Whilst it's great that DJ are launching HBA-CBR, I hope that they at least stick with it for at least a year. Prior to this announcement, one difference between DJ and JQ at HBA is that when DJ have added new services/destinations to HBA, they have started them sometime between August and November, which gives the new services some time to "mature" and be full by the peak summer season. Compare this with JQ who have tended to add new destinations/services starting sometime between February and May, which gave them just enough time for the numbers to drop off into the trough of the winter season, and then the services get canned before they can make serious money in the peak summer season.
I'm curious as to what the DJ HBA schedules will look like from April. Currently, there is a new schedule in the booking engine that has the last HBA-MEL flight departing at 1620, and the last HBA-SYD flight departing at 1600. Surely there will be later flights than this to both of these destinations! Maybe they are moving to more E-Jets, so HBA-SYD will get 3 E-Jets daily as opposed to 2 737s???
Interesting that the base fare for HBA-CBR will be $175, the same as it is now if you fly HBA-CBR connecting in ADL, MEL or SYD. This is much higher than say the $99 base fare for HBA-SYD, which is a longer route, and has the higher costs of operating into SYD as opposed to CBR. I guess they won't be expecting much corporate business, as it is a middle of the day service. I think an evening departure out of CBR and a first thing return out of HBA would make more money, but that would mean basing another aircraft in HBA, and I guess the aircraft can't be everywhere at once!
As for HBA-ADL, I think the route was a 737 when Godfrey made the comments mentioned, where as it is now a 737/E190 alternate days of the week I think. This can always be reduced to E190/E170 over the quiter winter months in response with demand [An E170 only has half as may seats as a 73G so 50% load on a 73G will make money on an E170). Since the E190 started, the HBA-ADL service departs HBA at 1615 (as opposed to 1115 before), which would receive some business patronage, especially for example from Hydro Tasmania (that has a major base in South Australia).
Finally, with regards to all the regional routes out of TSV, I would have guessed that TSV-DRW and TSV-ISA would be ahead of the four TSV routes that were announced today, but I'm sure DJ have done their homework! I will definitely be supporting DJ on the new HBA-CBR service.
