Bonza’s “bumpy start” fare bonanza with sub-$100 tickets

Budget carrier Bonza has offered up cheap fares to acknowledge the ‘bumpy start’ of its Gold Coast-Darwin route. Read what you’ll pay.

Budget carrier Bonza has released more than 5000 sub-$100 fares to mark the completion of its first Gold Coast to Darwin run and to acknowledge previous misfires that impacted thousands of customers.

The Queensland-based airline made a low-key touchdown in Darwin just after midnight on Wednesday morning - three months after the inaugural flight was cancelled at the eleventh hour in late November and two months after a second cancellation in January.

Bonza’s new twice-weekly Gold Coast Darwin run leaves Queensland for the NT on Tuesday and Friday evenings, heading back to the Banana state early the following day.

The airline announced in September it would begin twice-weekly flights to Darwin from the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, but announced the Gold Coast route would be postponed.

Bonza chief executive Tim Jordan in Alice Springs.

The Sunshine Coast run and the Melbourne to Alice Springs route have been well received by travellers but frustration at the cancelled Gold Coast run turned to fury when Bonza breached its own 21-day repayment policy for people whose flights were cancelled.

Now the airline is offering $89 one way tickets between Gold Coast and Darwin for travel until the end of May. Tickets are on sale until midnight Sunday.

Bonza chief executive Tim Jordan broke his silence to explain the issues that forced the airline to twice delay the launch of its Gold Coast to Darwin service until this week.

He also addressed issues around extended delays in refunding customers who had bought tickets on the cancelled Gold Coast-Darwin run.

While stopping short of an apology, Mr Jordan said the $89 fares were acknowledgment the airline could have done better.

He pointed to Bonza’s strong reliability record overall, with 90 per cent of the airline’s flights into the Territory meeting on-time performance targets and zero cancellations on the Sunshine Coast-Darwin leg and Alice Springs-Melbourne leg.

Bonza announcing the $89 Gold Coast-Darwin fares.

Mr Jordan said the regulatory process to allow two Canadian-owned Flair Airlines to fly in Australia took longer than anticipated, which led to the cancelled route.

He said lengthy delays in refunding customers who had tickets cancelled reflected the sheer size of the task.

“We had many cancellations in December,” he said. “The sheer volume of the refunds associated with cancellation has taken a long time to process and get through.

“That’s not something we’re overly happy with and we’re examining how to make that better. “We don’t want to be in a similar situation and we’re working on improving the processes and procedures.”

He said customers impacted by the December and January cancellations should all now have been refunded.

“We have some making up to do in the market as a consequence of what was a bumpy start.”

He said the airline would now bed down its three NT legs before deciding whether to add additional routes and said the NT government’s Aviation Attraction Scheme, a $10m pool to attract airlines to the Territory, was crucial to the airline coming.

“We would not be operating in the NT at this time without that scheme,” he said.

Originally published as Bonza’s “bumpy start” fare bonanza with sub-$100 tickets