It has been a busy 24 hours in Australian aviation as Garuda cut one of its Aussie routes and Scoot amped up its relationship with Virgin to offer more connections around the country.
The Indonesian carrier yesterday revealed a ‘Quick Wins program’ – a short-term strategy designed to secure the airline’s finances despite the weakened Indonesian Rupiah.
Made up of three main components, the strategy includes a wide network restructure that sees the termination of the airline’s Brisbane to Bali service.
Effective 1 February 2015 the airline will drop the five- to- seven return flights a week aboad its Airbus A330 aircraft.
This will leave Jetstar and Virgin Australia as the only carriers to fly on the route.
The restructure will also include a reduction in flights on routes Jakarta-Haneda and Denpasar-Haneda; and postponement on the launch of new routes such as the Jakarta-Nagoya service.
Garuda said further changes could be made on flights to destinations in Australia and Europe. Details will be released as they are confirmed.
In the meantime, the airline’s Bali to Sydney, Melbourne and Perth flights will continue to operate as usual.
Other changes at the airline will see Garuda adopt a fleet management program, which will include the early termination of several aircraft, subleasing of aircraft and reduction to the number of business class seats on its Boeing 737-800NG aircraft from 12 seats to eight seats.
The airline expects this to effectively increase seat capacity in the economy class and attract a wide market of up to 15-20 percent.
Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost subsidiary Scoot Airlines has announced an expansion of its Australian network through its Virgin Australian partnership.
Guests travelling to Australia on Scoot’s non-stop services to Sydney, Perth, Gold Coast or Melbourne can now buy tickets through to eight additional cities operated by Virgin.
“Our new partnership with Virgin Australia expands our coverage of Australia yet further, so whether it’s North, South, East or West, Scoot – and Virgin – have Australia covered.”
Campbell Wilson, Scoot chief executive
The cities included in the agreement are Adelaide, Ayers Rock (Uluru), Brisbane, Canberra, Cairns, Hobart, Launceston and Melbourne.
