ozjet

There was a report the other day that they were about to announce there ext destination, and were deciding between BNE and PER. Paul Stoddart claims the airline has got over its teeething probelms.

Also, there is a bit about late Feb being make or break time.

See the article here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1553634.htm

 

Pax numbers are picking up and there is a very high level of customer satisfaction with the airline which is probably why the media have given up on them (bad news is good news). There is a lot of money behind the airline and a fast growing passenger base so they (hopefully anyway) will make it ok.

 

Hopefully they will do well.. QF needs more competition..I haven't travelled on them yet but hope to one day.. Unfortunately all my business travel is booked with QF..

Compass mark I and II both had good customer support and feedback but eventually went under. Although I suppose they were competing with Ansett and Qantas who were full service airlines..

 

I was surprised by the suggestion of Perth, given the aircraft that they have. If nothing else, at least Perth is on their radar.

I expect that BNE will be their next port of call.

 

I hope they survive too.

With regards to Compass, some dirty tricks were also responsible for their downfall. I recall on more than a few occasions sitting on the tarmac in MEL for almost 30 mins after arrival waiting for AN to get out of the way so that we could get to a gate. That pissed off a lot of pax who had a busy day ahead.

 

Well, they are getting some government patronage - my sister is with the ATO, and she asked me what they will be like. The ATO (like all government departments) works on the best fare available for the times desired, and O7's 2-4-1 offer made them the best offer. Was the first time she asked me a travel/airline question and I was unable to answer from experience.

Dave

 

Plus you do have to look at T2 to find O7

Dave

 

Yes please, BNE next!!

 

BNE has been favoured as the next O7 destination for a while. Agree with the comments about range of the current planes and that ruling out PER.

Can't see ADL being the next destination either. (Even though there was a big hoopla over ADL being the O7 base originally).

One article I read suggested CBR was possibly the next location. Seriously doubt this as well until they can lock in some Fed govt deals.

Good to see O7 getting past the negative media coverage, although I have still seen some negative spin from certain media outlets around a week ago. If you havn't heard me repeat this enough yet, I think they are a good airline with great service and I hope they do well. Without OzJet, there is no Business class competition in Australia...

 

So that's a definite about their 732s not having the range to fly to PER? Even with so few pax on board? They must be real short range aircraft.

I'd love the next city to be PER because the QF prices for J fares are getting ridiculous.

 

All of the information would be contained in this Boeing Technical documentation:

http://www.boeing.com/assocproducts/aircompat/acaps/737sec3.pdf

Ozjet run 737-200 Advanced planes (737-229 JT8D-15). The are covered on page 87 of the manual.

SYD-PER is 2038 miles.
MEL-PER is 1679 miles.

If I am reading the tables correctly, a normal loaded O7 plane would not be able to do much more than about 2200 miles without refuelling. More likely the total would be not much more than 2000 miles depending on load.

That would not allow much leeway when flying to a town such as Perth. Add in issues like storms, ATC getting the plane to circle etc and requirements for how much fuel must be spare onboard, and I don't think it is viable. I'm sure OzJet are crunching the numbers right now working out if it is possible or not.

Of course I can be totally wrong, and am open to comments. However, there are also other logistical issues with Perth. For example the turn around time (they would need more planes to handle the flying time) and whether there is enough Perth demand for the service. Note that BNE is the third biggest airport in Australia after SYD and MEL, and that the three biggest airport pairs are MEL-SYD, BNE-SYD and BNE-MEL.

This leads me to think that a MEL-BNE or SYD-BNE flight is next on the agenda. More likely than not, they will start to operate the BNE-SYD-MEL triangle depending on their planes.

 

Mal - thanks for the detailed info. I guess BNE is the logical choice from a purely volume perspective, which is obviously what O7 needs right now. My desire to see them do PER is purely selfish!

As you've said, there is no busines class competition in Australia aside from O7 so I wish only the best for them.

 

Thanks NM. Do you know if the O7 aircraft are the standard 737-200 or the 737-200 Advanced? Would this make a difference to the range?

 

Oops... so he did. Thanks.

Speaking of which... from Googling around I have found some sites referring to the 737-200 Advanced as being capable of up to 2,800 miles range. Perhaps they will be able to do PER.