Southern cities Dunedin and Invercargill are firmly on Jetstar's radar, as the budget airline launches an aggressive expansion phase in New Zealand following the departure of Pacific Blue.The full article by Hamish McNeilly from the Otago Daily Times can be found HERE
Jetstar group chief executive Bruce Buchanan told the Otago Daily Times yesterday Dunedin, Invercargill, Hamilton, Rotorua, and Nelson were all domestic destinations "on our list"
I am interested to hear from any readers of this blog as to your views on the possible JQ expansion and the rumours circulating about the wet leased Dash 8s, especially after the announcement that Nelson is on JQs radar, considering runway 02/20 at NZNS is not A320 compliant.
2 comments:
What scares me about'Jetstar Link' is on-top of the already rapid cannibalisation of Qantas by J* we are now talking about Qantas Link pilots contracting to J*!! as well as the atrocious pay the current J* crew are on I wonder whats in store for the Dash drivers who are shipped across the ditch.
What interests me is..
1. If they are looking at only a few destinations, how many and what sort of aircraft, I guess the old Q200/300's
2. If the aircraft are to be wet leased will they remain on the VH register? If so it needs urgent addressing about the increasing number of commercial flights being carried out in NZ by J* without being under the same legislation as other NZ carriers and the consequences that brings.
There are only 5 DHC-8-200s left in QLink service:
VH-TQG/S/X with Eastern and VH-SDA/E with Sunstate.
So I guess for the fleet size J* would need in NZL this number would be ideal, although I know the two Sunstate ones are required due to runway requirements in outback QLD.
Also if I was going to go head to head with RLK (Air Nelson) then I'd want to bring over Q300s or even introduce Q400s to give both RLK and NZM (Mount Cook) a fight.
I would think that if they do wet lease them then the crew would all remain on their current pay, as required by their contracts with QLink.
I doubt this would last too long as J* is about reducing overheads and costs so I'd suggest they'd look to set up an NZL crew base and then transfer the airframe leases to a dry lease arrangement.
It is interesting though how it'll work, considering they will have to have some sort of lease agreement with QLink unlike their A320 ops where they own the aircraft themselves.
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