CEO of Qantas Geoff Dixon announced to his fellow employees the decision of the new low cost airline giving it the thumbs up and ready to begin operations.
The airline will start flying in May 2004 in the domestic market only! It will operate along the lines of that what Impulse Airlines did before Qantas acquired the airline in May 2001.
Qantas is again looking upon Airbus and Boeing to supply aircraft for the new airline which is expected to operate a minimum of 23 aircraft by the middle of 2005. The aircraft in the eyes of Qantas are the B737-800 and the A320, but judging from the previous announcement by Qantas when it was searching for new aircraft for its own domestic operations Qantas will most likely choose the B737-800.
Qantas are planning this operation carefully as it does not want to effect its domestic operations, but wants to impact Virgin Blues share in the market which is nearly one third of the domestic at the present time, Virgin is expecting its float by the end of the year but due to this announcement it could be delayed till the first half of 2004.
Qantas CEO appointed Allan Joyce Executive General Manager of the new low cost airline along with a small team including some former senior executives from the successful Ryanair will help establish the airline by the proposed date.
For now Qantas will operate in the domestic market as normal making not changes to schedules relating to the new lost airline at the moment.
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October 18, 2003 at 12:41 pm