BONZA AIRLINES: Starts selling tickets ahead of first flight next Tuesday 31 January 2023

Finally! Bonza is to commence flying after it was granted its Air Operator Certificate by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) on January 12.

Originally proclaimed to be the middle of 2022, and then delayed, delayed and delayed, Bonza will fly one of its first (controversial) 737-MAXs – hopefully ‘Shazza’ between the Sunshine Coast (Maroochydore) and the Whitsunday Coast (Proserpine Airport) scheduled at 8 am on Tuesday 31 January. Bonza will be the first airline to fly the MAXs in Australia.

If you want to book for inaugural flight AB777 – sorry, sold out. Oh, and that 777 is part of the name of Bonza Airlines backers – 777 Partners in the USA.

Download App

You will need to download the App – and if you downloaded the previous app, you will need to delete it and download the new one (Apple App Store or Google Play Store) before you can book flights.

Destinations

Bonza is starting local, with only Queensland flights from 2 main destinations, at great prices, but at less than daily frequencies:

From Sunshine Coast:

• Albury: from $69 one way, 2 flights/week
• Avalon: from $79 one way, 3 flights/week
• Cairns: from $79 one way, 5 flights/week
• Coffs Harbour: from $49 one way, 2 flights/week
• Mackay: from $59 one way, 3 flights/week
• Mildura: from $79 one way, 2 flights/week
• Newcastle: from $59 one way, 4 flights/week
• Port Macquarie:from $49 one way, 2 flights/week
• Rockhampton: from $49 one way, 3 flights/week
• Townsville: from $69 one way, 4 flights/week
• Whitsunday Coast: from $59 one way, 3 flights/week

In addition:

• Cairns <> Rockhampton: from $59 one way, 2 flights/week
• Cairns <> Mackay: from $49 one way, 2 flights/week
• Newcastle <> Whitsunday Coast: from $79 one way, 2 flights/week
• Rockhampton <> Townsville: from $49 one way, 3 flights/week

Next

Bonza is set to service a total of 17 destinations, including 13 from its Queensland bas on the Sunshine Coast, including Cairns, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Mackay, Rockhampton, Toowoomba, and Townsville.

After next week’s first flight, Bonza’s will roll out its current schedule from February 14 when it will start flights to Mackay, followed by Avalon on February 21. Flights to Newcastle commence on March 28 with Albury, Coffs Harbour, Mildura, Port Macquarie routes to begin in April.

Flights are open for booking through until October 2023.

2PAXfly Takeout

Call me a snob, but other than for the purposes of review for this blog, I am unlikely to use this low-budget airline. On the other hand, they will make some routing possible that hasn’t been available before, so maybe I will eat my words.