Theres no doubt that Jetstar have shown they can grow the market where they fly to with the $59 passengers, but those ones don't pay the bills and you need more than a middle of the day flight to some of those smaller centres to attract the 9-5 corporate crowd.

Lets link the dots.

NZ is a long narrow country with a population of about 4.5 million people, smaller than most decent size overseas cities. 33% of this population live in the Auckland region and 76% in the North Island.

Where are you going to operate a A320 to or from the likes of TG HN NP RO NV? There isn't the population to sustain A320 aircraft on these destinations.

Air NZ don't even run a direct flight AA to NV so I can't see it making sense for Jetstar to do it no matter the price especially in an A320.

An AA - NV return is 4 sectors with Air NZ. I just looked on their website and there are return fares for under $400 depending on when you want to travel.

Plenty of opportunities to run the A320s in the regional markets. Really? I don't think so unless you don't intend to make any money.

^^ Easy they could fly Auckland- Napier then Napier to Christchurch they already are in talks with Hawkes bay airport. Christchurch to Hamilton is another even Christchurch to Tauranga. Wellington to Dunedin is a route they could go for as well. Still no options you think?

Regarding population. Jetstar already serve small centres in Australia e.g. Ballina and Proserpine So don't say NZ cities are too small for them to go after. Some are similar to Darwin and Mackay in population terms.

Hamilton is 202.000
Tauranga is 130 000
Napier/Hastings is 125 000
Palmerston North is 85 000

Yes, although the population numbers may look close to what destinations they fly to in Australia, but what you don't see is that Hamilton and Tauranga are about 1 to 1 and a half hours from Auckland by car.

So the flights from Hamilton and Tauranga will have to be at least the same price for flights from Auckland for the leisure traveller to use them, otherwise it becomes cheaper in the passengers mind to travel to Auckland to fly.

But first Jetstar may want to increase services to and from Dunedin, AirNZ have three to four Auckland direct Dunedin services a day, vs one from Jetstar. Plus a multitude of connections for people through both Christchurch and Auckland.

The two markets are not analogous.

JQ no longer fly WLG-ZQN.

Actually they still fly WLG - ZQN 5 times a week.

Ballina (Byron Bay) and Proserpine (Whitsunday Coast Airport) are gateways to renowned tourist destinations, and the cities at the other end of those legs are Sydney (4.6mil), Melbourne(4.1mil) and Brisbane (2.1mil).

I grew up in the Hamiltron - it isn't that exciting................................. neither is the Mount!

Yes Hamilton is. Tauranga no its over 3 hours. If you look back to my post I mentioned the posability of Tauranga and Hamilton to Christchurch. Not those 2 cities to Auckland which are really too short for 320 flights.
Wellington linked to these 2 ciites could also work for them and to Dunedin.

The reality is more like Hawkes Bay airport (and others) are chasing the likes of Jetstar, Jetstar aren't chasing them. I'd say the thought of and invitation to go to some of theses places is probably more of a distraction rather than a reality for Jetstar.

The only way many of theses regional airports will get the likes of Jetstar, if ever, is to offer big incentives. These rarely work as they found out in HN with Virgin. The irony is they offer incentives to get a new player to provide cheaper prices while all the time never offering any help to the incumbent to help them provide cheaper flights.

Have you checked to see how many flights a day there are between TG and CH and HN and CH? Probably hardly worth an A320.

It all comes back to the population base and the need for people to travel from/to theses places. Also regularity of service is important several flights a day is preferable to one flight a day.

Currently NZ run a daily TRG-CHC and 2 daily HLZ-CHC so not much of a market at the moment. As pointed out by another member Jetstar where they enter new markets they tend to grow the size of the market which would be the case for WLG - ZQN among others.
They are limiting themselves with only one daily AKL- DUD should offer two IMO. The competition there has helped boost the airports annual PAX.
Be interesting to see what routes get the competition.

And who is going to pay for the AvSec setup at these regional airports for their 1, maybe 2 flights a day..... not Jetstar, that's for sure.

The thought of this cost probably hasn't occurred to the regional airport authorities either.

If Jetstar does start regional services it is unlikely to have a major effect on NZ traffic, it would more likely create a new market of travelers out of Regional Airports.

Jetstar regional would struggle to attracted the business market, as with an A320 they couldn't over the same frequency of turboprops. With JQ we would be likely to see services to smaller center either daily or a couple times a week.

Where as NZ using problems is able to provide multiplier services a day, which attracts the business market.

I think the word problems is ment to be turboprops, which makes sense in the sentence. Yes Air NZ has got the frequency into many regional cities that Jetstar will find hard to duplicate unless they go and compete with turboprops as well.