While flights to and from Denpasar airport in Bali have been grounded this morning—due to rising volcanic ash that has peppered the skies for almost an entire bloody month, now—flights servicing spontaneous, cheap vacays to the Indonesian island will soon welcome another budget competitor in Australia, as Tigerair is set to take on some of Virgin Australia‘s routes to Indonesia.
Virgin Australia is ditching its Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne routes to Bali, as well as cutting its route from Perth – Phuket, after suffering losses of $68 million + in its international market, according to the Australian Financial Review.
In Virgin’s domestic market, however, there were huge increases, with the airline raking in $111 million (before taxes) on flights within Australia in the past year – representing an increase on the 2013-2014 period of over $200 million. Did such an increase occur purely by bribing tourist sheeple with free sandwiches and free baggage on flights? Free shit sells.
From March next year, Tigerair will take on Virgin’s Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne routes – offering a budget competitor to Jetstar’s relative monopoly on the market.
Virgin’s flights to Phuket from Perth will not be replaced by Tigerair. The Boeing 737s used on those four routes won’t gather dust in the hangars, however: planes previously deployed to Bali and Phuket will be redirected to service routes between Sydney/Melbourne and New Zealand. Sweet az, bro.
Pitting budget airlines against each other, effectively encouraging even cheaper beelines to endless Bintang than ever before?
If anybody needs me.
via AFR.
Lead image by Jerry Redfern via Getty.
