Bonza boss Tim Jordan spells out why Australia needs a new low-cost airline

The boss of new budget carrier Bonza has spelt out why Australia needs another airline.

Bonza plans to extablish new regional routes currently not being operated by existing carriers.

The boss of new low-cost carrier Bonza has spelt out why there is more than enough room for another airline in Australia, alongside Jetstar, Qantas, Virgin Australia and Rex.

Speaking at the CAPA Centre for Aviation conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Tim Jordan said Australia was the only large domestic market worldwide without an independent budget airline.

He said that meant the country was being left behind in terms of market stimulation and tourism growth.

“If we compare Australia to the US, and look at the route development over the last 10 years, in 2010 the US had 324 routes operated by low-cost carriers, and Australia had 58 operated by Jetstar and Tigerair,” Mr Jordan said.

“Fast forward 10 years and the number of routes operated by low-cost carriers in Australia was still 58, so zero growth. The US had grown to 1153 routes over the same period, so 256 per cent growth.”

He said as depressing as those figures were, they represented a “Bonza opportunity”.

“If Australia had grown at the same magnitude there would be 200 low-cost routes in Australia,” said Mr Jordan.

“We’ve got some catching up to do, because there is a fantastic opportunity for growth across all of Australia.”

Mr Jordan said with so much of the country unable to access low-cost fares, tourism was being stifled and residents restricted from fast and efficient travel to see family and friends.

“It’s so, so wrong. The rest of the world has been doing this. We’ve been doing it selectively where it suits us,” he said of the current low-cost route network.

Bonza plans to rectify the situation by establishing new regional routes currently not being operated by existing carriers.

Bonza CEO Tim Jordan.

Mr Jordan said they had no intention of flying on the “Golden Triangle” of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane or the vast majority of Australia’s top 20 routes.

“When we announced our airline in October we contacted 46 different airports across the country and we had one response that said ‘we don’t think we can handle the (Boeing 737) Max aircraft’,” he said.

“We also received almost 40 responses from those 46 that said ‘yes, we want this, we need this, our community wants this, bring Bonza to us’.”

The airline’s biggest challenge at this point was meeting demand based on the “gap in the market” and the response from airports, he said.

“We’re not talking about taking traffic from anybody. We’re talking about new markets, the new market that’s at home sitting on the sofa not catching up with anybody,” Mr Jordan said.

“If we can stimulate that market together with our airport partners, we can stimulate many new markets across the country.”

He conceded it would take time to build up the airline and generate new markets but Bonza “would get there”.

“It really is about new growth and new opportunities, it’s not about stealing share from anybody, it really isn’t,” he said.

Virgin Australia chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka had her eye on market share, telling the CAPA conference the airline was aiming for 33 per cent.

As well as leisure travellers, Virgin hoped its lower fares would appeal to the small and medium enterprise market, and Ms Hrdlicka suggested they were keen to win back corporate customers who had moved to Qantas.

“We’re in a good place, we’re getting our act together and we’ve earned the right to recover the customers who thought we didn’t care about them anymore,” she said.

“We had a significant corporate business and quite a deep loyalty with our corporate travellers (which is why) we made the decision to maintain our premium lounge product.”

Originally published as Bonza boss Tim Jordan spells out why Australia needs a new low-cost airline