Air Austral :- How are they going ????

[Greg Wood]

Hi All & Happy New Year,

Curious if there are any 'insiders' in the industry that could give us an update on how Air Austral's going. We dont hear much over here on the west coast, only see them flying over the top!

I wonder if Perth could be considered as another Australian stop and if so I think could further enhance their product by further offering more choices & options for consumers.

Air Mauritius offer both a MRU- YMML (direct service) together with a (MRU -YPPH) service which seems to work well as a similiar comparison.

Thanks.

Cheers Greg

[lloyd fox]

Found this article dated 4 dec 2009 travel today , Greg.

Air Austral in price pledge

Air Austral has vowed it will not slash airfares in a bid to fill seats as the carrier looks to grow its presence in Australia after a turbulent nine months.

The carrier, which flies twice weekly on the on the Noumea-Sydney-Reunion-Paris route, was plagued by poor load factors in the months following its April launch, with flights just 20% full. Some observers were sceptical as to whether the unusual routing would work.

The carrier’s Australia general manager, Francis Ong Seng, said load factors on the route were now in the “mid-60s”. While yields “could be better”, Ong Seng said the carrier was not interested in discounting fares.

“I would say the average is around 60 to 65% load factor, which I think, for a new service after just nine months, is pretty good,” Ong Seng said. “We are not in the business of discounting fares. I would rather operate a flight with 50% seat factor with yield rather than one at 70% with no yield.”

Earlybird offers which have just been released have attracted a “good response”, he added.

The airline is working with the Reunion Island Tourism Board on initiatives to further train up agents next year. More famils are planned while media trips are also slated to drive awareness.

“If they don’t have first hand knowledge of the destination, how can we expect them to sell it?” he added.

He said the carrier remains committed to its Australia flights and driving traffic through to Paris and Indian Ocean destinations such as Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa.

[Lukas M]

Doing pretty bad actually. Here are loads from Bitre.

April- 16.4%
May- 15.2%
June- 19.0%
July- 48.7%
August- 22.6%
September- 20.5%
October- 31.5%

Mid-60s they say? My ****.

[Steve Jones]

Those stats are misleading as they don't take into account transit traffic going from NOU onward to Reunion and mainland France (or vv). So bums on seats on the aircraft will be substanially higher than that.

[Sarah C]

I saw the same stats that Lukas published - the 60% figure must be from the other sectors that the BITRE does not pick up. Those figures alone are alarming, and they can't be that much frieght on the run either. Then again, with very little marketing or news coverage, travel agents must be getting people on these flights. They must be getting enough traffic to/from Reunion, Paris and Noumea to make it work.

Mind you, Air Caledonie had a load factor of 65% each way in October so it would be interesting to find out where Air Austral is compared to them.

Still, a load factor of 20% on a new 777 would be great for passengers!

[Greg Wood]

Thanks to you all for your insights! interesting reading I suppose time will tell.

Do you east coasters ever think that Air France might make a return to Sydney now that they are A380 capable ???

And not forgetting Air India, I remember someone 12-18 months ago stating they're heading back to Sydney with B777 equipment :- still a no show.

Mind you with Indian carriers struggling amongst themselves, it may well still be months possibly years away before they return albeit Jet or Kingfisher.

Your thoughts welome.

Cheers Greg

[NickN]

There was talk a while back of Kingfisher looking at Sydney but that may have been speculation rather than fact.

[Sarah C]

The November figures have been released - inbound seat utlisation of 14.7% from France, 13.8% to France.

They must be making a lot of money on the Noumea leg to keep it going.