Strategic plans to fly Australia-US route

[Radi K]

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/...cument&src=hp7

Strategic Airlines has sought approval to fly to the United States from Australia, potentially making it the seventh carrier to operate on the route, according to a Fairfax Media report.

Strategic, Australia’s newest airline, applied for authorisation from the International Air Services Commission to start flying to America from September, with its first US destination expected to be Honolulu as its planes cannot fly non-stop to the US mainland, according to the report.

That could place it in direct competition with Jetstar and Hawaiian Airlines, although details of planned routes have not yet been outlined.

The full-service airline is also mulling a name change to Air Australia in order to create a more recognisable brand, Fairfax said.

[Shayne G]

Strategic Airlines is growing very fast I must say! However they only have one Airbus A330 and that aircraft is already pretty busy. I imagine they will have to acquire another A330 or another aircraft type altogether?

[Mark D.]

There are no direct flights BNE-HNL, and the A330 lives in BNE - -Just a thought

[Oliver Gigacz]

Two more A330s will arrive in the next 12 or so months.

[lloyd fox]

I dont think they are expanding quickly at all.
They have had 3 A320's plus the sole 332 in the country for at least a year.
VH-YQC was the last to be delivered to Australia on 23rd April 2010 exactly a year ago.

The 332 was doing ADF charters till about 5 months ago and now is doing 2 BNE-HKT and 2 MEL-HKT which started in February and then BNE-DPS twice a week started last month.They had to fill this plane somewhere and i believe loadings are very pleasing.

One A320 does Perth-Derby 4 a week and PER-DPS 3 a week but this has been operating for a about 2 years now.
The other 2 A320's do BNE-HIR 4 a week for Solomons however this will change in June with Solomons aquiring their own aircraft,plus BNE-TSV-DPS once a week and BNE-PHE once a week and the new BNE-GLT twice dly Mon-Fri which started last week.

With this 2nd 332 to come in SEP 2011 obviously they need to fly it somewhere.

With 1 new A320 in 12 months and another 332 by September i dont believe this is rapid expansion .The situation is that they are now finding work for their aircraft.

Lloyd

[Joe Frampton]

I work for one of the largest travel wholesalers in Australia. I've done an industry inspection of the A330 - met some cabin crew & the sales team, and have contact with Strategic throughout my working day. They're a full service airline with a really strong industry alliance and pride themselves on this. From my observations, the forward bookings and support for Strategic are really strong (we're making bookings into 2012), and I believe the demand for a non-stop Hawaii product from Brisbane will be huge. I'm constantly amazed by the price the Brisbane market is prepared to pay, and the lengths they have to go to, just to get to HNL at the moment. Hawaii has a huge allure, and deservedly so. I'd suspected that the next route for Strategic would be Hawaii. This flight will fill up in the same way many of the flights to Denpasar & Phuket are filling up now (often up to full economy pricing) and I'm often selling business seats too. Never, ever underestimate the demand for direct international flights out of Brisbane (anything that doesn't involve flying via Sydney!) Along with a move to GDS res systems, and a future market relaunch, I wish them all the best. Look out for the introductory specials when this comes out... they are sure to be red hot.

[Simon C]

Seems they're looking at Shanghai aswell.

[Jarden S]

That story was in travel today. Would be good market to tap into as no Perth and Brisbane flights to Shanghai yet.

[Brandon Giacomin]

Just saw in todays traveltoday that Strategic has been granted approval for unlimited capacity between Australia and the US

[Andrew M]

Shame they don't have any actual aircraft to fly..........