seats were occupied on the evening flights I observed. So why did Qantas abandon the route?
One suggestion is when the Dash-8 100 series were sold, Qantas simply didn't have an aircraft that was legal for the runway (was the Dash-8 200 series overweight for runway 16/34?) and they pulled the pin because obtaining exemptions for each flight just got too hard. Now if someone knows the real reason, I'd love to hear it, but that made sense to me at the time and it still does. Like as as not it was a combination of adverse factors, not just one, but lacking a suitable aircraft was significant.
What is also significant is Rex have ignored Wollongong on their Syd-Merimbula route (which also takes in Moruya). The SAAB 340 is no issue for YWOL, so why isn't it on that route? Is it because Wollongong is just a shade too close to Sydney to make it viable? I've never run an airline so I have limited knowledge of the complexities of route-determination and pricing, but some things seem to be fairly obvious.
So Jetgo will come - and go - and eventually YWOL will become what it is today. Meanwhile, all those at YWOL who didn't bother renewing their ASICs will have a headlong rush to get them when the RPT starts up again, and the ASIC issuing bodies will rub their hands together with the preditable surge in business. Any of the HARS airside guys who don't have one will need to get their applications under way fairly soon, as the HARS area and the RPT area are very close together. I assume most of the HARS guys have an ASIC already.
Shellharbour Council have always had this dream of RPT at YWOL, but ultimately it is a case of not enough bums reliably on the seats, and just a bit too close to YSSY. I give Jetgo six months before they become Jetgone as far as Wollongng is concerned...but I'm happy to be proved wrong.