The Chaser Report - A Not So Bonza Idea

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Charles and Dom are proud to introduce The Chaser Report's newest sponsor: Bonza Air. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Now, Charles, we've got such an exciting new sponsor. It's been a while. I know we've had holidays and like that I'm so pleased that we've got our first airline sponsor. Oh, fantastic. Oh, so is it, it's not Singapore Airlines, is it?

I wish it was. Because they're really good. Yeah, yeah, very good service. Or Emirates? They're the best in the world. They're very good, aren't they? You're not telling me, it's like one of those terrible, unreliable airlines, like Qantas. No, it's not Qantas.

It's fine. It's fine, don't remember that. No, they're an unusual airline. They're an Australian airline. Oh, oh, it's Virgin. It's not Virgin. Oh, Rex. It's Rex.

Have you flown Rex? Yeah, I've flown Rex. I've never flying Rex. Is it any good? It's fine. We couldn't get them, but there's this mob called Bonzer. Bonzer. Bonzer.

They're sponsoring us. Yep. Bons is on board. Yes, well, we always go with the winning airlines and the winning companies. Yeah, well, congratulations, Bonza, welcome aboard. You know that it's a good airline, because the logo is, the B is a thumbs up in their logo. And, yeah, there's a few problems with the payment, though. This is the thing that's strange.

I sent the invoice and they've just been saying, it will get to you. And Charles, I'm no business. You know this. I don't record of this stuff. Does voluntary administration, is that a good thing? Does that mean someone's going to voluntarily give us our money? At least, at least, you know, there's an element of voluntarism to it. Yeah. It's probably like helping it.

It's like charity or something. I'm looking here at the City Morning Howard headline. It says, Bonza enters voluntary administration after, oh dear, canceling all flights. Okay, that's not so good. More in a moment. Brought to you by Bonza. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important.

Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca. People won't know what Bonzer is, our new sponsor. Let me explain Bonza. Because they had a bold idea, Charles.

They had a very bold idea for the Australian aviation market. I am, which is, what, put on a whole lot of flights and then actually do the flights rather than what Contest does. Go to where you say. Yeah, which is just cancel the flights all the time. I don't know how good they're on time running was, but I do know what their vision was. Charles, they started in January 23, so they've been a year in a bit, they've existed. Their idea was, and again, this is really radical for an Australian airline, let's skip Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. We could make plenty of money by serving the underserved markets.

Let's do the Sunshine Coast. That's their headquarters, Sunshine Coast Airport. Marucci Door. Maroochidor. And let's fly to Newcastle, Mildura, Mackay, they're going to, Coffs. And they do go to Melbourne, but it's Avalon, which, as we know, is barely in normal. So, like, Newcastle to the Witsundays. No one did that route before.

Presumably they looked at it and realized it was profitable. But presumably no one, did anyone know about that fly? Did anyone know that you could go? I didn't even know about this airline until they sponsored us this morning. You can go to Toowoomba. They're big, if you want to go from Toowoomba to Townsville. Well, that's Bruce Lerman's standing around. If you had a lawsuit you had to deal with in Toowoomba, yeah.

You could fly if you're Bruce Lerman, except that they don't fly to Sydney. So you'd have to drive. I don't know, to Newcastle or something? So what's the business strategy there? Because, you know, like, isn't the whole point that you want to go, especially if you're, say, some sort of transport company, isn't the whole point about transporting people to where they want to be? Whereas this seems to be like, well, we'll avoid all the places that people want to be.

Yeah, the proven. See, this is the problem. Yeah. See, we're not thinking with our business brains, are we? That's right. We didn't see the niche that they saw. Their slogan was here for Australia, which is a terrible, terrible joke. It's always as bad as calling your airline Bonza.

But also, by definition, you are not here for Australia. You're here for a tiny proportion of people that want to go from Toowoomba to Townsville. Well, I mean, the way Housing Crisis is going, Newcastle is essentially the northern suburbs of Sydney. Well, this is the issue, Charles. Because it says here, oh, the whole idea is to be like Ryanair. Okay. Oh, I see. to where they've gone wrong, because what Ryanair...

Where you'd be the most successful, most profitable airline in the world, like Ryanair. Which they managed to do, though, because European cities like London and Paris or whatever, there's a shitty airport on the outskirts of the city, which you can get to on a bus or something. And it's annoying and it takes longer, but it's not that bad if it's cheap. Yes. So that's what Avalon is, right? Avalon in Melbourne, it actually works. I don't know.

I think it's about 40, 45 minutes like that on the Skybus. It's near Geelong. Yeah, it's good for Geelong. if that's a virtue. Yeah. I think you can debate that one. But you can get the Skybust to from Melbourne. We love Geelong.

Jolong's lovely. Actually, Geelong was very nice to us on our tour. I shouldn't use Toulon. Anyway, the problem is Australia, other than Avalon, that just doesn't exist. There's not an airport near, I don't know, Sydney, where you can fly to when you want to go to Sydney that's a bit further away. Newcastle doesn't cut it.

It's a completely different city. Yes. Three hours by train away or two hours by road. It's not. That doesn't know, Ryanair, it doesn't work. So did they go to Perth? Oh, no, that was way too far. They didn't do that.

Oh, well, I mean, that's at least one. They're in their camp, yeah. They didn't go to South Australia. Oh, they didn't go to Adelaide. So that's how they should have marked. See, this is why it's a problem when any company sets up in Australia, and they don't ask me how to market themselves. Oh, I see.

Yeah, they should. Because what they should have done is, instead of saying we're for all Australia or we're Australia or whatever, what they should have done is they should have channeled people's hatred, right? Oh, that's what you do. Yeah, so we're the airline that doesn't go to Perth or Adelaide, you know, fly with us. Like, that's a compelling selling point. Like, that would almost have me trekking up to Newcastle to catch a plane on Bonza.

Because, you know, you get on board knowing that you're not going to go to Adelaide or Perth. Yeah, it should be like east side. Only east side. Yes. Yeah, east side. Basically, you know, if you're west of me. Melbourne, fuck you. Yeah, fuck you.

That's right. That's a very good brand. That's a much better brand than Bonsor. Yeah, fuck the West. Yeah. The other thing that's fascinating about it, it was owned by a US firm called 777 partners that also own an airline in Canada called Flair. They had sort of like a wet leasing arrangement.

So all these shit airlines coming together, I shouldn't say shit, they're our sponsor. Yeah, no, yeah. All these innovators, Charles. So the other detail that I should just note is that, so this morning. it went into voluntary administration, which basically means they're bankrupt. And, or they're insolvent. And so they need... They've called in Kordamentha, which is never a good sign.

No, yeah. Like, Kortemantha is pretty close to calling for euthanasia. But the funny thing about the leasing arrangement is the CEO got told this morning that all his planes had been repossessed. And so they couldn't fly anywhere, right? And apparently, according to the Guardian's report on it, the CEO was surprised. He's just going, how can you be the CEO of a company and be surprised by something like the fact that you haven't paid, you clearly haven't paid your bills for a long enough period of time.

But not only your leasing company pulling the pin, they've actually repossessed them. Or, Charles, it might actually be that they got them out to go back to Canada where the things actually worked, it looks like, a little bit. Like, I think they were owned by the parents. Oh, I see. Right, okay. And they have to sort of say that they're surprised because otherwise it would be like trading while insolvent. Quite possibly. So it says here, Qantas and Virgin have come in and they've offered to support passengers on as much as they can by giving them basically free flights to the closest airport.

But here's the thing. Most of the routes that Bons are flew are offered by other airlines. Because nobody wants to go on them. Because they need market research and determined this is not a service. You can't make a profit. But is the point that Qantas will now come in, and they will, like, is this just another case of Qantas heartless oligopolis sort of coming in and just crushing the competition? What was the name of that?

There was an airline at one point that basically happened to. Atlas, no, no. No, no. Quantis, like, basically took them over. Compass. Compass, it was, it was compass, yeah. Yeah. And, like, you'd technically be on a compass flight with a crew or whatever, but it was Qantas. The number of airlines, like for young people listening to this podcast,

like we're talking under 45, you wouldn't remember Ancet. No, well, there was, I mean, there's been, there's been, there's been, so many airlines that have come and gone over years. There was Anset, Compass, Quantus. Remember TAA? TIA just turned into Qantas, isn't it? Well, it turned into Australian Airlines and then they merged and then got sold off. Charles, guess how many airlines have existed in Australia, different airlines?

over the years. At least 120,000 is my guess. I saw the number 300. We've had 300 airlines started and failing. Do you know about Pelican Air? Pelican Air. Pelican Air. Oh, yeah.

That's the next. We should get sponsored by Pelican Air now that. Well, Qantas sponsor us now that our Bonsa sponsorship has fallen through. Like, is that... I don't know. I just feel like Bonza were a difficult fit for us. They were known as Bogan Air for obvious reasons. Oh, see, that's...

That's not our. Our listenership are highly refined. Yeah, they called their planes. They had a plane called Bazzer and a plane called Shazard. Oh, come on. The writing was on the side of the plane, really, wasn't it? Yeah. There wasn't our plane.

Actually, you know what it was. What? It was a plane called Bruce. There actually was, I think post-Lerman, you simply go. Yeah, no, you can't do that. I reckon, I'm going to put it out there. I think the name Bruce is dead for a generation. No, I don't think no one's going to call their child Bruce any.

No, instead, I'm going to call my next child. Rolf. Rolf. Oh, wow. Yeah. Because I think it's been long enough, hasn't it? Rolf can come back into... I don't think you can't.

No, we can't ever... So what's having is creepy men are just going through and systematically destroying perfectly good names. I mean, you need a name that's so common that one person can't take it. Yes, yes. Prince Andrew has done his level best, but I think that name still. I think Charles is pretty good. Do you?

You think, having the same name as the king is... Well, you love. like it, don't you? Yeah, it's not tainted. Not tainted yet. Give them a chance. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details atphiz.ca. They had a dream. It was a stupid dream and it failed.

Why don't we go back and remember all the times that we've had together with Bonzo. Starting with when I found out about Bonza about 15 minutes ago. Yeah, I remember when it was launched. I ever seen news stories saying new low-cost daylight starting in Australia. It's called Bonza. I was like, that's really. It's stupid, man, but maybe it'll be useful. Maybe it'll actually save some money.

And then I read, it doesn't fly to Sydney. They don't fly to the biggest airport in Australia. I remember that time when I looked overhead and there was a Bonsor airplane flying over it. And my son said, what's that? And I said, I don't know. It's a mistake. It's a flying error. No, this is a thing.

You must have been somewhere other than Sydney. Yeah. The Sydney to Melbourne route is one of the most, highly trafficked is what in the top two or three routes in the whole world it's absolutely rife for a new player to come in there was tiger remember tiger air came in with a locust yes the problem with tiger air i flew tiger air one time that was terrible i think everyone just flew at once i mean if you wanted to feel like driving would have been faster if fly tiger air in

Melbourne it is it's one of the most lucrative in the world and both quantus and virgin And their profits are absolutely built on that. So it's a perfect situation where, I don't know, Chaser Air is coming. Oh, well, Kordermintha would probably be interested in people taking over the assets. Except it's not Korda Minta. It's Hall Chedwick is taking over. Oh, there's Korda Menta involved with some other perspective. So why don't we buy the assets?

The only problem is it doesn't have any assets. It's a brand that, frankly, would make life harder. You get negative branding. Could they pay us to take on the brand? That could be quite good. Maybe this should be called the Bonsor Report from now on. There are not many brands where putting the word chaser on instead would be a better reputation.

I'm quite worried about this. Imagine having a chaser airlines. That would be a brilliant idea because we could do satirical safety demonstrations and things like that. Like if in the case of an emergency, panic. Yeah. Other airlines have all those signs saying, you know, a bomb scare, it's serious. Don't joke about bomb. On chaser air. You have to. You have to joke about bombs to get on. You'd get a discount. Yeah, I love it.

Saterical airline. And the great thing is, when our planes ran late, as they definitely would. Yeah, yeah, we'd just go, that's part of our brand. Brand values. I mean, the first edition at the Chase of Newspaper did not arrive in time for the launch party of the Chaser newspaper. It really set this. It's amazing we've ever got our TV shows to wear on time. Once we came half an hour away from not getting the tape in time to go to air. Yeah, jeez. It was a standby plan.

Anyway, so your chaser airlines, look, it's not a good idea. It's an idea. And it's a better idea. You know where I'd go if we had Chaser Airlines. This is my hot tip. Only to Womba. No, I was going to say, Sydney. Yeah, that's a good.

good idea. Yeah. Isn't that the place where, like, all the national flights do you go to? Yes. It's where you have to, like, that's where people want to go. Like, I don't even claiming Sydney's good. I'm just saying it's just the reality. It's just a place. I know Melbourne's technically the biggest city, but in terms of planes, no.

Yes. I mean, talk to me when your terminals aren't all connected to each other, Melbourne. Yeah, and when you've got to train to the airport. What we do is, we'll approach the 777 partners. Yes, that's a good idea. Get a couple. It doesn't sound like you need many planes to set up an airline. Or an idea, really.

We set up an airline, call it chaser air, fly to Sydney. Maybe we only fly to Sydney. I think we fly from Sydney to Sydney. Just get up and do a loop. Like during COVID, there were those flights where you just went up and had to fly and then came back and get it. That's it. Sydney to Sydney. People would say it was Sydney centric.

It's a virtue. Yeah, yeah. That's a feature, not a bug. It's a Bonzer idea. It's a Bonzer idea, too. It's for Australia. Our gear is from Road. We are part of the Icona class network.

And this episode is proudly brought to you by Bonzer. Who really did have a plane called Bruce. Oh, fuck. Ooh. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. Fizz is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes.

Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. at fizz.ca.