MALAYSIA: Malindo Goes To Adelaide

Malindo Air has made Adelaide (ADL), destination for this year’s World Routes, its fourth Australian gateway, launching a four times weekly service from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) via Denpasar (DPS) to the city.

The carrier is already present in Australia with flights to Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane. Launched 16 April from Kuala Lumpur, the carrier will serve the tri-city route using its fleet of 737-800s.

Competition on the 5,688-kilometre connection between Kuala Lumpur and Adelaide comes from Malaysia Airlines. The oneworld member already serves the airport pair five times weekly using its fleet of A330-300s.

The 3,764-kilometre sector between Denpasar and Adelaide is also served by another operator, with Jetstar Airways offering a daily rotation between the two destinations at present.

Malindo Air has added a fourth destination in Australia following the arrival of the Malaysia-based carrier’s inaugural service to Adelaide.

Flight OD173, operated by Boeing 737-800 9M-LCD, touched down in Adelaide a little after 0600 local time Wednesday morning and was greeted by an Airservices Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) monitor cross as it taxied to the terminal building.

The aircraft was on the ground for about two hours before operating the reciprocal OD174 to Denpasar (Bali), following some celebrations at the boarding gate. The flight then continues onward to Kuala Lumpur.

Malindo Air chief executive Chandran Rama Muthy, who was on the inaugural flight into Adelaide, said there had been a good response to the service since ticket sales began three weeks ago.

“I see the demand as solid from Adelaide to Bali and Kuala Lumpur,” Muthy told Australian Aviation in an interview on Wednesday.

“The Australian market is really good for us. We use Bali as our intermediate hub before flying into Kuala Lumpur, mainly because our aircraft needs refuelling.”

“We found that Bali is another good destination for Australians so why not use Bali as a transit hub.”

Further, the Adelaide route also offered good connections from Kuala Lumpur to Malindo’s Asian network, which stretches north to Japan and west to countries such as India and Sri Lanka.

“We have a great range of connecting destinations from Kuala Lumpur and also from Bali,” Muthy said.

“From Kuala Lumpur you can connect to about 57 destinations.”

Adelaide Airport managing director Mark Young the airport was excited to have Malindo Air at Adelaide.

“Malindo Air will also be the first carrier since 2016 to offer a Business Class product directly between Adelaide and Bali,” Young said in a statement.

“This service provides South Australian passengers with more choice when heading to two of our most popular destinations, and also creates opportunities to attract South East Asian visitors to our city and local attractions.”

Malindo Air will operate four Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar-Adelaide flights a week with a mix of 737-800s and 737-900s featuring business and economy class seats.

Currently, Malaysia Airlines offers nonstop flights between Adelaide and Kuala Lumpur, while Qantas’s low-cost carrier (LCC) Jetstar is on the Adelaide-Denpasar route.

Malindo Air, which is part of Indonesia’s Lion Air group of carriers, started serving Australia in November 2015 when it began nonstop flights from Kuala Lumpur to Perth.

It added Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar-Brisbane and Kuala Lumpur-Denpasar-Melbourne services in March 2017 and June 2018, respectively.

All routes are served with either Boeing 737-800 or 737-900s in a two-class configuration. The airline has fifth freedom traffic rights for all it one-stop flights from Kuala Lumpur to Australia via Denpasar.

Muthy said he hoped to start flights between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, again via Denpasar, in the second half of the year.

“We are still waiting for one final regulatory approval from the Malaysian civil aviation authority,” Muthy said. “Once that is sorted out, then we will announce the date and start operating the flight.”

“Hopefully we can catch the June school holidays. That would be great. We’ll see how it goes.”

As aviation thinktank CAPA – Centre for Aviation noted in a recent research report, Malindo is utilising the available capacity to serve Australia from Bali under the Indonesia-Malaysia air services agreement.

The bilateral allows Malaysian carriers to operate a maximum of 28 flights a week between Bali and Australia, and a maximum of seven frequencies per Australian destination.

Should Sydney launch with a daily service, that would mean Malindo would operate a total of 22 of the 28 available weekly Bali-Australia flights – four flights a week to Adelaide and Brisbane, as well daily services to Melbourne and Sydney – leaving only six frequencies for other airlines.

CAPA chief analyst Brendan Sobie said the expansion of Malindo in this part of the world has led to an intensifying of competition in the Australia-Bali market.

“Bali remains a popular and growing destination for Australians. As competition intensifies the fares will likely come down, stimulating further demand,” Sobie said in his March 19 2019 research note.

Jetstar could drive a new phase of growth as it starts to take delivery of A321neoLRs, some of which are earmarked for Australia-Bali routes, in 2020.

“The return of AirAsia X could have an even bigger impact, but bilateral constraints will need to be resolved.”

Muthy said Malindo would remain a narrowbody operator for the foreseeable future.

“I’m quite concerned to expand into widebody because the cost of operations is totally different than narrowbody,” Muthy said.

“We don’t want to take the risk of competing head to head with the national carrier and also the other carrier, fighting for market share.”


Tourism Observer

FRANCE: Air France And Qantas Re Establish Codeshare Agreement

Qantas and Air France have renewed its codesharing agreement on May 23, offering further connectivity between Europe and Australia via Asia.

Flights are available to book from June 5 for travel starting July 20, 2018.

Air France will add its flight codes to Qantas Flights between Hong Kong, and Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane as well as between Singapore (SIN) and Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

The French carrier’s customers will also be able to access codesharing services from Sydney to five cities across Australia’s domestic network: Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide, Cairns, and Darwin.

In return, Qantas will add its code to flights operated by Air France between Singapore, Hong Kong, and Paris-CDG, as a continuation of connections between Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth.

The new agreement will let the two carriers come together and codeshare onto as many as 200 flights per week.

Air France’s eligible customers can also use the Qantas lounged in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia.

Likewise, Qantas’ eligible customers are now able to use Air France lounges in Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

We are very pleased to be re-establishing a partnership with Qantas, said Patrick Alexandre, EVP Commercial Sales, and Alliances at Air France-KLM.

Thanks to this agreement, the Air France-KLM group will be able to offer one of the best possible travel solutions for its customers from Europe to Australia, he added.

This new cooperation confirms our group’s desire to expand in the Asia-Pacific region, said Alexandre.

Alison Webster, CEO of Qantas, added that “this is great news for our customers who want to travel to Europe via Asia, giving them another option to get to Paris and more opportunities to earn Frequent Flyer Points.”

Despite the fact that Qantas and Air France are members of different alliances, the opportunity to earn miles on these codeshare flights is now possible.

The return of this popular codeshare delivers on our strategy of partnering to provide customers with access to an expanded network and more seamless travel experiences wherever they want to fly, Alison Webster says.

With the carrier recently expanding its presence out of London with direct flights to Perth on its brand-new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, Europe is finally at direct reach for the Australian carrier.

Through this codeshare with Air France, Australian customers will now have a more seamless experience.


Tourism Observer

AUSTRALIA: Kuwait's Action Hotels To Build $69m, 317 Room Melbourne hotel

Kuwait-based Action Hotels has agreed a deal to develop its latest property in Australia, a $69 million four-star hotel at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Action Hotels said it had secured a 92-year lease on a plot of land at the exhibition centre on which to develop the new hotel.

The hotel will comprise 317 rooms and 14 apartments, making it the second largest hotel in Action’s portfolio, the company said.

It is its fourth property in Australia and third in Melbourne, and comes six months after the opening of Action’s Ibis Styles Elizabeth Street hotel in Brisbane in March.

The hotel is expected to open in the first quarter of 2018 and the total project cost is $69 million, which Action said it would fund partially through a new debt facility for the project and partially through existing resources.

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is the largest convention centre in the southern hemisphere and accommodates more than 5,500 delegates.

Action said hotel demand in Melbourne continues to outperform supply but the majority of hotel accommodation in the city is upscale or above, leaving a gap in the market for its own brand of midscale accommodation.

Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah, founder and Chairman of Action Hotels, said: The hotel is ideally positioned in an attractive market with extremely positive fundamentals and rising demand, in a location that is currently underserved by midscale hotels.

Action Hotels operates in Europe, the Middle East and Australia and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

AUSTRALIA: AccorHotels Takes 15 Australian Hotels

AccorHotels has reached a new agreement for the restructuring of its Australian portfolio, which will include the acquisition of 15 ibis hotels in the country.

Under the terms of the deal with a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the European hotel group’s real estate unit, HotelInvest, will acquire 15 ibis and ibis Budget properties comprising almost 1,600 rooms for a total of AU$200 million (US$145m). The agreement includes hotels in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne, as well as two airport hotels.

In addition, AccorHotels has agreed long-term management agreements for 16 of its Australian hotels. These include ibis, ibis Styles, Mercure, Novotel and Pullman properties with a combined inventory of more than 2,500 rooms. The new contracts will run for 50 years.

“This deal is in line with our stated strategy to optimise cash flow generation, reduce earnings volatility and restructure lease contracts into owned and managed hotels,” said John Ozinga, chief operating officer of HotelInvest. “The acquisition of the economy hotels in key locations is a signal of our continued focus on supporting the Group’s growth strategy by holding a selective portfolio of profitable hotel property assets.”

The agreement involves a portfolio which was purchased by the ADIA subsidiary in 2013.

NEW ZEALAND: Free Wi-Fi To Lure Tourists To The Sunshine State

An LNP state government would use free Wi-Fi to lure tourists to the Sunshine State in a move the Labor government said was a direct rip-off of a Brisbane City Council program.

Announcing the policy in Cairns on Thursday, Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls said if elected, the LNP would provide funding for 500 Wi-Fi hotspots so tourists could brag to their mates back home about their Queensland holiday.

The LNP would commit $3 million over three years to the program to install Wi-Fi hotspots at key tourism destinations across the state "so tourists can easily connect to the internet", Mr Nicholls said.

"Tourism organisations will be asked to develop a digital and social media marketing campaign to encourage tourists to use the Wi-Fi hotspots to spread the word to the world," Mr Nicholls said.

The Wi-Fi hotspots would be established through grants to councils which would be responsible for setting up the network.

Mr Nicholls said Queensland had an amazing range of unique natural and man-made tourism assets.

"A recent example of this was a post about the Cardwell natural spa pools which was shared on social media more than 7300 times and seen by more than 130,000 people," he said.

Opposition tourism spokesman Jon Krause said the sector had gone backwards over the past two years.

But acting Tourism Minister Grace Grace has accused the LNP of rehashing a Brisbane City Council idea and questioned Mr Nicholls' maths.

"He's using a cut price version of Brisbane City Council's policy," Ms Grace said.

"Even the terms and conditions are identical to BCC's terms and conditions, word for word.

"Not only did he choose to announce the ill-thought-out plan at Cairns Esplanade where there is already free Wi-Fi, he's seriously fudged the numbers."

Ms Grace said the council's plan committed $2 million for 20 parks at $100,000 per hotspot, while Mr Nicholls committed $3 million for 500 hotspots at $6000 each.

Ms Grace said tourism was booming in Queensland despite the LNP's claims.

But the council has hit back at Ms Grace's comments, saying her claims were incorrect.

A council spokesman said it delivered 250 free wireless access points in the CBD, South Bank, Fortitude Valley, James St and Caxton St, as well as 22 parks within the $1.1 million budget allocated in 15/16.

"That equates to an average of around $4000 for one hotspot, not $100,000 as claimed," the council spokesman said.

The announcement comes after recent accusations from Labor that the LNP and Mr Nicholls were not developing and releasing policies.

Last month, Treasurer Curtis Pitt accused Mr Nicholls of being "too lazy to develop anything resembling an economic policy let alone a comprehensive economic plan".

Local Government Association of Queensland president Mark Jamieson said the LNP's pledge would help ensure the tourism industry had the right tools available to attract visitors.

"This announcements could lead to tourist operators and other local businesses using Wi-Fi to attract visitors to new opportunities, like receiving advice that seats have just become available at a local show and at a reduced rate," he said.

"Councils could also use Wi-Fi infrastructure to better inform tourists and local residents about other community announcements such as road condition warnings or storms."

Domestic Tourists Love The Coast

THE latest tourism snapshot has painted a positive picture for the Fraser Coast, with the destination more than doubling Queensland's overall growth in domestic visitors.

The National Visitor Statistics for the year ending March 2016 show a 21% increase in domestic travellers to the Fraser Coast to 619,000, compared with Queensland's overall growth of 9%.

Visitors from Brisbane and regional Queensland led the charge with interstate visitation growing 20% to 468,000.

Brisbane's fondness of the region was evident with it being the largest single source market accounting for 158,000 travellers, although this was 7% down on the corresponding period last year.

Interstate visitation grew 24% to 151,000 with the bulk of the travellers coming from Sydney and Melbourne.

Overall, visitor nights totalled 2.5 million, which was a decrease of 6%.

Fraser Coast Opportunities interim general manager Leigh Bennett said the report reinforced the strong interest in visiting the Fraser Coast with tremendous growth in overall numbers.

"Already the caravans are arriving from the south which means we are into the winter months which are a fantastic time for tourism on the Fraser Coast," he said.

"The humpbacks will soon be here so the Fraser Coast region can embrace its place as a world-leading whale watch destination."

NEW ZEALAND: Airbnb In New Zealand

The number of Airbnb listings in New Zealand has doubled to more than 15,000 with hosts earning on average $3800 a year.

The home sharing company says that while this may not sound like a lot, the impact can often be "life changing."

It says they use this income to help pay off their mortgage, pay the bills and afford groceries.

Airbnb today revealed the average host age in New Zealand is 47 years old and almost half are over 50.

New Zealand hosts rented out their houses or rooms for an average of 26 to 27 nights a year. They were evenly split between entire houses and single rooms in a property.

There are around 4000 listings in Auckland and the most popular suburbs in Auckland are: Auckland Central, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Newmarket and Mount Eden.

The top five international markets Airbnb travellers to New Zealand originate from are Sydney, Melbourne, London, Singapore and Brisbane.

The top five destinations New Zealanders are travelling to on Airbnb are London, Melbourne, New York, Paris and Sydney.

Airbnb has listings in 191 countries and over 34,000 cities around the world and there are more than two million Airbnb listings worldwide.

Since the company was founded in 2008, there have been over 80 million guest arrivals at Airbnb listings worldwide.

Bloomberg reports Airbnb has secured a US$1 billion debt facility from some of the largest US banks to help grow even more.

The financing gives Airbnb more money to spend on global growth strategies and expansion beyond home-sharing. The San Francisco-based company is building add-on travel services

Overseas and in this country its running big advertising campaigns to recruit more hosts.

While Airbnb hasn't announced plans for an imminent initial public offering, investment banks often arrange debt facilities for successful private companies in hopes of building relationships to win future business like underwriting an IPO. Facebook got an US$8 billion package of financing from a group of banks in 2012, some of which helped take the social network operator public two months later.

Airbnb, last valued at US$25.5 billion, has watched Uber raise more than $11 billion in cash and debt. That number could climb by at least $1 billion when Uber, worth almost $68 billion, closes its latest debt financing.

The Airbnb data comes as the hotel industry says 2015 was an exceptional year for properties in New Zealand.

Tourism Industry Aotearoa's 140 member hotels which enjoyed an average 78.8 per cent occupancy in 2015, up 3.1 points on 2014, TIA Hotel Sector Manager Sally Attfield says.

This was the highest occupancy rate in five years.

The average daily rate (across all star grades) rose to $157, up $12 on the previous year, and also a five year high. This generated total revenue of $1.17 billion, up from $1.05 billion in 2014.

The strong performance is a result of improvements in the New Zealand economy and an increase in international visitor arrivals. New Zealand welcomed more than 3.1 million visitors in 2015 - 9.6 per cent more than in 2014.

PHILIPPINES: Philippine Airlines Now Flying To Auckland

The new flights will operate four times a week from the home base of Philippine Airlines in Manila to Auckland, with an intermediate stop in the Australian resort city of Cairns, using a 156-seater Airbus A320 aircraft.

Late night Flights leave Manila on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at 2315, with a scheduled arrival in Auckland at 1630 the next day. The return flights leave Auckland in the evening on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 1930 and arrive Manila at 0330 the next day.

Auckland is PAL’s 38th international destination and the airline continues to expand its presence in the region with another new service starting 18 December from Manila to Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. PAL also has regular services to Darwin, Brisbane and Melbourne.

More and more passengers are choosing to fly with Philippine Airlines as their unique combination of competitive fares and friendly on-board service makes them a great alternative to flying with heavily advertised airlines whose services depend upon connections through airports in the Gulf region.

We recommend giving Philippine Airlines a try next time you are heading down south

AUSTRALIA: JETGO Australia Arrives In Avalon

Long-time coming. After many setbacks, including a last minute airport swap and its launch aircraft going tech, JETGO Australia gets its second route from Dubbo launched, with thrice-weekly operations to Melbourne Avalon.
Avalon

JETGO Australia has launched its second route from Dubbo (DBO) this week, commencing thrice-weekly operations to Melbourne Avalon (AVV). The ERJ 135-operated service was originally intended to operate into Melbourne, but had to be switched to Avalon before the launch due to a lack of space at the bigger airport.

The new route faces no direct competition and has allowed for the airline to increase its existing Dubbo-Brisbane operation up to six times weekly (except Saturdays).

AUSTRALIA: Jetstar Airways Starts Townsville To Denpasar Route

This way to paradise. CEO of Jetstar Australia, David Hall, officially launches direct services to Denpasar from Townsville on 2 September. The route will be flown thrice-weekly.

Jetstar Airways helped Townsville (TSV) make its own little piece of history this week, with the launch on 2 September of the Australian regional airport’s first international service to Denpasar (DPS) in Bali, Indonesia.

This means that the Queensland airport becomes the 11th airport in Australia to currently offer international services (according to OAG schedules) – joining the likes of Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Sunshine Coast, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Perth, Port Hedland and Sydney. The thrice-weekly, 180-seat A320 service, naturally faces no direct competition.