Fares to AFL and NRL grand finals

[BillytheFIsh]

Cowboys have organised a charter:

All aboard the Finals Express - Cowboys

$1,045 ret or $1,190 including a silver ticket to the game.

 

[eastwest101]

Cowboys have organised a charter:

All aboard the Finals Express - Cowboys

$1,045 ret or $1,190 including a silver ticket to the game.

I'm not sure who is operating those Cowboys charter flights - but I was just thinking that there would probably be some spare capacity sitting about in the form of Alliance and Network Aviation F100s sitting around in Perth and Townsville over the weekend so surprised some of them aren't looking at picking up some revuenue seeing as the demand is there, obviously they aircraft have more Mon-Fri resource industry charter priorities but they are low fleet utilization charter operators so interesting to see if they bother or not.

 

[clazman]

I'm not sure who is operating those Cowboys charter flights - but I was just thinking that there would probably be some spare capacity sitting about in the form of Alliance and Network Aviation F100s sitting around in Perth and Townsville over the weekend so surprised some of them aren't looking at picking up some revuenue seeing as the demand is there, obviously they aircraft have more Mon-Fri resource industry charter priorities but they are low fleet utilization charter operators so interesting to see if they bother or not.

I am aware of two charters each taking 100 supporters from WA on a F100... believe they are sold out as well

 

[RichardMEL]

I haven't checked but if the various fares being offered and purchased are the regularly offered "B" class (fully flex) fares, then I have no qualms whatsoever with the actions of any of the airlines. If they are only selling YY (ie full slog fly any combination of airlines within the max permitted mileage Y) fares then I think the charges of "milking the situation" are worth discussing.

There's only been Y (forget B) available for some time now.

QF - Aren't you getting a bit tight on the plane utilization? Should there be some/enough minor scope for irrops coverage that would permit handling these sudden scheduling monstrosities with a bit more grace? The same as if you lost the use of a plane (or two or three).

You seem to be forgetting that QF (I don't know about VA but had heard they have added services) have added at least one extra 330 rotation on PER-MEL and a 744 to take fans back on Sunday. Plus the perfect storm of finding another 330 to do SYD-TSV for the NRL GF. What more can people expect? QF can't just keep widebody (or even narrow) sitting around on the ground for this sort of thing, that they've managed to make it work for a 747 and a couple of 330 extras is pretty good if you ask me (there may also be extra 737's oN BNE_SYD too but I haven't looked).

We already know the 380 fleet is stretched to the max (and I don't think QF domestic gates can handle 380s anyway? and we've seen recently 744's cover when that 380 had the incident earlier, so there has been some ability for flexibility.

As well, I suspect the AFL really shouldn't schedule the finals on the last weekend of school holidays. Unless they decide to contract the teams to the old VFL boundaries.

Happy wandering (as far as my TV console)

Fred

And the NRL shouldn't either. the VFL/AFL GF has always been the last week of sept/first week of oct(in this timeframe). The school holiday period has been a moveable feast from time to time, but in general it makes sense for them to align anyway so kids can do things like go to the GF parade and training and all that kind of stuff.

This weekend is tough because the AFL got pushed back a week by the world cup earlier in the year, and so it's on with the NRL GF, and the NSW public holiday monday(and silly Melbourne public holiday Friday) so it really is an extra perfect storm given 1 WA team in the AFL GF and 2 QLD teams in the NRL GF.

The airlines could anticipate higher demand during the school holiday periods, and they already did, but they could not anticipate quite this situation so far out.

IMHO.

 

[VHOEJ]

It is also worth mentioning that in recent years, the two GF's are always on seperate weekends - that assists the situation so the AFL has contributed by pushing thier GF to the same weekend. Two GFs with interstate traffic, school holidays means peak domestic and international travel, plus long weekends in many states............perfect storm but if the AFLL are smart and push thier season a week earlier next year, this problem won't be as bad.

 

[RichardMEL]

Next year should go back to finishing end of September I believe. The Cricket World Cup was what held things up this year.

Also the F1 GP in melbourne apparently will be the weekend of 17 March and I think that will also allow for an earlier start to the AFl season.

 

[clazman]

Or buy your tickets for next year now

 

[RichardMEL]

Looking at PER-MEL for Friday it looks like things are not as dire as they were earlier...

QF 480 0 PER
02/10/15 6:10 AM MEL
02/10/15 11:40 AM 332
Unavailable
87% / 11m J9 C7 Y9 G0



0 Connections

QF 1230 0 PER
02/10/15 7:00 AM MEL
02/10/15 12:30 PM 332
Unavailable
NA / NA J9 C3 Y9 G0




0 Connections

QF 762 0 PER
02/10/15 8:15 AM MEL
02/10/15 1:45 PM 332
Unavailable
95% / 9m J7 C0 Y9 G0




0 Connections

QF 772 0 PER
02/10/15 10:10 AM MEL
02/10/15 3:40 PM 332
Unavailable
87% / 23m J3 C0 Y9 G0




0 Connections

QF 802 0 PER
02/10/15 11:55 AM MEL
02/10/15 5:25 PM 332
Unavailable
86% / 25m J3 C0 Y9 G0




0 Connections

QF 476 0 PER
02/10/15 1:55 PM MEL
02/10/15 7:25 PM 332
Unavailable
76% / 20m J8 C7 Y9 B9 G0




0 Connections

QF 768 0 PER
02/10/15 5:00 PM MEL
02/10/15 10:30 PM 332
Unavailable
79% / 38m J9 C0 Y9 B6 G0




0 Connections

QF 1234 0 PER
02/10/15 6:00 PM MEL
02/10/15 11:30 PM 332
Unavailable
NA / NA J9 C9 D0 I0 U0 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M0 G0




0 Connections

QF 776 0 PER
02/10/15 6:05 PM MEL
02/10/15 11:35 PM 332
Unavailable
80% / 82m J9 C9 Y9 B9 H9 K9 G0




0 Connections

QF 648 0 PER
02/10/15 11:55 PM MEL
03/10/15 5:25 AM 332
Unavailable
95% / 9m J9 C3 Y9 B9 H9 K9 G0
[/unqoute]

 

[jastel]

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[trippin_the_rift]

It's called Surge Pricing and is good for the consumer.....Uber

Electricity will be next...

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[wandering_fred]

Or buy your tickets for next year now

If it were required that name changes were permitted for the standard change fee (dream on and on ), I would guess the flights around grand finals would sell out within a few days of becoming available. And the cash would be available to the airlines to reduce their credit lines.

@Richard_MEL - No - planes do not need to be availabe to sit around but a couple (not all) that are a bit under-scheduled can keep the random (as opposed to frequent flyer) traveler happier when unforeseen travel constraints show up. I'll stick with my comments regarding YY versus B class fares.

I'm fairly sure that PER/MEL could find a way to permit domestic (un)loading of an A380 at the international terminal on a one (or two) off basis. Rumor has it that MH might have a couple that are under-utilized at the moment. Might also add a few incoming international seats which also seem in short supply this weekend..

Happy wandering

Fred

 

[RichardMEL]

@Richard_MEL - No - planes do not need to be availabe to sit around but a couple (not all) that are a bit under-scheduled can keep the random (as opposed to frequent flyer) traveler happier when unforeseen travel constraints show up. I'll stick with my comments regarding YY versus B class fares.

As noted above not all flights are only offering Y fares.

As fir under scheduling aircraft.... interesting idea. It's a fairly well to do airline that can keep numbers of operational spares, or expensive aircraft with un-needed downtime. Yes, QF has a metric truckload of 737's in the domestic fleet (75?) but QF recently announced it was increasing the fleet utilisation by reducing turn times from 40 to 35 minutes.

Also remember that this isn't just about the sporting events this weekend. but school holiday times in most of them (specially some are finishing this weekend) so there's already going to be high demand on almost every route. It might seem like a good idea to cancel that 0600 MEL-ADL or PER-BME sectors to find additional capacity, but then you are still going to have numbers of other customers disrupted. It's a delicate issue secially at peak demand times like now, say you pull a 737 out of the system from its regular rotations, where will the seats come front to pick up the slack on this displaced pax? Even if that a/c is only 50% full that's still capacity.

I think QF has been shown to be aggressive with the utilisation of the fleet (as recent 380 issues have shown) so I doubt there's much, if any, fat to be "trimmed" - finding a 744 and several extra 330 shells as it is seems a pretty good effort as it is.

just my 2 cents.

I'm fairly sure that PER/MEL could find a way to permit domestic (un)loading of an A380 at the international terminal on a one (or two) off basis. Rumor has it that MH might have a couple that are under-utilized at the moment. Might also add a few incoming international seats which also seem in short supply this weekend..

Happy wandering

Fred[/QUOTE]