Hmmm, "The old lets fly jets to regional ports" trick Chief, apologies to Agent 86.
Apacau, it is indeed another story flying jets to PLO. From anywhere. Including Melbourne.
In August 2005 the SA Guvmint conducted a survey of the ADL/PLO route.
In its 31 page report some very interesting information was found.
The survey was conducted over 1 week, with 657 responses over both REX and ASA flights.
507 pax were ADL bound and 96 were interstate bound. Remember this is for a week. Of the 96, 28% were MEL bound, followed by 22% for SYD.
Now 96 pax divided by 7 days equals about 13 pax a day. Which seems to be a pretty light load factor for a jungle jet of any sort. Maybe a stretch Citation or Gulf perhaps but something bigger? I don't think so.
So based on these official government figures I think that jets into PLO is some way off.
And lets not even entertain local PLO thinking that they could have a non stop jet service for their fish export trade to Asia as one high profile person suggested to me on a flight. I had to ask what would be imported into PLO to make the flight worthwhile, the answer being err umm err umm.
Even from a tourism perspective, acknowledging that PLO has similar attractions to KGC, what airline would fly perhaps 30 - 50 (50 being max coach day tour numbers) to PLO ex MEL, and then have a plane sit on the ground all day or nip back to ADL with perhaps 25 - 30 pax, just enough to pay for the landing fees?

By the way only 82 pax of the 96 indicated that they would have used a direct/non-stop flight
In the good old Kendell and Emu days it was not uncommon for Japanese visitors to take the red eye out of MEL, connect to KGC, scream around the island for the day, back to ADL connecting with the last flight out to MEL.
Even if KGC had say a DAILY demand in peak season for 70/80 inbound visitors ex MEL, what would you do with the plane after it arrived at KGC to connect with Sealink's coach tour?
Send it ADL with 5 people and the mail?
Sorry, but as usual the numbers don't stack up.
And don't get me started on SATC's yearly hobby horse of ADL/CDP/AYQ flights. I've seen the reports, and again the numbers don't stack up.
Anybody remember Aboriginal Air and a 17 seat Bandit?
Rock on!

Do Rex really have anything to worry about here? I was under the impression that intra state regional routes were still regulated. Inter state on the other hand, well it's every man and his dog/tiger.

Don't forget Qantaslink had a go at PLO as well last year and didn't last.

Qantaslink service didn't last because it had no continuity! There was only one aircraft, which went U/S a number of times leaving people stranded.

Just looking at the Rex website and there are currently 12 return services for this friday (8th June), that is 24 sectors, times 34 seats, around 816 seats for ONE DAY! From what I hear from my mates at Rex, this route is going off!
Deejay, while these are official Government figures I think they are both out of date (the route has changed considerably in the last two years) and it is not the total number of pax for a week, but merely a small sample of the total numbers.

657 times 52 weeks would only be only 34164 passengers. Rex run 7 services week days, 12 on fridays, 6 saturdays and 8 sundays. That is 108 services per week, or 3672 seats, that equates to 190,944 seat per annum! That is one very large regional route, probably the best in OZ when you consider the size of the town! Lets face it air is the only way to go to/from Port lincoln.:ok:

Assuming a 60% load factor (I suspect their load factor is higher) then that is 114,566 passengers for the year, if you multiply that by even the cheapest fare ($99) that is over $11 million turnover on one route.:8

Now back to the point in question on jets from the East Coast, assuming the Government figures are correct and only 14% of people travel interstate from PLO (if it is not at least 30% I would be very surprised), then at 14%, 43 people would be travelling (daily) to the East Coast, at 30% this figure rises to 96 per day! :ooh:

I think this would be enough to start and the market would grow from there, what I do agree with is that it will be the timing of the flight that would make it unviable.

Cheers, HH.:ok:

Had a mate of mine who works for Rex look up ADL-PLO numbers for today only (out of 33):
31
32
32
32
29
28

So as you can tell, almost 100% for a boring Wednesday.

HH

Don't disagree re the age of the data, nor the now increase in numbers as per the following:

Now back to the point in question on jets from the East Coast, assuming the Government figures are correct and only 14% of people travel interstate from PLO (if it is not at least 30% I would be very surprised), then at 14%, 43 people would be travelling (daily) to the East Coast, at 30% this figure rises to 96 per day!

I think this would be enough to start and the market would grow from there, what I do agree with is that it will be the timing of the flight that would make it unviable.

The questions all this raises are:
1 Which East Coast port would you fly from
2 What would the timings be
3 Would there be sufficient numbers ex PLO to make such an exercise worthwhile? Maybe not daily, perhaps tri-weekly.

Of course lets not forget that the Lower Eyre Peninsula District Council, with approx 1000 ratepayers, would be lucky to stump up the funds to fence off the car park let alone the perimeter fence to meet security standards.

Rock on!

These are the questions, I suspect it is only matter of time before we see jets from the East Coast!

I also reckon we'll see SY-OLD in a (R)jet within 2 years!;)

Virgin to Moorabbin?
 

Has any one heard of this one yet?

Rumour is there have been people sniffing around Moorabbin regarding brining the Jungle Jets to the eastern side of town.

Would make a lot of sense even with some works no doubt required.
Even if it's less noisy than a C206 no doubt the neighbours will scream blue murder though.

Moorabbin?:ugh: How do passengers transfer to an international or other domestic flight out of MEL?

Errrrrr
 

They don't.

Hundreds of pax per day fly from S/E Melbourne to Sydney and Brisbane and back every day. A premium service out of YMMB would save these fokes 2 hours or more each day return - do we have the population for this yet I don't know but I hear there has been investigations. Just asking if there was anything in it.

Often wondered about the viability/economics of a Moorabbin link or a Bankstown link. However I have often suspected that the cost of maintaining the aerodromes with security, staff, terminals etc etc would outweigh the savings in airport charges from using major ports. How much could you save by doing Bankstown - Moorabbin/Melbourne (vice versa aka Jet*) rather than the traditional Tulla-Kingsfordsmith? Assuming the cost of the aircraft is identical going to either it will really come down to how much they can screw over the airports for cost savings. Now given that the smaller airports will have to install security processing, baggage carousals etc how much will really be saved? Similarly there is no ILS at either which could make life interesting come winter.