27th February Big Qantas announcement

[ajw373]

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!

That wasn't the argument put forward by mannej, he simply stated that Perth and Adelaide are part of Australia and therefor for Qantas to be the Spirit of Australia it must fly from those cities. Simply making an extream point to see where one draws the line in the sand. Clearly the line drawn by Qantas says Perth and Adelaide are not generating enough traffic to justify the flights.

The fact the routes are the fourth and ninth busiest is neither here not there.

 

[bertair]

Is it true or just an urban myth that QF staff and families fly on their services for a fare of 10% of the Full Fare regardless of class ?
Even get Lounge access ?
Surely this is a perk that cannot be sustainable under present circumstances.
I am very sorry for the staff losing their jobs, but I would be too if I lost the ability to go anywhere in the world at 10%.
If I am wrong, please accept my apologies for the error.
Perhaps some QF staff can enlighten us. I guess Joyce and the Execs fly F free anyway !

 

[Sprucegoose]

So I hear they all want Al to go and buy the 777. Is it all that easy? There is a confluence of events here.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Well my strategy of turning Broome into a Qantas hub into Asian destinations was clearly not selected for todays announcement..here's hoping for May 2014.

 

[ajw373]

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.

And why is that a bad thing? There are more places in the world than Europe.

 

[markis10]

Clearly the line drawn by Qantas says Perth and Adelaide are not generating enough traffic to justify the flights.

The fact the routes are the fourth and ninth busiest is neither here not there.

If you cannot generate enough traffic to have a service on the 4th and 9th busiest air route in your own country then your not the Spirit of Australia clearly, your the Spirit of Failure. Name one other flag carrier that does not have a service on one of its top 5 busiest routes for the country of origin, I cannot think of any that can join this school of failure of the top of my head.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Denpasar is a hub (9th)?

It is for Garuda but in that example the Qantas group operates services with Jetstar. Perhaps you have forgotten that? So Qantas group contributes a lot to making it the 9th busiest route. And, just like NZ do with their A320 fleet on similar flights of 4 hours in length around the Pacific: Single class product, lower paid crews, pay for meals, pay for entertainment, pay for more space.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

If you cannot generate enough traffic to have a service on the 4th and 9th busiest air route in your own country then your not the Spirit of Australia clearly, your the Spirit of Failure. Name one other flag carrier that does not have a service on one of its top 5 busiest routes for the country of origin, I cannot think of any that can join this school of failure of the top of my head.

You have conveniently forgotten the Qantas group operates Jetstar

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Is it true or just an urban myth that QF staff and families fly on their services for a fare of 10% of the Full Fare regardless of class ?
Even get Lounge access ?
Surely this is a perk that cannot be sustainable under present circumstances.
I am very sorry for the staff losing their jobs, but I would be too if I lost the ability to go anywhere in the world at 10%.
If I am wrong, please accept my apologies for the error.
Perhaps some QF staff can enlighten us. I guess Joyce and the Execs fly F free anyway !

Staff benefits you mention are true. I don't know about lounge access, or the ability to fly in F, but they can certainly apply to fly economy or business. But at 10% it's all standby anyway - so they don't displace fare paying pax.

But it is what it is... a staff benefit. I can't see why you'd take that away. The 10% (ID90) is a standard industry benefit.

 

[Supersonic Swinger]

Other FFPs are also more profitable overall than QFF.

I won't quibble with the rest of your post, but this is definitely incorrect. QFF is one of the most profitable 'reward' programs anywhere, and CAPA published an analysis a while back (now under their paywall unfortunately) which showed that per member, QFF made over three times as much revenue per FF member than US FF programs.

And when they charge you joining fees, additional fees to have credit cards which earn their points, and 96,000 points plus $900 in taxes for SYD-LAX return in Y which they are selling for $1,100, it shouldn't be a surprise.

 

[Mr_Orange]

Is it true or just an urban myth that QF staff and families fly on their services for a fare of 10% of the Full Fare regardless of class ?
Even get Lounge access ?
Surely this is a perk that cannot be sustainable under present circumstances.
I am very sorry for the staff losing their jobs, but I would be too if I lost the ability to go anywhere in the world at 10%.
If I am wrong, please accept my apologies for the error.
Perhaps some QF staff can enlighten us. I guess Joyce and the Execs fly F free anyway !

That's a perk that is common to many airlines (my Uncle is an ex-BA pilot). There is however a catch. When staff opt for that fare they go on standby, so they never know if they are going to get on the flight they want or, if travelling with family, how many seats might be available. Also remember that if they do get back to work on time at the end of their holiday due to a seat not being available they get in trouble.

Many staff opt for full revenue fares so they can guarantee their seats.

 

[gwilli1]

Any news on SYD-NRT? I've got bookings in J on QF21 for next January - clearly hoping I'll be riding an A380 up there instead !

I think it more likely you will be hitching a ride on an A330 , once the 744's are retired

 

[trippin_the_rift]

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.

Most airlines don't employ such pricing. For the most part revenue & yield management has remained stagnant for the better part of 20 years.
I mean you can do a course on yield management and that's everything you need to know. Apparently. You've got people in these roles who are stuck in the mentality of what worked 10 and 20 yers ago. It's not their fault nobody has come up with a better model... that's how they were trained and how they're all thinking in their numbers focused bubble. Their #1 job should be thinking 'how can I make the customer pay more without losing any business?' It's not a role for a numbers person - it's a role for someone with a burning desire to make things happen and is passionate about creating new value for the overall business and not just looking for short term gains.

In any case, FFP's don't know where this magic price point is. Everyone is different and with only 2 levels of business class pricing on QF it's going to be difficult to figure out where the threshold is for the vast majority of customers. Add in the occasional member-wide 2 for 1 sale and you really screw up your internal analytics and CRM for each individual customer. How you're supposed to figure it out with data at opposite ends of the spectrum is anyones guess. Most FFPs have segmented their audience into around 80-150 categories. When you can micro-niche each category to the point of having 1000's of segments is when things get interesting. For example Tesco sends out nearly 1000 variations of the same email to it's loyalty cardholders. For this very reason they are the posterchild for loyalty marketing. Although a bit strange to walk past a store at 8am to receive a SMS for '6 pack of heineken only £7' on your way to work.

But what if there was a way to know exactly how much a passenger was willing to pay for a ticket? What if the loyalty program knew exactly what would trigger you to purchase a certain fare over another. Everyone has different requirements but I've come up with a model that figures this out taking into account over 63 factors. This is data FFP's don't have any won't ever be able to extract from their own BI warehouses. I imagine a day when you want to book a flight and while doing a search, the magical number you're happy to pay for shows up on the flights you want to be on. This is all very possible right now!

 

[Pushka]

I know after 10 years service there is a family flight in F available.

 

[Chucksta]

Look at the plus side...

SQ are now offering 4 flights a day from PER-SIN. Good opportunity to try another airline and see how they compare to QF international.

And guess what... I will now try Virgin domestically, so that I can earn points on Krisflyer. I have never had a reason to fly Virgin, but I guess now I do. Also, will be looking at getting rid of the QF credit cards and look at Krisflyer credit cards.

 

[Pushka]

Cathay have dropped their daily service to Adelaide now.

 

[ajw373]

If you cannot generate enough traffic to have a service on the 4th and 9th busiest air route in your own country then your not the Spirit of Australia clearly, your the Spirit of Failure. Name one other flag carrier that does not have a service on one of its top 5 busiest routes for the country of origin, I cannot think of any that can join this school of failure of the top of my head.

Name another carrier that operates out of a country that is in the middle of nowhere, that has a size of 7.7m km2, with a population of just 23.3m people, the majority of whom live within 100km of a 2000km stretch of the east coast.

But lets take a look at the UK. A population of 60m+ people, but for all purposes served out of just one single city. London.

 

[Deleted member]

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.

Good point, it's a pity banks don't stick to running banks, and supermarkets don't stick to running supermarkets.

 

[Vim Fuego]

Name another carrier that operates out of a country that is in the middle of nowhere, that has a size of 7.7m km2, with a population of just 23.3m people, the majority of whom live within 100km of a 2000km stretch of the east coast.

But lets take a look at the UK. A population of 60m+ people, but for all purposes served out of just one single city. London.

Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool don't rate a mention?

 

[samh004]

- Looking at availability for QF/EK SYD-DXB every month for the next 6 months - EK has much higher loads on all dates. Some are sold out where QF has 9+ economy available. Similar story for MEL and BNE. QF codeshares on EK have higher loads. (What this tells me is that passengers are trying EK - realising it's better than QF and telling their friends/family to go with EK. This also explains why QF codeshares are booked out. Some folks are happy to pay the higher price for QFF benefits but prefer the superior EK aircraft.)

I booked all my upcoming travel on QF, not the EK codeshares, and I know everyone will say that's simply because I'm a fanboy, but I honestly think I'll be treated better as a P1 on Qantas metal then on EK metal, and that's just from what I've read here. Granted, I'm not anything like the general population, but at least on this occasion, I chose not to try EK.

- Seasonal SYD-MHU (Mt Hotham canned)

- New BNE lounge (which was in one of the other presentations is clarified as Brisbane (Domestic))

That explains why I couldn't find any MHU availability for later this year, as I wanted to try the service out. Could probably have told everyone that it was going a few days ago when I couldn't find it on Qantas' website

As for the lounge... interesting. I note that as well as selling the lease back, they retain the right for options to expand to the North of the terminal, and I can remember an old BAC plan where the terminal eventually continued its curve around the back of the carparks, so perhaps that's on the cards again, but I want to know more about a lounge expansion.

Knowing everyones luck it'll be a replacement CL as the current one is dated, or so I hear.

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.

Interesting... I'd have thought this was domestic expansion for now. Plus, I wonder what's on the cards for 2020 when the new runway opens, as surely there'd be space over there for a new terminal, so who gets it first I don't see much point in expanding both domestic and international terminals now if one can move in 6 years time.