12 June 2016

Some thoughts on Sounds Air's proposed Christchurch service




I am pleased that Sounds Air are looking seriously at picking up the Blenheim-Christchurch route. I think with Sounds Air's reasonable standard fares it could well be a good run for them as long as they use a Pilatus PC12 on it.

I imagine, however, that expanding to Christchurch will not be an easy decision for them not in the least being the facilities at Christchurch for regional airlines. While Sounds Air are well set up in Wellington and there are check in counters for regional airlines in Auckland there is no obvious provision for such in Christchurch. Sounds Air will need to set up a check-in counter and have access to the tarmac for the luggage to be taken to the plane. Given the Beech 1900s parked a mile way from the main terminal this is not going to be easy. 

The other issue I suspect will be the cost of such facilities. Obviously the more flights into Christchurch the more these costs are spread out. So it poses the question, will it only be a Blenheim Christchurch service or will Christchurch be the next hub for Sounds Air? Personally I think Christchurch-Paraparaumu could work. Another commenter on this blog has suggested Christchurch-Wanaka. I'm not so sure about that one. Time will tell.

13 comments:

  1. I very much doubt that a) this route will work for them as they are competing with car travel for the VFR customers and the business traveller maybe too small a market for the capital expended and b) any beyond CHC flight drives up the complexity/cost of the operation the further one gets away from a main base of operation.

    However, good on them for at least having a look at it.

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    1. I reckon it would work easily you have to look at the history of services which goes back 20 years well before Eagle the BHE to CHC route was operated by Air National. So its not like a untried route just not big enough for the Q300. It's ideal route for a Metroliner or Jetstream. Origin Air could go for it if they could get back up running again. As Sounds largest aircraft the Caravan only seats 12. While Eagle flew 19 seats 3 per day and had good timings before 840, 1100 and 1800. The 0600 change was too early and was not popular.

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  2. Their main maintenance base is Christchurch

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  3. No their maintenance base is Blenheim.

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  4. They could start up to 6 routes from Christchurch to spread out the costs it's expensive to set up a new station with staff and equipment for aircraft. The routes I reckon could work are CHC to BHE, OAM, WKA, WSZ, PPQ and to Picton. That last town has 4 flights per day to WLG for example so could be viable option for Christchurch.

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  5. I wonder if they could do a Christchurch<->Westport route to close the "loop" (Westport-Wellington-Blenheim-Christchurch). Not knowing the economics of airlines i'm not sure if there's any value to that!

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    1. Those routes are operated by different aircraft types and are scheduled out and back from Wellington for each so I don't see that working for them.

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  6. Seeing that they have not made any announcement by now. Sounds Air may have come up with it not being worth while and decided not to start the route. The set up costs would be too prohibitive I expect.

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    1. They said an decision and announcement would be made this week so I think it is still early days...

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    2. Sounds Air will fly to Christchurch:
      http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1606/S00525/sounds-air-to-take-over-route-between-christchurchblenheim.htm

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  7. Yes Steve they did say early this week. Another potential road block for this getting off the ground is access to the Regional terminal which may be difficult to obtain as its not owned by CIAL. Would they do their own ground handling or contract it to someone else another issue to sort out.

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  8. CIAL clearly absorbed in their sucking up to Air NZ with the new terminal clearly "forgot" to build a neutral terminal.
    The only place to put it is where the old NAC hanger is. Have had to board a flight way down the end a couple of few times. Is quite a walk.

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  9. CIAL clearly absorbed in their sucking up to Air NZ with the new terminal clearly "forgot" to build a neutral terminal.
    The only place to put it is where the old NAC hanger is. Have had to board a flight way down the end a couple of few times. Is quite a walk.

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