News & Discussion: Adelaide Airport & Airlines

[Ho Really]

Tiger creates 100 jobs as airline expands
TIGER Airways is attempting to fly away from its turbulent past.

The airline announced on Tuesday it is increasing flights and creating 100 new jobs, including 70 in Victoria.

In coming weeks the number of daily Tiger flights will increase from 44 to 64, including a new service departing from Sydney, the company said in a statement.

The recruitment drive is part of a nationwide expansion that includes a new route from Melbourne to Hobart and a Sydney to Brisbane route that will run from Thursday out of the airline's new Sydney base.

Tiger is recruiting for 100 new jobs, including the 70 in Victoria, for captains, first officers, cabin crew, cabin managers, engineering staff and managers.

The airline was previously run out of Victoria's Tullamarine airport, but opened a Sydney base in July.

From September three of the airline's 10 planes will be based out of Sydney.

Tiger will add another aircraft to its fleet shortly.

A spokeswoman said Tiger is keen to reinstate other popular destinations which the airline will announce in due course.

Last July, Tiger's Australian services were suspended for six weeks over safety concerns related to pilot training, safety management and overall safety systems.

The Australian via AAP

Only a matter of time the flying Tiger returns...most probably Adelaide-Melbourne followed at a later date by Sydney and Brissy.

Cheers

[rogue]

MAS to go daily

As per 30JUL12 GDS timetable and inventory display, new changes to planned Malaysia Airlines Winter 2012/13 International operation changes as follows. Additional changes remain possible as usual.

Kuala Lumpur – Adelaide Service increases from 6 weekly to daily, new flight departs KUL on Tuesdays
MH139 KUL2230 – 0815+1ADL 333 D
MH136 ADL1000 – 1510KUL 333 x146
MH138 ADL1430 – 1940KUL 333 146

http://airlineroute.net/2012/07/30/mh-w12update1/

[bm7500]

Adelaide Airport Limited have posted a great new flight planning tool on their website.

You can view it here: http://www.adelaideairport.com.au/air-t ... -route-map

[Splashmo]

Only a matter of time the flying Tiger returns...most probably Adelaide-Melbourne followed at a later date by Sydney and Brissy.

I'm not so sure - they're not on the best terms with the State Government. Besides, don't they still owe us the taxpayers money for not keeping up their end of the contract?

[Ho Really]

Cathay Pacific introduced its new A330 premium economy product on flights to Adelaide today...and of course, Melbourne. We now have joined other illustrious cities as: Sydney, London, New York, Vancouver and Mumbai to have the new cabin.

Cheers

[Stefan P]

Morning all,

Long time reader, 1st time poster....

Singapore Airlines are set to increase to 12 flights a week to Adelaide for 3 periods during the summer months. The periods are fom 17/12/12-22/12/12, 07/01/13- 12/01/13 & 21/1/13- 03/02/13.

SQ279/278 (daylight flight) will remain daily.
SQ277/276 (evening flight) will increase to 5 weekly during the periods above (no Sunday or Thursday flight). Outside these periods it will remain 3 weekly.

More details can be seen in this link... http://airlineroute.net/2012/07/03/sq-adl-w12/

[Ho Really]

QF grip weakens as rivals climb

Qantas’s grip on international passenger traffic from Australia has weakened sharply again as Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Australia all edged closer to the flag carrier.

Latest government figures for May show Qantas Airways market share dipped from 19.2% in 2011 to 18.4%.

Jetstar also saw a slight decline, from 8.2% to 8%.

Singapore Airlines retained its spot as the largest overseas carrier by share, capturing 9.4% of the market, a rise of 0.6 percentage points from last May.

The biggest gain was seen by Virgin Australia whose market share climbed from 6.8% to 8.9%.

Emirates also saw year-on-year growth, rising from 7.7% to 8.3%.

Air New Zealand sits just behind Jetstar, with 7.7% of the market, followed by Cathay Pacific, down 0.2 points to 4.6%, Malaysia Airlines, down one percentage point to 3.6% and Thai Airways, up 0.5 points to 3.6%.

AirAsia X made the top 10 with a market share of 3%, up from 2.4% 12 months ago.

The total number of passengers who travelled to and from Australia in May was 2.097 million, a slight increase of 0.8%.

March 2011 remains the only period since the same month in 2009 to register a decline in monthly passenger traffic.

Travel Today

Cheers

[Maximus]

Nice piece on Adelaide Airport in the paper this morning...

Adelaide Airport capacity growth
The Advertiser, Adelaide
14 Aug 2012, by Stuart Innes
Business Journal, page 1

Mark Young is in charge of a big, diverse business. It has giant premises for a suburban business (785ha), it leases part of that land and leases buildings on it, rents retail space, runs a 2000-space hi-tech carpark, thousands of people come to work there, one of its own buildings, at 750m long, is among the biggest in Adelaide and the business runs 24-7.

Oh, yes: It's also used by air passengers and airlines.

As managing director of Adelaide Airport Ltd, Mark Young is at the helm of a fascinating operation. It's founded on aircraft coming and going. But that means the need to process passengers, which leads to providing those people and their meters and greeters with shops, cafes, bars and souvenirs, and the need for support premises and services such as security, air traffic control, refuelling and freight-forwarding.

Last week, its new carpark was opened not without hiccups in traffic flow but long-awaited. The vast area of land can be used for leasing premises, from aircraft maintenance hangars to discount shoe shops, and a service station to a flatpack furniture store. And all the time, Mr Young and his team meet federal and state regulations, liaise with local government and neighbouring residents, and develop plans to meet future demand.

As a western suburbs boy from Findon High School, Mr Young is at home going to work at Adelaide Airport. "I was attracted to Adelaide Airport by its growth and building infrastructure," he says of joining about 10 years ago before the big T1 passenger terminal was built. "It just happened to be an airport. But it still is a growth site."

He was CFO for nine years before taking over from Phil Baker as managing director late last year. Adelaide Airport Ltd directly employs 130 staff. "But we also have obligations for safety, security, passenger screening and other back-of-house operations, which we outsource to contractors for about 350 workers."

Then there are the land and building lease zones. Burbridge Business Park in the northwest corner of the airport and Export Park in the northeast corner, the Ikea store on the northern side and the Harbour Town retail site on the western boundary of Tapleys Hill Rd, are examples of other companies using airport land. It's estimated 6000 or so people call Adelaide Airport their workplace.

Although there is a curfew on heavy passenger jet take-off or landing from llpm to 6am, the airport virtually runs around the clock. "Airport East is our next stage," he says of land on the perimeter at Netley. "It will have airside access and so be handy for air-freight businesses."

Although renting airport land and buildings is lucrative, AAL has to preserve land and aviation airspace for future growth. Land has to be kept clear for aviation – even a second (parallel) main runway, and one that could go over Tapleys Hill Rd into land the airport already owns west of that road.

Mr Young says AAL is very aware of the potential expansion of the mining industry and the fly-in, fly-out air charter work, and that has begun. But AAL's consideration of adding further aerobridges and gates by expanding T1 won't be just for the mining boom. T1 is fully flexible, so gates and aerobridges can also be used by domestic and international scheduled passenger flights, switching from one hour to the next.

Mr Young sees great potential for growth in international flights through Adelaide. AAL has a person dedicated to chasing down opportunities for more international flights. "Forty per cent of people from South Australia going on international flights are still going out of another airport (such as Melbourne or Sydney)," he says. "Adelaide Airport has the fastest growth of any international airport in Australia; we've had 20 per cent growth in capacity in the past year."

Mr Young knows exactly where he's heading on addressing the problem of higher costs for international airlines landing in Adelaide, many of them not AAL fees but imposed by other agencies such as air traffic control. "The key is to grow the business." He says the fixed costs can be shared more. "The costs per ticket are not all that significant, anyway."

He says the new air traffic control tower is completed and now being fitted with equipment, the new Australian Federal Police building will be ready by the end of September before fit-out and other businesses at the airport are relocating as they grow. "And we are planning the next phase of apron and terminal expansion around a growing (aviation) market," says Mr Young.

[Ho Really]

China Southern Airlines has revealed today it will be launching seasonal flights from Guangzhou to Cairns, via Brisbane, at the end of this year. Cairns becomes CZ's fifth Australian gateway with the carrier planning to operate to seven airports over time. They already fly to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and the above mentioned Brisbane. That leaves two more destinations on their radar...

Cheers

[Ho Really]

[...]

Mr Young sees great potential for growth in international flights through Adelaide. AAL has a person dedicated to chasing down opportunities for more international flights. "Forty per cent of people from South Australia going on international flights are still going out of another airport (such as Melbourne or Sydney)," he says. "Adelaide Airport has the fastest growth of any international airport in Australia; we've had 20 per cent growth in capacity in the past year."

Mr Young knows exactly where he's heading on addressing the problem of higher costs for international airlines landing in Adelaide, many of them not AAL fees but imposed by other agencies such as air traffic control. "The key is to grow the business." He says the fixed costs can be shared more. "The costs per ticket are not all that significant, anyway."

[...]

Thanks for posting this piece Maximus. I don't always get to see (read) the local rag.

I wonder where they'll cut the costs to attract those extra international carriers? Anyway, as mentioned in the article we have a growing market. This has always been my belief too, but my only doubt remains the number of airlines that will come and stay here. Now that Emirates has made the move and with China Southern (see my previous post) eyeing a further two Aussie gateways, I cannot think of another full service airline who'd consider coming here in the next 12-24months. As for low-cost I would still bet on AirAsia X (AirAsia's long-haul carrier) giving us a shot.

Cheers

* There are plenty of other candidates in Asia, such as: Qatar Airways, Etihad, Gulf Air, China Eastern, Air China (PRC), China Airlines (Taiwan), Korean Air, Asiana, Thai Airways, Vietnam Airlines, Garuda, PAL, ANA, SriLankan and Jet Airways, but I don't see any of them flying here in the short to medium term. Thoughts?

[rev]

Garuda maybe. Indonesia remains a popular place for Australian's to visit.
A Bali consortium with Singaporean backing is building a circuit near Denpasar and are in talks with V8 Supercars to host a round there along with possibly Moto GP, so it will remain popular if not become more popular.
Didn't Qatar or Etihad recently start flying out of Perth?

I think our best bet would be Chinese airlines. If more business/economic links can be created, can definitely see increased demand.

[Maximus]

Garuda used to fly to Adelaide, but I think that was dropped sometime after the Bali bombings(?). And, yep, it was Qatar that recently announced it would fly to Perth. No doubt both Qatar and Etihad will at least be watching to see how Emirates goes with Adelaide.

Re China Southern, there's an article in the AFR this morning. No link, but one bit seems to suggest that maybe direct flights to Adelaide aren't in the plans just yet:

Mr Tan said China Southern was looking for an Australian partner so passengers could connect to Australian regions and cities such as Adelaide.

Something else I'd been meaning to mention... Qantas releases full-year results next Thursday. There's a rumour going round that it will announce a withdrawal of all international flights to/from Adelaide and Perth. Not that that would make much of a difference to either airport...

[Ben]

Garuda used to fly to Adelaide, but I think that was dropped sometime after the Bali bombings(?). And, yep, it was Qatar that recently announced it would fly to Perth. No doubt both Qatar and Etihad will at least be watching to see how Emirates goes with Adelaide.

Re China Southern, there's an article in the AFR this morning. No link, but one bit seems to suggest that maybe direct flights to Adelaide aren't in the plans just yet:

Mr Tan said China Southern was looking for an Australian partner so passengers could connect to Australian regions and cities such as Adelaide.

Something else I'd been meaning to mention... Qantas releases full-year results next Thursday. There's a rumour going round that it will announce a withdrawal of all international flights to/from Adelaide and Perth. Not that that would make much of a difference to either airport...

I might be a bit naive on the topic but I didn't realise Qantas did any international flights from Adelaide.

[Maximus]

I might be a bit naive on the topic but I didn't realise Qantas did any international flights from Adelaide.

Boo yah! Exactly -- blink and you'll miss it. There's a token service to Singapore three(?) times per week. It was a triangular route through Sydney, although I think it might now be direct. Not 100% sure.

[Ho Really]

[...]

Re China Southern, there's an article in the AFR this morning. No link, but one bit seems to suggest that maybe direct flights to Adelaide aren't in the plans just yet:

Mr Tan said China Southern was looking for an Australian partner so passengers could connect to Australian regions and cities such as Adelaide.

As you said not just yet, but still in their plans as China Southern's president and chief executive Tan Wangeng said, “We introduce Cairns as our fifth Australian destination and after that we may need time to nurture the local travel market. I think when time is right, Adelaide will be next.” Their seven destination will be Canberra (whenever that happens). Tourism Australia and China Southern signed up a cooperative marketing agreement just recently that included partnership agreements with Destination New South Wales, Tourism Western Australia and Tourism Victoria. Not sure where SA stands, but I can only guess Tourism Australia did its job for the whole country and that China Southern are treading carefully and testing things out as mentioned by Wangeng.

Something else I'd been meaning to mention... Qantas releases full-year results next Thursday. There's a rumour going round that it will announce a withdrawal of all international flights to/from Adelaide and Perth. Not that that would make much of a difference to either airport...

If they do it will be a shocking move...and another step towards the demise of our (inter)national carrier. Granted their international service is only a token one to Singapore (three times a week) compared to others, but they should be doing the reverse and bolstering their services. They should be taking a leaf out of all the other international carriers coming here.

Cheers

Maximus, QANTAS fly direct to/from Singapore: QF81 - QF82.