Debrief

Bali – a crowded market?

A three pronged regional international attack by Virgin Blue looks interesting. The main attack is Brisbane-Denpasar (fed by Sydney-Brisbane domestic connections) which accounts for 60 per cent of planned total new flying hours.

It should be well patronised, as Bali’s recently heavily run down tourism numbers have reportedly returned to normal, but Australian air connections had not.

Pacific Blue’s proposed five times weekly 737-800 services provoked instant heavy advertising and fare responses by AirAsia X, already offering Gold Coast-Denpasar via Kuala Lumpur, and Jetstar, which provides the Qantas Group’s Brisbane- Denpasar link via Darwin.

Pacific Blue’s direct service looked very promising, until Garuda announced its return to the market with a thrice weekly A330 service. (Garuda pulled its four weekly A330 Brisbane-Denpasar flights after shortlived Air Paradise – two A310s per week – folded. ) Travel to Bali is largely discretionary, so how numbers and yield will stack up in the present climate is debatable.

Interestingly, Brisbane-Denpasar (2423nm/4491km) will be the longest stage flown by Australian registered 737s, approximately one hour (still air) longer than Brisbane-Perth, but into the teeth of winter jetstreams which at 125/130kt can increase westbound times to around 6. 5hrs+. These jetstreams can see aircraft flying from Brisbane to Singapore or Bangkok use routes ranging from a) almost west of Brisbane until above the worst of it over WA, then northwest through the crosswind and up to Bali or Singapore; or b) north to Hamilton Island, climbing up through the strong cross winds, past Cairns, along the lower Gulf of Carpentaria past Darwin, then joining the southern diverters around Bali or Singapore. High level Darwin war games can impede this option. So ETOPS approval plus the brilliant flex tracks techniques and continuous ATC tracking by radar, ADS-B or sat link CPDLC become essential ingredients.

If Pacific Blue can’t tick enough of the above boxes on a bad day a costly Broome tech stop may ensue.

Brisbane-Port Moresby – A different matter

Ever since Qantas quit Port Moresby in favour of an Air Nuigini codeshare, many passengers have sought an alternative, seeing privately owned Airlines PNG commence thrice weekly Brisbane- Port Moresby using a wetleased OzJet 737-200.

Daily frequency was talked of, the service changed to a wetleased Air Nauru/Our Airline 737-300, still three per week, and has now passed to a codeshare using Pacific Blue 737-800s on the four peak days weekly, doubling replaced capacity. Apart from also offering Virgin Blue a feed from A/PNG’s albeit small internal PNG network, for which it is optimally timed through Port Moresby, and Australia wide Virgin Blue connections, it provides A/PNG a feed beyond Brisbane using Virgin Blue.

Brisbane, Cairns and Sydney provide the bulk of PNG traffic, including many PNG nationals who live or have interests here, with Air Nuigini recently substantially increasing Sydney-PNG capacity by replacing Embraer 190s with 757s. Run well, this one should work nicely.

Brisbane-Honiara – A bit of both

For many years a codeshare Qantas/Solomon Airlines 737 Brisbane-Honiara service met the needs of all, with domestic on-carriage at each end. Then war shattered the Solomons.

As peace returned tourism and business picked up. Our Airline had rights Honiara- Brisbane and SkyAirWorld started a shortlived E-170 service for Solomons, which was soon replaced by four weekly Ozjet 737-200s, which in turn passed to four weekly Our Airline 737-300 flights.

SAW then started its own daily E-190 service, but with vast capacity many flights were cancelled. Stability briefly returned on the route with SAW offering thrice weekly E-170/190 flights, and Solomons using one Air Vanuatu 737-800 and two Our Airline 737-200 services a week – both shared with Nauru, now Our Airline’s sole remaining Pacific destination.

Under-capacity and poor timing saw passengers for prime tourist regions stuck in Honiara where accommodation can be non existent. Pacific Blue’s impending entry with two 737‑800s per week has been widely welcomed and is ideally timed through Honiara to suit regional travellers. But Solomons has the regional monopoly, and hence there is ambitious talk of Pacific Blue and SAW looking at amphibious feeder flights. Solomons also instantly added two standalone Our Airline flights, dropping one shared service.

With some high yielding passenger traffic, Honiara might go well for Virgin Blue if overcapacity madness – which likely caused VB to long defer taking up its Honiara capacity allocation – doesn’t return. n