27th February Big Qantas announcement

[kevrosmith]

- Seasonal SYD-MHU (Mt Hotham canned)

Ah, that's a shame. I've used this service a few times... including when it was out of MEL as well.

 

[wandering_fred]

I wonder what the reaction of AY, BA and JL flyers will be when they discover that the SIN-PER code shares will be on Jetstar aircraft?

Or the respective management of those airlines?

Please AirLanka - CMB-PER-MEL

Wandering (unhappily)

Fred

 

[pagingjoan]

<snip>
I think it's about time QF/QFF invested in some smarts to learn what drives their passengers to fly with them and not the competition. To determine what drives customers to spend more on an emotional level and not just look at transactional data. For example I'm happy to pay $400 one-way BNE-SYD in Business; but if the price isn't available then it's back to a $79 red-e-deal for me. Everyone has their own internal measurements and armed with this knowledge QF (or VA...or any airline reading this) could quickly figure out a way to double or triple flight revenue <snip>

A pertinent point, indeed. I'm sure many of us make similar trade-offs when choosing our flights, both domestic and international.

 

[EmilyHoward]

I like this option
I really loved taking QF 29/30.
Now if only they would re-route it through HKG I would be a happy little camper

Crikey .. you want it all PF !!!!

 

[Pushka]

I do not think you are wrong: (Latest Qantas News)
That really stinks!

But that was exactly my situation when my classic award seat/flight was cancelled by CX a couple of weeks ago. I could only rebook if there was classic seat availability and in my case, J. Thankfully that is what I was rebooked on but certainly not my preferred day.

 

[opusman]

Is it me or is David Flynn's article in the SMH / Age incorrect about the retired 747s? My understanding is that the ER version has been refurbed and kept and the ones being removed from service were Skybed MKI for example

David Flynn, get something wrong? Surely not...

(Only the non-refurbed 744s are being retired)

 

[ajw373]

More bad & irrational decision making processes still continuing at QF.

So what good and rational decision would you have made if in charge to turn the company around, with limited access to new cash?

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I don't think anyone is saying Perth and Adelaide should be hubs but I for one believe they should have international services. Countless times throughout AFF there have been - admittedly armchair - suggestions as to how QF might make PER and ADL better. mannej, just a few minutes ago, highlighted the God-awful arrival times. Others have suggested linking in with CX and now MH connections. Some have suggested having a SIN-Europe service, perhaps to Berlin or maybe even Doha, whereby PER and ADL services could funnel into.

If you continually stack the deck against you, which I and I think many others believe QF has done in Perth at least, then you're bound to lose your hand.

The PER and ADL services to SIN arrived alongside the services from SYD (x2), MEL and BNE - all in the SG evening (along with BA15). And that allowed funnelling onto LHR and FRA (and CDG on the AF codeshare). The planes then turned around, giving you the "god-awful" arrival times, but what do you suggest instead? They sit overnight at SIN?

Sorry, but your "suggestion" has already been tried, and it wasn't working. Personally I loved QF81/82 as it gave cheap J flights SIN-SYD (if you didn't mind the extra time taken), but I doubt it was much of a money spinner for QF. I've only done PER-SIN once, so I have no idea what the market is like on that route.

 

[AnonymousCoward]

MH have put a lot of 737's on Intl routes that have lower demand but still maintain a presence, (DRW-KUL, KTM-KUL, 1x BOM-KUL, 2x HKG-KUL.etc.etc) Sometimes a presence even if small and insignificant is far better than no presence at all!

MH is even more of a basket case than QF, and certainly not something I would model my own business on (unless I had a government willing to shovel loads of taxpayers money into my bank account)

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I think it's about time QF/QFF invested in some smarts to learn what drives their passengers to fly with them and not the competition. To determine what drives customers to spend more on an emotional level and not just look at transactional data. For example I'm happy to pay $400 one-way BNE-SYD in Business; but if the price isn't available then it's back to a $79 red-e-deal for me. Everyone has their own internal measurements and armed with this knowledge QF (or VA...or any airline reading this) could quickly figure out a way to double or triple flight revenue (*disclaimer: my new business helps FFPs do this).

Surely they do this already with tiered pricing?

For every person that says "I'd fly business if it were $400", there's another person saying "I'd fly business if it were $399", all the way down to the person that says "I'd fly QF, but it's $5 more than DJ/whatever". I'm pretty sure that yield management's been practised at QF for a long time.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I wonder if part of the problem is the loss of the singapore hub?

I don't know why one LHR service doesn't still go via SIN. We used to have (in the good ol' days) simultaneous arrivals from MEL/SYD/ADL/PER/BNE that would all connect each way with the London plane.

My thought then was that each of those flights to SIN could be used to fly to a third destination... HKG/BKK/MNL/NRT/DPS. Essentially giving every capital city in Australia a one-stop service to every capital city in Asia (essentailly creating a DXB hub in SIN for QF with a half dozen destinations).

The trade-off of course being fewer non-stops, but plenty of people are nappy now to transit SIN/BKK/HKG on other carriers anyway).

 

[QF WP]

Just spoke to my Qld QF contact who was ringing me about another matter. He mentioned that he'd had a rather busy day, but he commented that the release of the BNE Terminal will free up QF to run an airline and BAC to run the airport - surely a better use of (human) resources on both sides. He agreed that with the hand-back, the BNE Intl Terminal will probably see some growth and the new Lounge as slated in the announcement.

 

[ajw373]

It is so easy to speak with those rose coloured glasses on, isn't it?

QF clearly markets itself as The spirit of Australia. Last time I checked, both Adelaide and Perth were part of Australia. It is funny that other carriers seem to make PER and ADL work, yet QF can't. Perhaps they should change their (misleading) slogan to the Spirit of Anywhere east of Melbourne.

So is Canberra, Hobart, Alice Springs, Townsville, Cairns, Wagga Wagga, Geraldton, Port Headland, Darwin and a zillion other towns and cities in Australia. By your argument the fact Qantas doesn't fly internationaly from these ports it cannot be the Spirit of Australia either.

Now of course they don't fly from the cities I mention for the simple reason that Qantas doesn't believe there is enough traffic to support such flights. You quite rightly point out that other airlines do service Perth and Adelaide and it works, but as has been done to death before what do these airlines have in common? Yep they are flying from these cities to their SINGLE hub ports. So when EK flies to Perth or Adelaide to Dubai they can feed into and out of a network of a good 130 other destinations. With SQ, they fly to Singapore and feed into a network of around 60 destinations. Cathay Pacific, they can feed into and out of over 150 destinations out of Hong Kong. Yet Qantas if they fly to Singapore or Hong Kong it is simply point to point traffic.

Now about the only place that does make sense is for Qantas to fly to either Kuala Lumpur or even Dubai and then codeshare. But no doubt people wouldn't be happy about that either.

 

[DrA]

The PER and ADL services to SIN arrived alongside the services from SYD (x2), MEL and BNE - all in the SG evening (along with BA15). And that allowed funnelling onto LHR and FRA (and CDG on the AF codeshare). The planes then turned around, giving you the "god-awful" arrival times, but what do you suggest instead? They sit overnight at SIN?

Sorry, but your "suggestion" has already been tried, and it wasn't working. Personally I loved QF81/82 as it gave cheap J flights SIN-SYD (if you didn't mind the extra time taken), but I doubt it was much of a money spinner for QF. I've only done PER-SIN once, so I have no idea what the market is like on that route.

In my experience (having been living in Perth for 6 years now), the flights used to be packed until they cut back to only one flight a day. With the one QFi flight ex-PER, the scheduled timings meant a 10+ hour layover in SIN to connect to the BA flight to LHR. And it also made for terrible connections to/from India. For making other connections within Asia it was very hit or miss depending on where you were going. In the last couple of years, since going to the single daily flight, the QF PER-SIN-PER route always seemed about half full at best.

So they could have made a genuine go of it ex-PER if they bothered to fix the flight schedule so that there were more convenient connection times to Europe, but they shot themselves in the foot there. It almost seems like they wanted it to fail.

 

[markis10]

So is Canberra, Hobart, Alice Springs, Townsville, Cairns, Wagga Wagga, Geraldton, Port Headland, Darwin and a zillion other towns and cities in Australia. By your argument the fact Qantas doesn't fly internationaly from these ports it cannot be the Spirit of Australia either. .

But none of those are home to the fourth and ninth busiest routes in Australia for International Travel are they? Perth has two in the TOP 10!

 

[Aussie_flyer]

So is Canberra, Hobart, Alice Springs, Townsville, Cairns, Wagga Wagga, Geraldton, Port Headland, Darwin and a zillion other towns and cities in Australia. By your argument the fact Qantas doesn't fly internationaly from these ports it cannot be the Spirit of Australia either.

Now of course they don't fly from the cities I mention for the simple reason that Qantas doesn't believe there is enough traffic to support such flights. You quite rightly point out that other airlines do service Perth and Adelaide and it works, but as has been done to death before what do these airlines have in common? Yep they are flying from these cities to their SINGLE hub ports. So when EK flies to Perth or Adelaide to Dubai they can feed into and out of a network of a good 130 other destinations. With SQ, they fly to Singapore and feed into a network of around 60 destinations. Cathay Pacific, they can feed into and out of over 150 destinations out of Hong Kong. Yet Qantas if they fly to Singapore or Hong Kong it is simply point to point traffic.

Now about the only place that does make sense is for Qantas to fly to either Kuala Lumpur or even Dubai and then codeshare. But no doubt people wouldn't be happy about that either.

agreed. It doesn't seem to get through some people's heads that those airlines are flying to their hubs from ADL and PER. Qantas flies from PER and ADL to it's hub too : Sydney (and to a much lesser extent, Melbourne). The vast majority of passengers flying SQ, MH, CX out of ADL and PER are flying onwards to Europe or other ports of Asia. I'm sure if Qantas were getting good patronage on PER-SIN or previously PER-HKG etc then they wouldn't have stopped flying the routes.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

But none of those are home to the fourth and ninth busiest routes in Australia for International Travel are they? Perth has two in the TOP 10!

busiest but those passengers are not ending their flights at those hubs!

 

[Hvr]

I wonder if part of the problem is the loss of the singapore hub?

I don't know why one LHR service doesn't still go via SIN. We used to have (in the good ol' days) simultaneous arrivals from MEL/SYD/ADL/PER/BNE that would all connect each way with the London plane.

<snip>

I agree. Seems to me that QFi have all their eggs in one basket. If something happens in Dubai and the airport closes then Qantas is basically cut off from Europe.

The old strategy of three hubs, SIN, HKG, BKK may have been one too many but if one airport closed (e.g. BKK Nov 2008) then it is still easy to get pax to LHR rather than move then to another airline.

 

[ajw373]

I wonder if part of the problem is the loss of the singapore hub?

Hardly. Singapore although a mini hub was only a fraction of the whole international network. The biggest issue is domestic where Virgin Australia is beating Qantas on cost alone. They can fly the same aircraft as Qantas on the same routes with the same number of passengers paying the same fare and make a far greater profit than Qantas can.

 

[markis10]

busiest but those passengers are not ending their flights at those hubs!

Denpasar is a hub (9th)?