Bonza flights being grounded is a sad day for Australian aviation

Well. That was quick. Seemingly mere moments after taking to the skies in January 2023, plucky budget airline Bonza is cancelling flights across Australia, and looks like it’s about to crash and burn.

In the last few days, angry passengers have discovered that their flights with the Aussie airline have been cancelled with little or no warning.

It began Monday and by Tuesday the entire fleet was grounded. The ABC reported that Bonza staff have been told that the airline is ‘over’. 

It’s not looking good.

A statement from Bonza HQ confirms that things are in freefall.

“Bonza has temporarily suspended services due to be operated today (Tuesday 30th April), as discussions are currently underway regarding the ongoing viability of the business,” said CEO Tim Jordan.

“We apologise to our customers who are impacted by this and we’re working as quickly as possible to determine a way forward that ensures there is ongoing competition in the Australian domestic aviation market.”

It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Bonza's first flight. Picture: Supplied

That last part may be key to explaining the purple-splashed battler’s sudden fall from grace. There are two big players who largely own the skies in Australia: Qantas and Virgin. And there was always a large question mark over whether another would be viable. 

Even before Bonza flew its first flight in January 2023, sceptics raced to pour doubt on the airline’s likelihood of success - though many of those haters had skin in the game. Virgin Australia’s then-CEO Jayne Hrdlicka told The Australian that she didn’t believe there was enough demand in the local airspace for Bonza’s business model, which largely consisted of connecting under-served regional destinations. “If you’re connecting two cities that have never seen a connection before, if you’re flying it twice a week, it’s very hard to build an underlying presence in that marketplace,” she said. She explained that while this approach might work somewhere like Europe, Australia doesn’t have a large enough population to make it obviously sustainable here.

According to today's press release, Bonza has temporarily suspended services. Picture: Supplied

The airline’s backers - a Miami-based finance group - argued that they had seen success with a similar model in Canada with ultra low cost carrier Flair Airlines. Big difference however. Flair flies beyond Canada - to destinations like London, New York and Cancun. That alone is going to give you a fair bit more traffic than simply shuffling between Rockhampton, Tamworth and Toowoomba. 

Alan Joyce, ex-Qantas CEO, was even more scathing, lumping Bonza into the same category as longstanding regional player Rex and his own airline’s main rival, Virgin. “We’re just watching this battle go on with these three carriers in that little space,” he said, with what was surely a smidge of smugness.

Alan Joyce was not entirely encouraging when Bonza launched in the Australian market. Picture: Supplied

For the moment, things are in chaotic flux. Analysis will come later. It will take a while to unpack the truth of what happened to Bonza, if it’s not in it for the long haul. Did it die by its own hand - thanks to its decision to focus on destinations with minimal flight demand? Or was it killed by its bully rivals who have no interest in sharing the skies?

However it shakes out, it’s a sad day for Australian aviation. I confess that I never flew Bonza in the short 15 months since it first taxi’d off a runway in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. But I liked their pluck. I enjoyed their cheerful, inclusive tagline: ‘Here for Allstralia”. Escape writer Laura Waters was one of the first to fly, and was delighted by the cabin crew’s ‘smiley genuine interest’ when she boarded, along with the slick snack service. A far cry from the sort of cattle-yard shuffling and shrugging many of us have experienced on planes elsewhere.

The Bonza experience was, by many reports, an upbeat one. Picture: Supplied

I’m loath to nail the coffin while the patient is still on life support (and reports suggest a restructuring firm may be busying themselves behind the scenes to see if anything can be salvaged). But it would seem quite possible that Bonza may be joining the dearly departed Ansett, Australian National Airways, Connair (and dozens of others, believe it or not) in that giant hanger in the sky. 

I wish I had taken the opportunity to fly Bonza between Melbourne and Gladstone or the Whitsundays and Newcastle when I could, just to see what it was like. I have absolutely no reason to take either of those flights, I should add, but it would have been a nice thing to do.

And therein, almost certainly, lies the problem. You can’t fuel an airline on ‘nice’.

Originally published as Bonza flights being grounded is a sad day for Australian aviation