[Joe Frampton]

I work for one of the largest travel wholesalers in Australia. I've done an industry inspection of the A330 - met some cabin crew & the sales team, and have contact with Strategic throughout my working day. They're a full service airline with a really strong industry alliance and pride themselves on this. From my observations, the forward bookings and support for Strategic are really strong (we're making bookings into 2012), and I believe the demand for a non-stop Hawaii product from Brisbane will be huge. I'm constantly amazed by the price the Brisbane market is prepared to pay, and the lengths they have to go to, just to get to HNL at the moment. Hawaii has a huge allure, and deservedly so. I'd suspected that the next route for Strategic would be Hawaii. This flight will fill up in the same way many of the flights to Denpasar & Phuket are filling up now (often up to full economy pricing) and I'm often selling business seats too. Never, ever underestimate the demand for direct international flights out of Brisbane (anything that doesn't involve flying via Sydney!) Along with a move to GDS res systems, and a future market relaunch, I wish them all the best. Look out for the introductory specials when this comes out... they are sure to be red hot.