He is too unassuming and goal-focused to dwell on titles. But Tim Jordan could very well prove to be a colossus of the aviation industry and a cape-less little Aussie hero to millions of prospective regional passengers.
When Australia’s only independent low-cost airline fired up the engines on its first commercial flight – AB 777 from the Sunshine Coast to Whitsunday Coast – on Tuesday, January 31, the quietly spoken Bonza CEO took his 12A window seat on the port side.
It was a telling example of his overarching philosophy on flight: that air travel shouldn’t be just for the “high-flyers” in the first rows.
Mr Jordan believes the joy of flying – the places it takes us and the connections it creates – should be available to everyone everywhere at affordable prices.
After securing his bag in the overhead locker and then fastening his seatbelt, he could have been forgiven for a brief, inner sigh of relief as he finally delivered on the dream – one that began 14 years ago with an epiphany in his own backyard, just south of Coffs Harbour.
“I stepped on to the veranda at Urunga and looked skywards and realised that most people couldn’t afford to get on the aircraft I’d just seen fly overhead,” he told media, politicians and invited guests about to fill the first 186 seats on the plane nicknamed “Bazza”, waiting on the Sunshine Coast Airport tarmac.
“So, 14 years in the making, out the back of the garage, and we’re here today and I’m really, really pleased that on behalf of Team Bonza, that we’re able to bring flying within the reach of the many and not the few.
“We look at an airline seat as the ultimate perishable item.
“As soon as that aircraft pushes back, that’s a lost opportunity.
“So, we will be aiming to use as many seats on board as we possibly can because even if it’s $10 or $20 that somebody gives us, that’s $10 or $20 that we won’t otherwise have.
“That’s our business model and we think that’s great for the wider community as well.”
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The Bonza tagline of “Here for Allstralia” will see the first 27 routes gradually rolled out to a total of 17 destinations through the eye-catching purple and white livery and “thumbs up” logo of the regional airline fleet.
The partnership with Sunshine Coast Airport is destined to bring an additional 772,000 seats into the region and generate more than $86 million in visitor expenditure over the next year alone.
It’s no wonder Sunshine Coast Airport CEO Andrew Brodie is giving Bonza a big thumbs up.
His airport services a community of a million people – stretching from Bundaberg, to north of Brisbane, and three hours west – who will now be able to travel to many regional destinations for the first time by air.
“For the first time ever, they’re going to be connected with their family and friends, to business, and we’re going to bring high-value tourism directly into this region and that’s what’s really exciting,” Mr Brodie told Tuesday’s media conference in the international wing of the terminal.
“Never in anyone’s career have they had the opportunity to base 800,000 seats in one hit out of one port that has only ever served three destinations.
“We will now service 13 destinations on the back of the Bonza tail. It’s phenomenal. Ten of them have never been serviced at the Sunshine Coast.”
Bonza was flying in the face of sceptics in the beginning. And the concept still sounds too good to be true to some, judging by the number of repetitive media questions about the long-term sustainability of Bonza’s fares.
Those fares start from $49 per person one way from the Sunshine Coast to regional centres including Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and Rockhampton.
But Mr Jordan, the boardshorts-wearing executive, doesn’t have his head in the clouds. He knows the sums add up.
For starters, there’s the fleet of new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that burn 15 per cent to 20 per cent less fuel than the 737s and other mid-size jets flying around Australia today.
“That gives us a fantastic advantage,” he said.
Then there’s other cost savings including an app-first strategy (in addition to booking through local travel agents) that improves on-board communications with customers and also delivers food and drink on demand in a digitalised service, greatly reducing wastage (as well as doing away with cumbersome trolleys in the aisle).
It’s another reason a future “frequent flyer program” is unlikely.
“We’re low-frequency, leisure-focused, so some of those bells and whistles that are associated with business carriers, that’s not for us,” Mr Jordan said.
“All of those things cost money and if anything adds cost to our business, that’s somebody’s airfare going up. We don’t want to do that.
“Those fares which are actually on sale, they’re not sale fares. They’re our regular fares.
“And they are the starting fares, so not every seat is available at those levels but a good number are.
“The business model works if we offer low fares.
“The rest of the world shows us that. That’s what we’ve done before, many of us (who have worked for a successful low-cost carrier).
“That’s what we’re doing here and bringing to Australia. Australia is playing catch-up.”
And the initial response is more than encouraging. Prospective passengers are already embracing the first start-up airline in 16 years (the last was budget airline Tigerair Australia, which officially ceased operations in 2020 after 13 years).
“We started sales on Friday, essentially late morning into lunchtime. I’m pleased to say that we’ve already sold well in excess of 10,000 seats,” Mr Jordan said.
“To put that into perspective, that’s all of our capacity that we had for February and most of March.
“I’m not saying that you can’t get seats in February or March … but that just gives you a scale as to how warm and how positively many, many communities and regional centres have actually received us.
“There’s pent-up demand and we’re looking to fill that and we’re looking to get people flying.”
With investors 777 Partners, Mr Jordan knows he is only at the starting line but his sights are firmly set on powering towards “changing the aviation environment for the better, for the many – so, so many – and not just the few”.
“We have utmost confidence in terms of being able to actually offer the fare levels which are out there on a sustainable, long-term basis,” he said.
“This business model is about getting people flying who currently don’t fly, or people who are potentially flying via an intermediate point, flying non-stop.
“That’s what we want to do, especially post-COVID. We want to fly non-stop. We don’t want to connect.”
And that’s part of the reason Bonza chose the two-character airline code of AB.
“We fly under a code of AB. A-B. That’s what we’re about. We’re about getting you from where you live to where you want to go. And home again,” Mr Jordan said.
While Sunshine Coast Airport’s new $334 million, 2450m-long international-standard runway will now accommodate flights to all ports in Australia as well as Asia and the western Pacific, Bonza is taking things one step at a time.
“There is no predetermined position we’re looking to,” Mr Jordan said.
“We’ve all seen, especially in the aviation industry, a predetermined strategy that can sometimes end in a fairly ugly way for lots of reasons.
“The market’s going to tell us how large and how significant we can be in the Australian market.
“We will listen to that market and we will grow accordingly.
“We believe there is just so much domestic market opportunity. There truly is. So, that’s our 100 per cent focus at this time.”
Attention now turns towards getting the Melbourne base up and running.
“We are taking delivery of two additional aircraft: one next month and one the month after,” Mr Jordan said.
“That allows us to actually get started on our Melbourne base, which is nine routes – seven of them currently unserved by other airlines.
“So, again, (focusing on) unserved markets or under-served markets.
“We’re looking forward to doing that and putting those routes on sale in the coming weeks.”
Sydney has a conspicuous absence among the current routes planned.
But the reason comes back to maintaining the fare structure.
“We can’t say we’re here for ‘all of Australia’ and not service markets like Sydney,” Mr Jordan said.
“We actually have an airport cost structure which allows us to offer the wonderful fares that you’ll see and we need that to be able to expand to other airports around the country.
“We look at all of Australia as where we’d like to go, as where our customers would like us to go.
“Today’s a great first step and we’d dearly love to get into other locations with the right cost basis.
“In terms of Sydney Airport, I guess any city which is just served by one airport has issues in that regard.
“They’re not as keen to come to the table maybe as other locations or maybe they don’t see the opportunity.
“The Melbourne Airport team stepped forward.
“Nine routes initially. Seven of them unserved by any other airline.
“Now if Melbourne can do that, I’m sure there’s a hole there somewhere for Sydney to realise that we can offer something different in that particular market.
“So, we’re quite enthusiastic about Sydney but it has to be at the right pricing.”
At the start of Tuesday’s festivities, which included a long table lunch on the sands of Airlie Beach for the entire plane (including the five paying customers who snapped up the final remaining seats), Mr Jordan greeted the crowd with: “Welcome to an historic day for Australian aviation – it really is a game-changing day for Australian aviation”.
And we’re beginning to believe him.
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