Corporate Travel Analysis Reports

The best thing, from an industry point of view, regarding today's shock security news is that technology should quickly catch up with the challenge that has now been raised.

Jetstar Airways is returning to the Vietnamese market in May-2017 with a daily 787 service to Vietnam. The Qantas Group is betting the market has expanded sufficiently since its initial attempt at long haul low cost flights to Australia in 2006 to 2008 flights but potential overcapacity in the Australia-Vietnam market could pose a challenge.

Nauru Airlines, the tiny South Pacific flag carrier, has had to adopt a flexible and innovative strategy to survive, establishing its own maintenance company and travel agency. The airline, which relies heavily on the Australian market, is now starting to look at renewing its ageing fleet of 737-300 Classics. It has had a varied history, but is now reverting to a model where it offers a service for some of the smaller islands, as well as offering a mim-hub operation for central Pacific tourism.

Malindo Air's Kuala Lumpur-Perth service, which has been operating since Nov-2015, has been an experiment of sorts for the Lion Group in Australia. Lion previously never operated any services to Australia but has long held aspirations to offer several routes to Australia from both Indonesia and Malaysia as well as potentially launch a domestic Australian airline.

InterContinental Hotel Group and Mulpha Australia Ltd have recently announced (22-Feb-2017) a proposed major renovation of the InterContinental Sydney hotel which is expected to exceed AUD200 million.

Qantas has unveiled its new premium economy seat, which will debut on the airline's fleet of Boeing 787-9 aircraft from Oct-2017.

Premium Economy on the 787-9 Dreamliner will feature a separate cabin of 28 seats, configured in a two-three-two layout.

Sydney's second airport is notable for being probably the only topic on which there has been multi-party agreement for nearly five decades - that is, consistently to do nothing.

Jetstar has been included in New Zealand's All-of-Government Air Travel Services panel for the first time, and hopes to pick up a slice of the lucrative NZD220 million annual market. But all eyes are now on Air New Zealand, which didn't make it onto the panel and is still in negotiations with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.

The panel for the 10-year supply of air services to the New Zealand Government and all its agencies, commencing on 01-Mar-2017, consists of:

As Cathay Pacific is being forced to undergo a competitive metamorphosis, it is exploring all options. The latest example is an expected announcement of a new Cathay Pacific route from Hong Kong to Christchurch in New Zealand's South Island. The service is expected to be seasonal (for the New Zealand summer), and is only Cathay's second seasonal long haul route after the Jan-2017 announcement of northern summer service to Barcelona.

New Zealand is a small network component for Cathay but one of its last strongholds, due to a joint venture with Air New Zealand. The New Zealand government reluctantly extended approval for the JV despite Cathay and Air NZ reneging on an offer to use it to link Hong Kong with Christchurch, as well as Auckland. This would thereby have extended the JV to benefit more of New Zealand - a sensitive local matter based on the assertion that Auckland was receiving disproportionate air service benefit.

Tourism Australia has reported 8.3 million international arrivals to Australia in 2016, an increase of 11% year-on-year.