Bonza axes Mackay route

Airline moves to shore up reliability

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Nick Dalton

BONZA has cut the CairnsMackay route due to poor patronage after just three months.

The twice-weekly services will end on August 1, but the Rockhampton (two flights a week) and Sunshine Coast (five) routes remain with the Tuesday Sunshine Coast to Cairns service shifting to a Thursday.

Cairns Airport chief executive officer Richard Barker said it was disappointing, “however, we understand the operational challenges being experienced by Bonza that will result in the loss of the Cairns to Mackay service.”

“Positively, routes from Cairns to Sunshine Coast and Rockhampton are performing strongly with Bonza and we will continue to seek opportunities to grow future services,” he said.

The airline wrote an open letter to its customers by chief commercial officer Carly Povey who said “we’ve been compelled to take out five routes where there isn’t sustainable demand at present”.

She said many were happy with the airline, “but we also know that in the past couple of months, not everyone has had a good experience with Bonza and we need to stare directly into why that is – specifically when we cancel or delay flights.

“So in order for us to earn your trust – as we know that we’re at the start of that journey – we have decided to take a step back to allow our services to become more reliable. By removing some flying from our schedule, and going where there is demand, we are achieving two things.

“Firstly, the changes will allow us to build in additional spare capacity within our current fleet of four aircraft, so we have a buffer when things don’t go to plan (and they will by virtue of being an airline).