A new player has entered the New Zealand aviation market on Friday morning with the launch of Batik Air’s Auckland to Perth service.
The Malaysian airline is part of Indonesia’s Lion Air Group and used to be known as Malindo Air until rebranding earlier this year.
It will fly the route six times a week, with further onward connections to Kuala Lumpur. Using a Boeing 737 MAX 8, the journey will be one of the longest, if not the longest “direct” narrow body flight in the world and will have 12 business and 150 economy seats onboard.
Group Strategy Director of Batik Air and Lion Group, Datuk Chandran Rama Muthy said he is “delighted” that the flights will offer a “myriad of exciting holiday attractions”.
”With the opening of the Kuala Lumpur-Auckland route, we have accomplished a new feat and increased our connection in the Australasia market,” he said.
“We hope that tourists from New Zealand will also take advantage of our reasonable rates and dedicated services to explore Malaysia and beyond, by connecting to one of the other intriguing locations we fly to.”
Auckland Airport chief customer offier Scott Tasker said the new connection reflected growing demand for the Western Australian destination.
“Pre-pandemic around 143,000 people travelled between Auckland and Perth. We’ve seen a really strong recovery in those numbers, which are back to around 96% of 2019 traveller numbers, which is higher than the 77% for the overall international recovery. In part that’s likely to reflect Western Australia’s popularity among New Zealanders making a more permanent move across the Tasman,” he said.
Around 85,000 New Zealanders live in Western Australia.
Currently, Air New Zealand is the only other airline with a direct flight from Auckland to the capital of Western Australia. It has been partnering with Spain’s Wamos Air to service the route but that arrangement finishes at the end of October. Air NZ will continue operating daily services to Perth, with more than 2000 seats a week available.
Batik Air schedule
Perth to Auckland: Departing at 6.05pm and landing at 4.45am the next day.
Auckland to Perth: Four days will depart at 7am, landing at 10.40am; two other days, departing at 7.50am and landing at 11.30am.
By Alan Granville
Source Stuff.co.nz
