Pacific Blue Notes

Further to the recent announcement of the new Pacific Blue flights to Nadi see HERE, Pacific Blue have now announced more flights to Denpasar-Bali.

Virgin Blue Airlines Group has announced it will increase its services to Bali from Monday 1 June, introducing two brand new routes, one direct from Sydney and the other from Melbourne to the Balinese island gateway of Denpasar.

Pacific Blue will also ramp up its direct flights from Adelaide to Bali from twice weekly to three times a week. The announcement comes after the airline launched its inaugural flights to Bali just three months ago from Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Full press release HERE

The new timetable will be
DJ151 SYD-DPS 1000-1450 Monday
DJ151 SYD-DPS 1200-1650 Friday
DJ150 DPS-SYD 0045-0835 Friday
DJ150 DPS-SYD 1330-2130 Sunday

DJ153 MEL-DPS 0815-1230 Sunday
DJ153 MEL-DPS 1520-1935 Tuesday & Thursday
DJ152 DPS-MEL 2155-0525* Monday, Wednesday & Saturday (arrives next morning)

DJ195 ADL-DPS 0825-1230 Wednesday
DJ194 DPS-ADL 0035-0700 Wednesday

Aircraft will operate SYD-DPS-MEL-DPS-ADL-DPS-MEL-DPS-SYD-DPS-MEL-DPS-SYD

Reports also suggest Pacific Blue has applied for traffic rights to extend its Perth - Bali flights onto a 2nd Asian port. It is known this will not be Singapore but the exact location is unknown. Flights will operate PER-DPS-XXX-and return. These will obviously connect to the flights arriving from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane offering a one stop connection from Australia to South East Asia.

Aviation Notes

Marlborough Scene
The RNZAF activity has picked up in and around Woodbourne in the past week, with at least one example of almost the entire fleet noted at one time or another.

The usual visits from Airtrainer's and Hercules continued as well as Iroquoi visitors with NZ3803 noted arriving.

Saturday 21-Mar-2009 saw an after dark arrival and departure, of either a Hercules or Orion aircraft.

Monday 23-Mar-2009 saw the welcome visit from Boeing 757-2K2 NZ7571 which arrived late morning and then departed early afternoon.

During the morning of Wednesday 25-Mar-2009 King Air NZ1883 made a touch and go at Woodbourne before departing to Ohakea.

Pacific Blue Notes
A chaotic start to the week for Pacific Blue with delays and cancellations to morning flights on Monday 23-Mar-2009.

Domestic flights were all delayed, while internationally DJ81 from Christchurch to Brisbane and the subsequent DJ80 BNE-CHC was canceled, with DJ69 from Wellington to Brisbane delayed by an hour, and DJ187 Auckland to Brisbane delayed by two hours.

Other cancellations over the PB network were DJ175 Brisbane to Nadi Friday 20-Mar-2009 & Sunday 22-Mar-2009 and DJ82 Brisbane to Christchurch Tuesday 24-Mar-2009. All resulted in the following morning's return flights DJ176 & DJ81 being canceled.

Air New Zealand Notes
Reports in the media, say Air New Zealand are looking at replacing their domestic trunk network fleet of Boeing 737-300s.

Competition from Pacific Blue and Jetstar using new, larger, more comfortable and more fuel-efficient planes is putting pressure on the airline to upgrade its older planes.

Industry sources said Air NZ was looking at the bigger Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737-800 flown by Pacific Blue and Jetstar.

Airline spokesman Mark Street said Airbus and Boeing had been asked for information on several aircraft options.

Note the inaccurate inference stating Jetstar operate Boeing 737-800s, when in fact they operate the Airbus A320.

Full article HERE
______________

Air New Zealand is looking at flight cancellations on its short haul International services over the busy Easter period, (school holidays in Australia and NZ) due to strike action from EPMU members of the Zeal cabin crew.

Attendants who are members of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), working for Air NZ subsidiary Zeal, are warning of strikes over Easter because of the situation.

Full article HERE

Air New Zealand Notes

Big news today from Air New Zealand's interior design subsidiary Altitude.

Video from 3news.co.nz HERE

Article from stuff.co.nz HERE

"Air New Zealand says its airline interior business Altitude has won a multi-million dollar five-year deal to design furniture for up to 20 new Boeing 747-8 aeroplanes.

The national carrier, which is majority government owned, said today Boeing had appointed Altitude this month with the order to be carried out for a "major Northern Hemisphere carrier" between 2010 and 2013."

The only airline to order the 747-8 is Lufthansa, with the other 8 firm orders for U.S.A. VIP customers.
Therefore Altitude will be designing for Lufthansa. The work will involve creating customised drinks cabinets, stowage units and closets for the first class cabins.

Altitude not only designs for Air New Zealand aircraft, but has also completed corporate jet interiors, including Boeing BBJ VP-BEL which was completed here at Woodbourne. They also designed the in-flight bar's fitted to V Australia's 777-3ZG(ER) fleet.

QF & DJ notes

Qantas/Jetconnect Notes
A day of chaos for Jetconnect domestically on Wednesday 18-Mar-2009 with 7 canceled flights, and the use of non business class equipt B737-376 ZK-JNB on QF126/125 AKL-BNE-AKL.

The chaos was caused with both B733 ZK-JNC and B734 ZK-JTQ out of action, and also resulted in the cancellation of 4 flights today 19-Mar-2009.

Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTP which positioned from Wellington to Christchurch on Sunday 25-Jan-2009 and entered the maintenance hanger, re-entered service today. JTP is now painted in the new livery and also carries the Spirit of Australia titles. Photos can be seen HERE.

The Jetconnect fleet hasn't previously worn the Spirit of Australia titles, to identify the fleet as New Zealand not Australian. The return of the titles is due to the impending withdrawl of domestic services, leaving the 734s operating only on the trans-tasman services. They will of course then be replaced by 738s, so this is also in preparation for their future return to the mainline fleet.

Pacific Blue Notes
The usual cancellation of the Friday and Sunday DJ175 Brisbane - Nadi on 13 & 15-Mar-2009. PacBlue also canceled DJ82 Brisbane - Christchurch on Monday 16-Mar-2009.

It is interesting that the second Fri & Sun Nadi flight from Brisbane is routinely canceled but Pacific Blue has used the SYD-NAN and BNE-NAN flights as references to the popularity of Fiji in THIS press release announcing the introduction of services to Nadi from both Melbourne and Adelaide, commencing Thursday 04-June-2009, the timetable is as follows

DJ105 ADL-NAN 0905-1640 Friday & Sunday
DJ104 NAN-ADL 1630-2030 Thursday & Saturday
DJ107 MEL-NAN 0905-1550 Thursday & Saturday
DJ106 NAN-MEL 1725-2115 Friday & Sunday

The aircraft will operate the following pattern over the four day period Th-Su, MEL-NAN-ADL-o/n-ADL-NAN-MEL-o/n-MEL-NAN-ADL-o/n-ADL-NAN-MEL

Aviation notes 22 February - 12 March

Blenheim Scene
Over the past few weeks a regular visitor of note to Woodbourne has been Air National BAe 146-200 ZK-ECO. For details of its visits please see Mike's blog HERE

As we approach Easter weekend more and more interesting items and aircraft are arriving into Marlborough for Classic Fighters which is held biannually at Omaka. This years theme is Italy, and more details can be found at the Classic Fighters website HERE. As we get closer to the show I will note arrivals of interest.

Qantas/Jetconnect Notes
As mentioned in previous posts former Qantas Mainline Boeing 737-476 ZK-JTS ex VH-TJZ was due to enter service with Jetconnect. This occurred on 01-Mar-2009 with JTS operating QF117 SYD-WLG. It had positioned to SYD from MEL the previous day as QF6182. With the introduction of JTS to the fleet and the SYD-WLG route, the Qantas Boeing 737-800s were withdrawn from this route, with VH-VXG operating QF118/47/48 on 01-Mar-2009.
The 738s continue to operate the MEL-WLG-MEL QF37/38 route.

Pacific Blue Notes
The trait of canceling a night departure from Brisbane continued over the period.
Tues 24-Feb-2009 saw both DJ82 to CHC and DJ188 to AKL canceled with the corresponding DJ81 and DJ187 arrivals into BNE canceled the next morning.
Weds 25-Feb-2009 saw DJ188 canceled again.
Fri 27-Feb-2009 saw DJ175 to Nadi canceled.
Sat 28-Feb-2009 saw domestic problems for the Pacific Blue flights in NZ.
Sun 01-Mar-2009 saw DJ175 once again canceled.
Tues 03-Mar-2009 saw DJ82 canceled.
Fri 06-Mar-2009 and Sun 08-Mar-2009 saw DJ175 canceled.
Mon 09-Mar-2009 and Tues 10-Mar-2009 saw DJ82 canceled.

Pacific Blue also had delays of over 12 hours on its Denpasar services on 07/08-Mar-2009 with the scheduled arrival into Brisbane on the 8th operated by VH-VUN arriving over 12hrs late. The Outbound service was operated on time by VH-VUM but that too arrived back on its return service into Brisbane over 12 hours late.

Vincent Aviation Notes
Vincents Dash 8-102 ZK-VAC has arrived back into NZ after its charter operating for Solomon Airlines. It arrived into Wellington from Norfolk Island.

Also back after a stint away is B1900D ZK-VAB. VAB had been operating on charter in Mayanmar. It was based in Yangon and flew oil rig workers from Rangon to Sittwe 260nm up the coast, where they were then helicoptered offshore to the oil rig. VAB has been noted devoid of all title and colour scheme except for the blue stripes remaining on the engines. It has also been noted making a few flights for Air New Zealand on the Wellington-Whakatane route.

Work is continuing on former Origin Pacific J31s ZK-JSI and JSH to get them airworthy again to operate for Vincent on its flight calibration contract with Airways New Zealand.