Quote:
Originally Posted by Laurent Sanhard
Question is , were they killed off by Qantas / Jetstar / Virgin
Or was there route selection problematic , ie servicing many of the regional towns where it would be harder to get full pax loads ?
Full credit to them for trying but the 3rd low cost airline competitor rarely survives in the tough Aussie airline market dominated by the big 2.
Maybe smaller aircraft like A318 / A319 might have suited them better for the regional routes ?
Though I understand their overseas partner uses the 737
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The A318/A319 (and likewise the B737-600/-700/-7) have the issue of being relatively very heavy for their pax count, making them comparatively more expensive to operate. Bonza already said most routes needed a load factor >80% to break even with the -8, so using the smaller variants would've likely required closer to 90-100% loads which would've diluted yields even further.
Apart from the -8 being far too big for almost all of the AB route network, they were also obviously practically brand new aircraft so the cost of acquisition is very high. AB would've been better advised to start up with older aircraft like the E-Jet or CRJ, perhaps some low-cycle B717s, for which acquisition would be relatively cheap or purchase prices low enough for AB to own and almost immediately depreciate their fleet.