Looking for new pilots: Bonza blames cancellations on industrywide shortage

Panoramic field in the Clare Valley, South Australia
Edited by Travel Weekly


Bonza says the recent increase in cancellations is mainly due to a pilot shortage in the industry.

The budget airline cancelled 4 per cent of its flights since February.

While Bonza has said the cancellation rate is too high, it’s still below that of other airlines such as Jetstar with a reported cancellation rate of around 8 per cent.

Bonza is the solo operator on many of its routes, so cancellations often have a bigger impact on travellers with no alternative airlines available.

The ACCC recently ruled the airline industry lacked competitiveness, airfares remained too high and cancellations too frequent.

In its June report, Bonza reported a cancellation figure of just 0.5 per cent for April.

Bonza chief commercial officer Carly Povey said she was aware of the impact an unreliable service could have on the future of the airline.

“People love our brand new planes, all-Aussie menu and cabin crew legends (but) we also know that in the past couple of months, not everyone has had a good experience with Bonza and we need to stare directly into why that is,” she said.

“We’ve recently been challenged with crew shortages due to our pilot training program being behind schedule.

“We’ve also had aircraft out of action for additional maintenance checks following unforeseeable events like bird strikes and weather.

“All of this has led to regrettable cancellations for customers including seven flights that have been cancelled in future dates in July,” Povey said in a statement.

“Clearly training is dependent on flying and sadly there is a direct correlation between the two issues.”.

“We are accelerating our pilot training program, undertaking ongoing recruitment to allow additional standby crew and to use spare aircraft capacity where it is available.”

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