Bonza wiped from departure boards as CEO mulls future

2 weeks ago 7

All flights operated by fund bearer Bonza person been wiped from the country’s departure boards connected Tuesday arsenic the outlook for the country’s smallest hose grows much uncertain.

Passengers attempting to alert from the Sunshine Coast, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Avalon arrived astatine the respective airports connected Tuesday greeting to find their flights had been cancelled.

Bonza brag Tim Jordan apologised to customers successful a connection and said helium was considering the viability of the business.

Bonza main enforcement Tim Jordan apologised to customers successful a connection and said helium was considering the viability of the business, but did not corroborate oregon contradict whether immoderate of its craft had been repossessed arsenic reported by The Australian Financial Review.

“Bonza has temporarily suspended services owed to beryllium operated contiguous (Tuesday April 30) arsenic discussions are nether mode regarding the ongoing viability of the business,” said Jordan.

“We apologise to customers who are impacted by this, and we’re moving arsenic rapidly arsenic imaginable to find a mode guardant that ensures determination is ongoing contention successful the Australian home aviation market.”

Bonza has antecedently denied engaging restructuring steadfast KordaMentha to enactment connected its future.

The hose launched its ambitious program to alert to mostly unserviced parts of Australia with low-cost fares successful January last year. Since then, it has chopped a swathe of routes past twelvemonth owed to a deficiency of request successful an effort to boost reliability connected its much fashionable services.

Bonza’s fleet was primitively owned by its genitor company, 777 Partners, but the backstage equity group’s creditors person since created a caller conveyance which present owns the company’s 30 Max-8 aircraft.

Over the past year, Bonza has been hamstrung by fleet issues, with aggregate Bonza branded planes redirected to 1 of 777 Partners’ different airlines.

Bonza’s fleet of 4 Boeing 737 Max-8s has been struggling to work its way representation and besides cater to aviator grooming requirements. This has resulted successful galore frustrated customers experiencing last-minute cancellations oregon delays, portion aspiring pilots are incapable to implicit their grooming arsenic scheduled.

It is the archetypal high-capacity, low-cost bearer to motorboat successful Australia since now-defunct Virgin subsidiary Tigerair took disconnected 15 years ago. It has positioned itself arsenic a leisure bearer targeting tourism destinations successful determination Australia, alternatively than competing with Qantas oregon Virgin, which work high-frequency routes.

Although it is simply a exemplary that has worked good crossed Europe and Asia, critics person expressed interest Bonza’s operation is unsustainable owed to Australia’s size and tiny population.