Membership plan to cut Skybus fares

Press, 7 October 1980, Page 3

Membership plan to cut Skybus fares

PHILIP WORTHINGTON

By

The promise of the Skybus service (details, front page) is to please the ordinary man in the street, to allow him to travel more cheaply and more conveniently through the Aqua Avia Society than by other means of air travel.

The society is set up under the Industrial and Provident Society Act, so there are no proprietary shareholders and all benefits are retained by the society for all members.

Membership will be in two forms, a life membership ($150) and a five-year term membership ($75), and membership will be limited to 80,000. According to one of the founding directors, Mr W. M. B. Thompson, the venture will get off the ground with fewer than 20,000 members. That number at the top rate of $l5O would provide $3 million, against the $9.75 million he quoted as a starting figure to get the proposal airborne.

Skybus air fares to all foundation life members will be one-third less than the current air fare being charged for the equivalent flight by the State-owned airline. Term members will be eligible for a 25 per cent reduction. This was later qualified by Mr Thompson when asked what would happen if the "State-owned airline" embarked on a price war. He said the pledge could not be a "complete all-time pledge” but would have to come within sensible business practice. Social benefits offered by the societv included free air travel for' all life members aged 75 or more, and halffare travel for all life_ members over, the age of 65. Student and apprentice members would be accorded a half-fare standby, and in the instance of a family of whom all were members, the

first would be eligible for the normal discount rate and the second adult and subsequent immediate family members — up to a limit of six — would fly at half fare. Mr Thompson said also that membership of the society would result in a 20 per cent reduction on rental car hire and that negotiations were under way to achieve discounts for members with an as yet unspecified hotel chain.

The aircraft, he said, would be obtained on a fiveyear lease. Ordinary line maintenance would be done at Christchurch, major work at Hong Kong. Pilots and aircrew would be New Zealanders and the venture would create about 315 new jobs in the aviation industry in New Zealand. The service on the main trunk would not be a stripped-out, “bring-your-own-lunch” one, he said. Morning flights would provide a Continental breakfast, brunch flights would provide an open sandwich with coffee, tea, or even wine if a licence was .approved, and evening flights would provide hot savouries with coffee, tea, or wine. Seating would be in two classes on the DCS aircraft — 130 economy seats, which would be eligible for the lower fares, and 16 firstclass seats, which would cost about the same as The Air New; Zealand fare.

The DCS, in which all seats would be economy’ class, would service Dunedin and Palmerston North as well as Christchurch and Wellington. A proposed timetable for the initial main trunk service had been drawn up. Under it, there would be six flights in and six flights out of Christchurch each day heading to Wellington, Auckland, or Palmerston North, and one flight each day in and out of Christchurch for Dunedin. Once the feeder services

were begun, these would connect with the main trunk airports and it was envisaged that eventually there would be a service from the four main centres to Kaitaia, Whangarei, Hamilton, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Gisborne, Napier and/or Hastings, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Masterton, Blenheim, Nelson, Westport, Greymouth, Timaru, Oamaru, and Invercargill.