THE skies over regional Western Australia have become the latest battlefield as service companies fight it out for a slice of the state’s resources boom.
With demand for high frequency jet services on the rise in the lucrative fly-in, fly-out resources segment, Brisbane-based newcomer Strategic Airlines this week became the first to offer a 180-seat Airbus A320 service to WA miners.
Strategic, which has effectively secured aircraft, staff and routes previously held by the failed OzJet group, will offer three return flights between Perth and Derby each week.
The service is effectively underwritten by FIFO contracts with Mt Gibson Iron and HWE Mining, which operate the Koolan Island and Cockatoo Island iron ore mines in the state’s far north. The service will also be open to ordinary commercial travellers and tourists.
Furthermore, the company is planning to bring in a second A320 by the end of March and aims to resume OzJet’s previous Perth-Bali service as early as June, subject to talks now under way with other potential corporate customers and travel agents.
Strategic head of commercial, Damien Vasta, said there was significant scope for growth in WA based on the benefits that its A320 service could offer the resources and tourism sectors.
“We ... believe there is huge opportunity for the type of services we can offer – not only in mining, but in the broader corporate and consumer WA sectors that will reap the flow-on effects of mining growth,” he said.
“What we offer is a greater level of service and greater capacity per flight.”
Strategic’s arrival shapes as a potential threat to established regional operators, such as Skywest, which has said it would begin A320 services within WA in July as the prelude to establishing its own Perth-Bali service.
Mr Vasta said Strategic’s timing was completely unrelated to the plans of rival airlines.
“It’s certainly not about poaching (business). It’s really about trying to supplement capacity ... offering a slightly different product,” he said, while conceding there was clearly a commercial advantage in being the first to offer an A320 service in WA.
