Vietjet Rumoured to Be Establishing Australian Subsidiary

[MELso]

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[Chatswood]

Indeed, Vietjet has signed a deal with WSI. they will start flying from WSI from early next year. This has been publicly announced i think.

I’ll be very surprised if Vietjet Aus doesn’t offer some flights from WSI to feed their international routes, but hard to see it as a main base if they’ve gone to all the trouble to apply for slots at SYD.

 

[eastwest101]

I think they will struggle for pilots (more FOs) at WSI. All major carriers in Sydney often do.

Huh?

No operational flight crew bases at WSI airport yet, so you are making the point that current crew bases struggle to find crew who are operating out of Mascot in SYD, which isn't a surprise, as Mascot airport is surrounded by very expensive real estate, whether renting or buying. It would follow that the lower-paying airlines would struggle to attract crew to a Mascot base, and that is the case, with anecdotal evidence that both Rex and Jetstar are having difficulty crewing in Sydney (because of the lower salaries and higher living costs).

If you were qualified and lived in Western Sydney, would the grind of commuting to Mascot from home, with the cost of driving and parking, be attractive to you, compared to living in Western Sydney and commuting to WSI? Not everyone in the world wants to live in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. I bet heaps of flight crew who live in the Greater Western Sydney area would definitely see a lifestyle benefit to working from WSI compared to the sh#*show that is Mascot Airport given similar wages and a shorter commute..

Anyway - it's an interesting conundrum for Vietjet if they want to simply be a feeder operation for their existing Vietjet international services or if this does turn out to be a more serious attempt at gaining market share in the domestic market. With both Bain and the Qantas group having held such tight domestic capacity post-COVID to increase yield, maybe these yields have proven to be attractive to other competitors.