AirAsiaX KUL - AVV v.v first month

[Melburnian1]

BITRE statistics out today showed that in the first (part) month of operation, AirAsiaX flights between KUL and AVV that commenced on 5 December 2018 carried (for December) 31812 passengers.

Dividing this by two (because the 31812 is arriving and departing passengers in total) and then by 27 (assuming no cancellations) gives 589 passengers each way per day, and then if we divide that by two to account for the two daily flights timetabled each way, it averages c.295 a flight.

There are 377 seats on the A333s that D7 uses, so that means a load factor of 78.13 per cent.

This is quite good for a first month, and will be higher if there was a cancellation each way one day or night.

Some air routes take a year to establish, and others fail (although this one is merely a rerouting of a long established KUL - MEL LCC route).

Sadly AVV lacks low cost public transport access, as one must use SkyBus to or from Melbourne Southern Cross. Travelling via Geelong station on the bus shuttle is not convenient, and there's no public bus route serving Avalon Airport to Lara railway station even though trains on the V/Line Geelong/Waurn Ponds line are as frequent as every 10 minutes in peak hours on weekdays, and every 20 minutes interpeak.

Many who live in Melbourne's inner, middle distance or outer southern, southeast or eastern suburbs perceive that with West Gate Bridge road access problematical during peak periods (including sometimes on weekends), Avalon is a bridge too far re access. Yet the D7 AVV flights don't really see passengers travelling during peak periods to reach AVV, or come out of AVV given check in cutoffs and immigration/customs inbound processing times.

Nonetheless this perception of AVV being inferior to MEL for access among Melbourne's highest concentration of affluent residents (south and east, versus only a few well to do suburbs in the inner north or around Williamstown) is hard to shake.

Someone who has access to longer term data may be able to check to see if between 5/12 and 31/12 D7 cancelled any AVV flights.

 

[ethernet]

Yeah, I get cross with airports having no public transport - deliberately in most cases - because they hope to sell/licence a paid service, or tax taxi drivers or do an overpriced railway access thing. the productivity commission failed - very sad when an overseas trip is cheaper because you are aware of logistic stings at domestic locations (I cannot write it off as a business expense).

At least Australia has not reached coughet Thailand levels where the taxi mafia rule or do harm to bus drivers.
Mostly there are airport tricks to avoid the 'toll' fees. Now that the ACCC has fingered secret container deals, maybe secret airport deals will be exposed.

 

[Catweazle]

AVV works beautifully if you live on the northern side of Geelong, however, like me

For this reason alone, I salute whoever made the executive decision to launch Air Asia from here. And AVV, although small, is a breeze to move through. I left home not longer ago at 7am and by 7:25am had already parked, checked in, moved through security and was drinking a coffee in the domestic departure area.

 

[Melburnian1]

.... And AVV, although small, is a breeze to move through. I left home not longer ago at 7am and by 7:25am had already parked, checked in, moved through security and was drinking a coffee in the domestic departure area.

There have not been any complaints I've seen about departing from AVV, because with the need to check in, passengers go through security in dribs and drab.

However when landing, some have complained that limited facilities mean it's slow to pass through immigration. I don't know how many SmartGates there are as I've not used it.