Bonza flies more than 1000 passengers on eight flights between Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport and three destinations

After its first week running flights in and out of Toowoomba, Australia’s newest low-cost carrier Bonza has revealed how many travellers it carried.

New low-cost airline Bonza carried more than 1000 people in its first week of running flights in and out of Toowoomba, which the company called “encouraging early signs”.

The new carrier is currently running eight return flights between Wellcamp Airport and Melbourne, Townsville and the Whitsundays in a bid to find untapped tourism markets with low prices.

The passenger figure is based on the airline’s first seven trips and not Monday’s Melbourne flight.

Since Bonza’s Boeing 737 MAX planes hold 186 seats, that would put the company’s first-week load factor in and out of Toowoomba at north of 76 per cent.

While data is not yet available on the new carrier’s initial performance, most low-cost carriers around the world try to run very high load factors (planes at near capacity) to remain profitable.

Bonza's first Townsville-Toowoomba flight

Bonza COO Carly Povey said she travelled on “near full” flights from Melbourne to Toowoomba and from Wellcamp to the Whitsundays.

“More than 1000 customers connected directly to and from the Garden City to Melbourne, Townsville and the Whitsunday Coast in our first week who may have not had the chance to do so before,” she said.

“That’s life changing when you think about many of them connecting with loved ones.

“Winter school holiday bookings are already showing encouraging early signs and we look forward to working with Southern Queensland Country Tourism (who joined us on some of our first flights) to bring more visitors to the region.”

The Toowoomba flights launched several weeks after Bonza started offering tickets for both its Sunshine Coast and Melbourne-based planes.

A report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission put the domestic aviation industry’s load factor at 75 per cent for January, with just two routes across the country reporting load factors of above 90 per cent.

With Bonza becoming Australia’s first independent low-cost carrier (LCC) in 15 years, the ACCC report highlighted how increased competition would benefit customers.

“LCCs can outperform full-service carriers in terms of customer satisfaction,” the report said.

“This is because LCC customers have more choice over what aspects of the service they wish to pay for, plus they often have different expectations of the service than if they were flying with a full-service carrier.”

Bonza CEO Tim Jordan (centre) with members of the cabin crew at the first flight by the carrier from Melbourne to Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport.

Bonza bookings limited to October – for now

Bonza CEO Tim Jordan confirmed the airline was only offering flights until October at the moment, but noted booking schedules would be extended to March soon.

“The sale period beyond (October) will be available over the coming weeks,” he told News Corp.

“The team is working through that and what we’re trying to do is incorporate learnings where we can add or take off capacity.

“What you want to do is maximise your capacity and the school holidays is a critical period (so) we’ll be looking and learning very quickly, before releasing flight up until next March.”

This is in line with other LCCs across the world, according to leading Toowoomba aviation expert Sara Hales.

“Generally speaking, low cost carriers work with a longer booking window to accommodate the needs of leisure travellers,” she said, while not referencing Bonza.

Mr Jordan said the company was likely to “revenue manage” its flights like other airlines, where tickets become increasingly more expensive as capacity dwindles.

“Many businesses revenue manage and we do too, but we’re proud our last-minute fares will be much cheaper than other carriers,” he said.

Originally published as Bonza flies more than 1000 passengers on eight flights between Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport and three destinations