PACIFIC BLUE AIMS TO SPREAD WINGS INTERNATIONALLY
Alan WOOD27 September 2008
Christchurch's Pacific Blue is chasing more network opportunities, including new services into Indonesia and possibly Fiji.
The low-cost leisure carrier is jumping on to the Australian mainland - where Virgin Blue provides domestic services - and will offer 11 direct services a week to Indonesia from December.
The airline has also applied for a licence to fly into Fiji, which could see it competing against Air New Zealand and Air Pacific.
Pacific Blue has until now had a strong trans-Tasman focus.
Sister airline Polynesian Blue flies to Samoa from New Zealand and Australia.
Pacific Blue chief executive John Bartlett said the services out of Australia into Denpasar, the capital of the Indonesian province of Bali, would ultimately be managed from Christchurch.
The carrier will operate direct services from Adelaide (two flights a week), Brisbane (five flights a week) and Perth (four flights a week) to Denpasar.
"Both the international leisure/ medium-haul branding of Virgin group is Pacific Blue and that's the way the company's business is segmented," Bartlett said.
Pacific Blue's network was generally expanding. It could use Virgin Blue to provide resources, particularly staff.
"The route will be a Pacific Blue route, (although) we are some way off examining how best to resource that in the short term to get it to the market, and then in the long term," Bartlett said.
"The capacity in the short term might come out of our parent company (Virgin Blue). But it has to be Pacific Blue- liveried airplanes, it is a Pacific Blue product, and the business control of those routes is vested in Pacific Blue."
Bartlett said Pacific Blue was encouraged by buoyant demand from travellers for the medium- haul leisure market at a time of economic uncertainty.
Pacific Blue commercial general manager Adrian Hamilton-Manns said flights to Fiji from New Zealand were now limited to Air New Zealand and Air Pacific under a bilateral agreement.
Pacific Blue's licence application would depend on approval by the two countries involved.
Pacific Blue already flew from Australia to Fiji, so a New Zealand service would be a logical addition to that.
Regarding the new Australian service to Indonesia, Pacific Blue would look to get links from Christchurch and New Zealand to the Brisbane-Denpasar service as soon as possible, Hamilton- Manns said.
©008 Fairfax New Zealand Limited.
The Press (Christchurch)
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