Qantas flags record profit.

[marchredmr]

Yes I am ...

Enough said

 

[Melburnian1]

There's no international market more important to QF than the USA. (Same applies to NZ)

Asia is diverse if one includes northeast and southeast plus the subcontinent, but ought be QFi's #1 ('priority' if not a redundancy) as that's where the bulk of our inbound tourists and trade emanate, especially once mainland Chinese recommence travelling in numbers, and also to where the bulk of our tourists and businessmen and women travel to, not the USA.

Given the A$'s fall against the US$, this trend may intensify as in time should it continue, it'll depress outwards leisure travel more than any USA to Oz increase in same. Oz is just too far away for many residing on the east coast of USA to consider compared to alternatives such as Europe and UK.

Sadly for QFi, it's beaten on service, style and frequency by many Asian airlines.

Look as one small example how SQ will soon have five daily flights to Melbourne and Sydney (the latter for a briefer period). QFi's frequency is pathetic to and from Singapore by comparison. I am not including Jetstar as this isn't a favoured option for many middle (and upper) class prospective travellers, and its timekeeping (delays) and reliability (cancellations) is atrocious, as recently stated by its management.

QFi often ignores Melbourne: look at its lack of nonstop flights to major destinations such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Shanghai and Taipei. Rational carriers must consider yield but legacy airlines like CI, MH, MU, PR and TG in some cases have multiple daily flights to these destinations from MEL, which while it's a 'definitional' boundary-setting exercise is claimed by some to now be Australia's largest city by population.

 

[Vic]

Asia is diverse if one includes northeast and southeast plus the subcontinent, but ought be QFi's #1 ('priority' if not a redundancy) as that's where the bulk of our inbound tourists and trade emanate, especially once mainland Chinese recommence travelling in numbers, and also to where the bulk of our tourists and businessmen and women travel to, not the USA.

Given the A$'s fall against the US$, this trend may intensify as in time should it continue, it'll depress outwards leisure travel more than any USA to Oz increase in same. Oz is just too far away for many residing on the east coast of USA to consider compared to alternatives such as Europe and UK.

Sadly for QFi, it's beaten on service, style and frequency by many Asian airlines.

Look as one small example how SQ will soon have five daily flights to Melbourne and Sydney (the latter for a briefer period). QFi's frequency is pathetic to and from Singapore by comparison. I am not including Jetstar as this isn't a favoured option for many middle (and upper) class prospective travellers, and its timekeeping (delays) and reliability (cancellations) is atrocious, as recently stated by its management.

QFi often ignores Melbourne: look at its lack of nonstop flights to major destinations such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Shanghai and Taipei. Rational carriers must consider yield but legacy airlines like CI, MH, MU, PR and TG in some cases have multiple daily flights to these destinations from MEL, which while it's a 'definitional' boundary-setting exercise is claimed by some to now be Australia's largest city by population.

Half the world's population in our region!

Having tried to attract international meetings to Australia a few times, I still get "It's a long way to travel".
(yet the Europeans expect that they should dominate activities, and ignore that it's a long way for us to travel to Europe )

Recent meetings in Europe - someone from the US went home for 4 working days and then flew back. They did say it was a bad idea in hindsight, but 8 to 10 hours flying is not the same psychological barrier as 14 to 18 hours.

Yes, an emerging, expanding, aspirational middle, upper middle and higher class in our regional neighbours! You'd think an airline that considers itself to be premium would want to get a slice of that money.

 

[dajop]

Look as one small example how SQ will soon have five daily flights to Melbourne and Sydney (the latter for a briefer period). QFi's frequency is pathetic to and from Singapore by comparison. l

To be fair though SQ doesn’t have 4 and soon to be 5 services a day to serve MEL-SIN, these flight serve MEL-Asia/Europe.

 

[justinbrett]

Asia is diverse if one includes northeast and southeast plus the subcontinent, but ought be QFi's #1 ('priority' if not a redundancy) as that's where the bulk of our inbound tourists and trade emanate, especially once mainland Chinese recommence travelling in numbers, and also to where the bulk of our tourists and businessmen and women travel to, not the USA.

Given the A$'s fall against the US$, this trend may intensify as in time should it continue, it'll depress outwards leisure travel more than any USA to Oz increase in same. Oz is just too far away for many residing on the east coast of USA to consider compared to alternatives such as Europe and UK.

Sadly for QFi, it's beaten on service, style and frequency by many Asian airlines.

Look as one small example how SQ will soon have five daily flights to Melbourne and Sydney (the latter for a briefer period). QFi's frequency is pathetic to and from Singapore by comparison. I am not including Jetstar as this isn't a favoured option for many middle (and upper) class prospective travellers, and its timekeeping (delays) and reliability (cancellations) is atrocious, as recently stated by its management.

QFi often ignores Melbourne: look at its lack of nonstop flights to major destinations such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Shanghai and Taipei. Rational carriers must consider yield but legacy airlines like CI, MH, MU, PR and TG in some cases have multiple daily flights to these destinations from MEL, which while it's a 'definitional' boundary-setting exercise is claimed by some to now be Australia's largest city by population.

I don't actually disagree with most of your comments, I think QF operates with far more freedom to compete on Trans Pacific, that's where the majority of Aussies want to go when they travel long haul (NZ and Bali are #1 & 2, US is #3, UK #4). Most popular countries for Aussie travellers in 2019.

So make sense to invest in the market you'll get the most return. Asian routes typically do not attract the profit margins on any carrier compared to US routes. This is clearly demonstrated with how QF & NZ have pivoted to the US at the expense of European services - with NZ pulling out completely from that market.

As for the currency, the Big 4 banks here are expecting the AUD/USD rate to improve to around 0.78 by mid next year.

 

[Melburnian1]

Half the world's population in our region!

Having tried to attract international meetings to Australia a few times, I still get "It's a long way to travel".
(yet the Europeans expect that they should dominate activities, and ignore that it's a long way for us to travel to Europe )

Recent meetings in Europe - someone from the US went home for 4 working days and then flew back. They did say it was a bad idea in hindsight, but 8 to 10 hours flying is not the same psychological barrier as 14 to 18 hours.

Yes, an emerging, expanding, aspirational middle, upper middle and higher class in our regional neighbours! You'd think an airline that considers itself to be premium would want to get a slice of that money.

Completely agree: Europe is no longer the centre of world finance, with perhaps the collapse of Credit Suisse having accentuated the trend: arguably it's New York, London, Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore, not necessarily in that order, with Hong Kong rapidly declining given it's lost its quasi-independence.

Someone I met in Toronto who was a highly paid executive said he liked Melbourne and Sydney, so I said 'would you like to work there' and he said 'no, I prefer London as it's closer to the centre of things' with the latter now being where he is.

I suspect a lot of Europeans think they're better than Asians, and definitely better than the UK and the USA, with the latter reserved for scorn. Yet there are plenty of wealthy Asians who can afford business class and/or frequent travel. It's surprising QFi doesn't seem to agree, especially with a relatively well heeled market such as Taiwan.

 

[dajop]

I am not including Jetstar as this isn't a favoured option for many middle (and upper) class prospective travellers, and its timekeeping (delays) and reliability (cancellations) is atrocious, as recently stated by its management.

Although, love them or hate them, Jetstar are an integral part of QF's strategy to compete with the lower cost bases of many carriers, in leisure markets, where QF's cost base is simply to high to compete in the price sensitive segment. Not everything has to be about the upper and middle classes.

 

[Melburnian1]

I think QF operates with far more freedom to compete on Trans Pacific, that's where the majority of Aussies want to go when they travel long haul (NZ and Bali are #1 & 2, US is #3, UK #4).

While the data is imperfect as it only reflects one month, the ABS says in March 2023, (Australian) 'short term resident returns' were, in order of popularity from #1 to #10, NZ, Indonesia (no surprises with those two), India (students a big driver but also VFR), Thailand, USA, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Fiji and Philippines. Note that UK and Europe don't make it on the list, although latter is probably due to so many nations forming 'Europe' so one would need to add short-term arrivals of Oz residents from each to get a truer picture.

Many Australians combine UK and Europe, so given the emphasis statistically is 'in which nation did you spend the most time', that may depress the outcome for UK visits. Each year, hundreds of thousands of us visit UK.

For short-term visitor arrivals, ABS says the top five in March 2023 were NZ, UK, USA, India and Singapore. Note that here, UK outflanks USA, perhaps not a surprise given historic familial links, plus a perception Oz is great to come to during the Pommy winter.

 

[Melburnian1]

To be fair though SQ doesn’t have 4 and soon to be 5 services a day to serve MEL-SIN, these flight serve MEL-Asia/Europe.

True, with historically SQ carrying many Oz-India patrons, but a similar comment could be made about QFi: surely some of its passengers on say 'the 81' or 'the 35/37' are heading to destinations other than SIN?

 

[justinbrett]

While the data is imperfect as it only reflects one month, the ABS says in March 2023, (Australian) 'short term resident returns' were, in order of popularity from #1 to #10, NZ, Indonesia (no surprises with those two), India (students a big driver but also VFR), Thailand, USA, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Fiji and Philippines. Note that UK and Europe don't make it on the list, although latter is probably due to so many nations forming 'Europe' so one would need to add short-term arrivals of Oz residents from each to get a truer picture.

Many Australians combine UK and Europe, so given the emphasis statistically is 'in which nation did you spend the most time', that may depress the outcome for UK visits. Each year, hundreds of thousands of us visit UK.

For short-term visitor arrivals, ABS says the top five in March 2023 were NZ, UK, USA, India and Singapore. Note that here, UK outflanks USA, perhaps not a surprise given historic familial links, plus a perception Oz is great to come to during the Pommy winter.

Quite imperfect, since March is one of the slowest months for outbound travel in Australia.

You need a larger dataset that goes for the full year - USA was #3 in the larger sets for all of the ABS products I found (NZ and Indonesia were 1 & 2), dating back up to 15 years ago.

 

[pauly7]

This thread will break the record soon for factual inaccuracies, but good for a chuckle

 

[Quickstatus]

QF could have increased its record profit by bringing out the fuel surcharge

 

[RooFlyer]

This thread will break the record soon for factual inaccuracies, but good for a chuckle

Well, by all means give us the benefit of your expertise. Should be a long post.

 

[Vic]

Although, love them or hate them, Jetstar are an integral part of QF's strategy to compete with the lower cost bases of many carriers, in leisure markets, where QF's cost base is simply to high to compete in the price sensitive segment. Not everything has to be about the upper and middle classes.

Well of course, leisure markets.
But perhaps the key point has been missed, Asian has growing upper and middle classes. Growing!!! Pretty fundamental if you want to grow your business, access the growing market,

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Sadly for QFi, it's beaten on service, style and frequency by many Asian airlines.

Pre covid I would have agreed.

Post covid, can’t agree!

Having flown QF and Asian carriers a bunch of times over the last 18 months I think QF is right up there these days. Not necessarily because QF have lifted their soft product, but others have fallen. TG and SQ service and food have noticeably declined in business class. Qantas is powering forward with new crews that are absolutely fantastic, and that’s rubbing off on legacy crews too.

The major gripe with QF these days are the call centres for non platinums, and their business class lounges

 

[pauly7]

Post covid, can’t agree! others have fallen. TG and SQ service and food have noticeably declined in business class.

I completely agree.

I was very unimpressed with 2 recent J long haul trips on SQ and also ANA. Really very average service and catering, the soft product on both has dropped a lot from my prior experiences.

 

[RooFlyer]

So Neil Perry rabbit food leaves have finally forged to the front ? ( )

 

[jrfsp]

So Neil Perry rabbit food leaves have finally forged to the front ? ( )

Forged or foraged ?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So Neil Perry rabbit food leaves have finally forged to the front ? ( )

i don’t even recall the last time I had a salad in business class, except for Qantas? All airlines have an entree, but getting a separate side salad is pretty rare these days?

 

[pauly7]

Well, by all means give us the benefit of your expertise. Should be a long post.

Oh goodness no too many to even bother, best to keep it light and jokey in this thread, and I’m off the book on this forum