Name Change, new Routes for Strategic
Strategic Airlines is planning to relaunch as Air Australia on 30 October and focus on the budget end of the market.
Strategic CEO Michael James said that the changes are in line with growing demand for low-cost but high value travel. The airline hopes to take advantage of Virgin Australia’s repositioning and the brand damage to Tiger Airways in Australia.
The airline is planning to increase its services between Australia and Asia as well as enter the Brisbane to Melbourne route and will commence flights between Australia and Honolulu in December this year. Other network changes include increased frequencies on the Brisbane-Denpasar, Brisbane-Phuket and Melbourne-Phuket routes. Strategic has also gained approval for flights between Australia and China.
The changes come a week after Strategic announced it was dropping Brisbane-Gladstone, Brisbane-Townsville-Denpasar and Perth-Denpasar flights.
The airline is understood to be seeking to double its complement of pilots and will add an A320 pilot base to an established A330 operation in Melbourne. It has recruited 50 flight attendants for domestic operations. The company last month announced a new Brisbane engineering base to service its Airbus fleet, which has so far employed 40 licensed aircraft engineers.
An additional A320 aircraft will come to Australia later this year to bolster the three planes already here and a fifth could be added early next year.
Sean Cummins of Cummins-Ross advertising agency has been retained to create an internationally recognisable Australian brand strategy.
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