Pacific Blue has become the third Australian carrier to request an allocation of additional capacity on the Indonesia route following the recent doubling of available seats under a new bilateral agreement between Indonesia and Australia.
In an application to the International Air Services Commission (IASC), Pacific Blue seeks an additional 2340 seats each week for services between Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth for a period of five years, with the capacity to be fully utilised by October 31 2011. This comes after requests from Qantas for 3898 seats and Strategic Airlines for 1716 seats each week on the Indonesia route, which only has 4000 seats of available capacity.
As a result of the contested applications, the commission has now invited all three applicants to lodge submissions to address how their particular application provides competitive, tourism and consumer benefits. Submissions are due by August 17, after which it will invite submissions from interested parties before making a decision in the coming months.
