Virgin blue finish lst-bne

[Kain C]

Why would JQ have canned this route if loads were so high?

Small correction to my last post. BNE-HBA had the 3rd highest load factor for the year to date before it was canned.
Top 3 were PER-SYD (86.0%), ADL-OOL (83.4%) and BNE-HBA (82.8%).

In other news, seems to be two major changes to DJs Tasmania services with the cutbacks effective May 7 (going by DJ booking engine). SYD-LST appears to be canned, and whilst the SYD-HBA is staying double daily, DJ have followed JQ and canned the early morning SYD departure from HBA, so only one DJ aircraft will O/N in HBA from May 7. Very strange move in my opinion given that JQ had just handed DJ all the yield on a plate, and DJ have just tossed it away !

Bit sneaky of DJ to say in their press release that they are not withdrawing from any markets. Obviously by markets they mean destinations, not individual routes .

[Michael Morrison]

Originally Posted by Kain C

SYD-LST appears to be canned, :.

I believe it is just canned for winter as it is back again later in the year. (IE DEC)

[Ryan K]

Originally Posted by Kain C

Small correction to my last post. BNE-HBA had the 3rd highest load factor for the year to date before it was canned.
Top 3 were PER-SYD (86.0%), ADL-OOL (83.4%) and BNE-HBA (82.8%).

In other news, seems to be two major changes to DJs Tasmania services with the cutbacks effective May 7 (going by DJ booking engine). SYD-LST appears to be canned, and whilst the SYD-HBA is staying double daily, DJ have followed JQ and canned the early morning SYD departure from HBA, so only one DJ aircraft will O/N in HBA from May 7. Very strange move in my opinion given that JQ had just handed DJ all the yield on a plate, and DJ have just tossed it away !

Bit sneaky of DJ to say in their press release that they are not withdrawing from any markets. Obviously by markets they mean destinations, not individual routes .

These recent moves by both JQ and DJ make it impossible to get from HBA to SYD early morning. Why wouldn't have DJ have kept the 6.30am HBA-SYD flight, they would have picked up an awful lot of business travellers due to JQ re-timing their 6.10am flight to later in the morning.

[Ryan K]

Originally Posted by Michael Morrison

I believe it is just canned for winter as it is back again later in the year. (IE DEC)

Why wouldn't DJ have replaced the 737 service with an E-Jet?

[Kain C]

These recent moves by both JQ and DJ make it impossible to get from HBA to SYD early morning. Why wouldn't have DJ have kept the 6.30am HBA-SYD flight, they would have picked up an awful lot of business travellers due to JQ re-timing their 6.10am flight to later in the morning.

I agree.

If only DJ had one more E-170 in the fleet, they could base it at HBA, and operate something like:

HBA-SYD 6:30-8:20
SYD-HBA 8:50-10:45
HBA-ADL 11:15-13:45
ADL-HBA 14:15-16:30
HBA-SYD 17:00-18:55
SYD-HBA 19:25-21:15

They could keep the 737 doing the 6:25am SYD-HBA-SYD service, but drop the afternoon 15:30 SYD-HBA-SYD 737 service. This way, HBA-SYD would get 3 services daily (6:30am, 8:50am, 17:00 pm), 2 of which are E-170s and 1 x 737. It also provides an aircraft to maintain the HBA-ADL (with a smaller aircraft) rather than dropping it.

[Kain C]

Also, SYD-LST has in fact not been canned. Daily flights remain, but in a new timeslot, departing SYD at 9am.

[Jarden S]

Originally Posted by Ryan K

Why wouldn't DJ have replaced the 737 service with an E-Jet?

According to the April issue of Australian Aviation. Virgin blue has deferred the delivery of 6 E-jets until 2010. So they wont have any spare E-jet capacity to start early morning HBA-SYD flights. I agree its a big market between 2 state capitals its a shame no early flights. It seems Tas has got the raw deal from both airlines.