27th February Big Qantas announcement

[Sumnerned]

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.

Um... Virgin?

And I think you would be surprised at how many journeys in and out of UK don't involve London. Partly because London has five airports which is a royal PITA.

 

[Fruitcake]

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.

PVG-HKG is the most popular Chinese international route. Neither China Southern nor Air China service it .

If you don't count HKG as "international", then note that China Southern doesn't fly from PVG to NRT.

 

[Isochronous]

Cathay have dropped their daily service to Adelaide now.

Replacing an indirect service with a direct one 4x weekly.

 

[RooFlyer]

<snip>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.

I was thinking much along the same lines. For a large-ish city, not to have an international service by the indigenous airline, when its ON one of the busiest international routes in the country, is extraordinary.

I was trying to think of equivalents in other countries.(Eg just for example Aberdeen serviced by Lufthansa but not BA, or Halifax serviced by United but not Air Canada, etc).

I'm sure they are out there ... but can anyone nominate a couple? (Cases where there's not a decent local airline - such as Rangoon & Burma, don't count).

Edit: in fruitcake's example, I'm counting CX as a Chinese airline!

 

[erkpod]

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.

What about Air NZ? Less land area, less population, similar part of the world?

 

[RooFlyer]

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

Not to mention Edinburgh and Aberdeen even.

 

[Kangol]

On the ch 9 news tonight, an older lady was quoted as saying (about the topic): "The fares are too cheap. When I took my first overseas flight in 1970, I had to save for three and a half years for it!"

 

[ajw373]

Um... Virgin?

And I think you would be surprised at how many journeys in and out of UK don't involve London. Partly because London has five airports which is a royal PITA.

Yep Virgin, good point, now tell me where does Virgin Australia fly to internationally? Yep much much less destinations compared to Qantas.

As for the UK, I was talking about BA as the supposed national carrier.

Outside of London long haul they fly more or less just to New York from Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham, that is about it. Now sure they fly to Europe from these other cities but for all purposes those flights are more comparable to Australian domestic rather than long haul international. Now this in a country that is not much bigger than the state of Victoria but a population about triple that of Australia, yet even from these other cities, with populations (including surrounding towns) greater than Perth and Adelaide they cannot justify it.

But here's the thing, other airlines like Emirates and Singapore can and do fly long haul to these secondary ports in the UK, but not BA. Why, because they are flying from these ports to a hub and then onwards. If BA flew them it would be simply point to point travel. Sound familiar?

 

[ABC1]

Cairns FA base to close with 100 jobs to go..

staff will be offered VR or redeployed before forced redundancies

 

[kevrosmith]

Cairns FA base to close with 100 jobs to go..

staff will be offered VR or redeployed before forced redundancies

That is terrible news for all the crew based in CNS. Just last year, they had the head of domestic in town telling them all that the CNS base was not on the chopping block. QF has even recently invested in improving the crew facilities. There will be many upset staff in CNS today.

 

[Zero]

I'm not sure why people keep comparing QFi to Air NZ or the UK, which mainly happened about 15 pages earlier in the thread. Firstly, both countries are much smaller than Australia. The only country you could really compare to is Canada, as the US population is 13x. And yes, it would be sad if AC stopped serving YVR, but geography is different, it's not really possible to do LCC trans-pac, there is no competition from the Middle East at all, Asian airlines do not serve it 4x daily

Apart from the seasonal Nadi and Trans-Tasman flights, all NZ international destinations are served from AKL.

BA basically routes everybody through LHR or LGW, except for a midnight to 6am flight to Ibiza from EDI, which is why it is known as London Airways. Similarly, VS only has 3 international flights that are not from a London airport. Many people would prefer to avoid an LHR transit if possible, by going directly to continental Europe or an American carrier direct

Lufthansa has recently stopped serving internationally from anywhere in Germany except FRA and MUC, transferring all short-haul to Germanwings. Meanwhile, BA still serves the cities LH dropped from LHR, but LH serves smaller British cities from its two hubs.

Perth is smaller than the 3 east coast cities. WA has 10% of the population of Australia so if everyone flew QF equally from everywhere, you'd expect 3x daily to XYZ from SYD, BNE and MEL before PER had even 1x (yes I'm neglecting ADL but oh well)

Or maybe I don't understand anything since the only route I really fly is SYD-HKG, and then on to the UK with which the demise of QF on that route means TK and LX are now my preferred carriers as they bring me to where I want to go in the UK.

 

[Danger]

On the ch 9 news tonight, an older lady was quoted as saying (about the topic): "The fares are too cheap. When I took my first overseas flight in 1970, I had to save for three and a half years for it!"

And she wouldn't have slept the night before, got to the airport six hours before her flight to have an $0.80 cup of Earl Grey in the terminal, worn her Sunday best, taken onboard only her purse, boarded in an orderly fashion when the flight was announced . . . .

Simpler times. Better times?

 

[GoldCanyon340]

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.

The Qantas yield management system does do that. I worked on it for four years.

 

[ajw373]

What about Air NZ? Less land area, less population, similar part of the world?

Yep another good example actually. All long haul goes through one city, Auckland. The rest of the country feeds through here, except for short haul international, which like short haul Europe is comparable to Australian domestic domestic.

But again the major asian hub carriers can and do fly to New Zealand on routes that Air New Zealand cannot justify. Some examples, Singapore (though yes Air New Zealand are going to start again partnering with their Star Partner of course), Bangkok, despite Thai Airways being a Star partner, Guangzhou, flown by China Southern linking into their hub, Seoul, Korean flies there again their hub, but no ANZ on any of them. Does the fact other airlines fly to these cities but no ANZ or the fact that Auckland is the only long haul international port in New Zealand make ANZ un New Zealand like? Nope don't think so.

But four advantages Air New Zealand has over Qantas. One is government ownership. Two major restructure and cost reduction after their near collapse in the wake of the Ansett fiasco. Three they don't have a domestic competitor backed by major foreign airlines eating into their market and fourth all their A320 flying, including international is done as a LCC type operation ala Jetstar, just ANZ in name.

So again pretty much similar to Qantas on the international front.

 

[codash1099]

The announcement today seems a bit light given QF was supposedly announcing the results of a "strategic" review.

Yes, there is some operational restructuring (headcount reduction - I feel for the 5,000 affected today, capex deferral, some minor route changes) but where is the strategic direction? How does Joyce propose to make the best strategic use of QFF (sale, IPO, joint venture)? What is its domestic capacity / market share strategy - hold the 65% "line in the sand" as a point of principle, no matter what the cost? How does QF reconcile the long-term conflict between the OW alliance and the EK arrangement?

This just looks like the first step in a wider process, a kind of "show me" announcement to the Govt - "Look! We are doing something, now what have you got for us?" and only when the Govt shows the extent to which it will come to the party will QF reveal the rest of its hand.

The interesting stuff is still to come IMO.

Or may this is all there is. I'm not sure they understand what a strategy is.

 

[Pushka]

Replacing an indirect service with a direct one 4x weekly.

Landing at 5am. Actually the service I was on was direct on Friday evening. That's gone.

 

[Fruitcake]

Three they don't have a domestic competitor backed by major foreign airlines eating into their market and fourth all their A320 flying, including international is done as a LCC type operation ala Jetstar, just ANZ in name.

I'm not sure whether you've forgotten about Jetstar NZ, or whether you're excluding it because QF is not a "major foreign airline"?

 

[ajw373]

I'm not sure why people keep comparing QFi to Air NZ or the UK,

There are similarities, but the similarities for the most part match what is happening in Australia and with Qantas. Which is the 'home' airlines don't fly everywhere in their home countries to/from multiple destinations, despite offshore hub airlines being able to fly to these secondary ports (in the case of the UK) or in NZ on routes to Auckland not served by ANZ.

 

[mannej]

How major was the ANZ restructure compared to what is going on at QF currently?

 

[drron]

The best opinion on Alan joyce I have read actually comes from Yahoo finance.

All in all, I wouldn’t want Mr Joyce’s job for quids. While many have suggested replacing him would be the best thing Qantas could do, it won’t address the underlying issues Qantas faces under any CEO.
Perhaps Warren Buffett said it best,
“When a management team with a reputation for brilliance joins a business with poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”