Wirraway
24th Sep 2004, 19:10
Sat "Weekend Australian"
Bali high demand for extra flights
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
September 25, 2004
MOVES by Qantas and Garuda Indonesia to ramp up capacity on the Perth-Bali route suggest the bombing of Australia's embassy in Jakarta has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the holiday isle.
Qantas announced yesterday it was pulling its mainline flights off the competitive route and replacing them with bigger Australian Airlines planes offering almost double the number of seats.
Garuda Indonesia is boosting by almost half again the number of Perth-Bali flights from October 1.
The full-service, all economy Australian, started as a low-cost operation in 2002, allows Qantas to operate on leisure routes which the mainline carrier finds uncompetitive.
Qantas mainline will continue flying one flight a week until February 1 to cope with summer demand.
Australian's arrival on December 2 marks the first Perth-based services by the carrier and will see twice-weekly mainline Boeing 737 flights replaced with Australian's bigger Boeing 767-300s.
The new service means Australian will operate seven flights a week between Australia and Bali, including three from Sydney and two from Melbourne. It brings the airline's total operations to more than 100 flights per week to 14 destinations in six countries.
However, Garuda will complement its existing daily service with three additional flights per week on peak travel days.
"The demand we are seeing is consistently so great that we simply have to add flights to keep up with both economy and premium executive class bookings," said West Australian sales manager Rob Moro.
There was more good news for airlines yesterday with new statistics showing international scheduled passenger traffic to and from Australia in June reached a record for the month of 1.47 million passengers, up 31.4 per cent on the previous year.
"June 2004 recorded the highest level of passenger traffic in a June month and continues the trend of record month-on-month traffic growth since November 2003," the Bureau of Transport & Regional Economics said.
The figures showed 49 scheduled international airlines serving Australia in June provided 2.23 million seats, an increase of 30.1 per cent on last year and up 23.5 per cent on June 2002.
Planes were also slightly fuller, with load factors increasing from 66.5 per cent last year to 67.1 per cent.
Qantas remained by far the dominant carrier, with 30.4 per cent of passenger carriage, but this had slipped 1.9 per cent on the previous year.
Singapore Airlines came second with 10.6 per cent (up 0.1 per cent,) followed by Air New Zealand with 7.6 per cent (down 2.2 per cent).
From early November, Singapore Airlines will operate a record 80 flights per week between Singapore and Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Inbound freight traffic rose by 17.6 per cent, while outbound traffic dropped marginally by 0.4 per cent.
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Bali high demand for extra flights
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer
September 25, 2004
MOVES by Qantas and Garuda Indonesia to ramp up capacity on the Perth-Bali route suggest the bombing of Australia's embassy in Jakarta has done little to dampen enthusiasm for the holiday isle.
Qantas announced yesterday it was pulling its mainline flights off the competitive route and replacing them with bigger Australian Airlines planes offering almost double the number of seats.
Garuda Indonesia is boosting by almost half again the number of Perth-Bali flights from October 1.
The full-service, all economy Australian, started as a low-cost operation in 2002, allows Qantas to operate on leisure routes which the mainline carrier finds uncompetitive.
Qantas mainline will continue flying one flight a week until February 1 to cope with summer demand.
Australian's arrival on December 2 marks the first Perth-based services by the carrier and will see twice-weekly mainline Boeing 737 flights replaced with Australian's bigger Boeing 767-300s.
The new service means Australian will operate seven flights a week between Australia and Bali, including three from Sydney and two from Melbourne. It brings the airline's total operations to more than 100 flights per week to 14 destinations in six countries.
However, Garuda will complement its existing daily service with three additional flights per week on peak travel days.
"The demand we are seeing is consistently so great that we simply have to add flights to keep up with both economy and premium executive class bookings," said West Australian sales manager Rob Moro.
There was more good news for airlines yesterday with new statistics showing international scheduled passenger traffic to and from Australia in June reached a record for the month of 1.47 million passengers, up 31.4 per cent on the previous year.
"June 2004 recorded the highest level of passenger traffic in a June month and continues the trend of record month-on-month traffic growth since November 2003," the Bureau of Transport & Regional Economics said.
The figures showed 49 scheduled international airlines serving Australia in June provided 2.23 million seats, an increase of 30.1 per cent on last year and up 23.5 per cent on June 2002.
Planes were also slightly fuller, with load factors increasing from 66.5 per cent last year to 67.1 per cent.
Qantas remained by far the dominant carrier, with 30.4 per cent of passenger carriage, but this had slipped 1.9 per cent on the previous year.
Singapore Airlines came second with 10.6 per cent (up 0.1 per cent,) followed by Air New Zealand with 7.6 per cent (down 2.2 per cent).
From early November, Singapore Airlines will operate a record 80 flights per week between Singapore and Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Inbound freight traffic rose by 17.6 per cent, while outbound traffic dropped marginally by 0.4 per cent.
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