More new Pacific Blue trans-tasman flights

[Steve Jones]

Pacific Blue ups the anti on flights to Aust

The scrap for travellers' dollars will intensify further, with Pacific Blue announcing it is to start new trans-Tasman services from September.

The Christchurch-based airline, a subsidiary of Virgin Blue, on Wednesday said it would be adding routes to Sydney from Queenstown and Wellington, and to Brisbane from Dunedin, to its timetable.

Last week it announced it would also be flying from Hamilton to Australia from September - three flights a week to Sydney and three to Brisbane.

The new services are two flights a week between Queenstown and Sydney, three flights between Dunedin and Brisbane, and three flights between Wellington and Sydney.

Virgin Blue Group CEO Brett Godfrey said that when the new services started, Pacific Blue would have international flights from six New Zealand airports - the others being Auckland and Christchurch - which was more than any other airline.

The airline's annoucement came on the same day as rival low cost airline Jetstar officially launched its entry into the New Zealand domestic market.

[Steve S... 2]

Fantastic news about Queenstown!!

Goodbye Qantas and Air New Zealand rip-off fares on that route... should we expect to say hello Jetstar and goodbye Qantas on the route also (down the track) !?

[Brandon Giacomin]

Here are the schedules
Sydney-Queenstown
DJ88 SYD 1030 ZQN 1535 B738 (Tue,Sat)
DJ89 ZQN 1630 SYD 1755 B738 (Tue,Sat)
Sydney-Wellington
DJ56 SYD 1000 WLG 1520 B738 (Mon,Wed,Sat)
DJ57 WLG 1605 SYD 1730 B738 (Mon,Wed,Fri)
Brisbane-Dunedin
DJ64 BNE 1015 DUD 1540 B738 (Tue,Thu,Sun)
DJ65 DUD 1830 BNE 1820 B738 (Tue,Thu,Sun)

[Jarden S]

From stuff.co.nz:

Pacific Blue will operate the new Hamilton flights using 104 seat Embraer jets not needed now in Australia from the market downturn. While the other new tasman routes from Wellington , Dunedin and Queenstown will be operated by Boeing 737-800s five of which are currently under utilised in Australia. Overall Pacific Blue will have a reduction of 1% with some cut in New Zealand domestic capacity.

[Michael Morrison]

I think they will be ops by 737-800 otherwise the rotations don't really make sense.

[Blair M]

ZQN ops start today, ZK-PBJ flying DJ88