Qantas Flying To Rome?

[maninblack]

Its all academic anyway. Come the delivery of 787's to Jetstar and it will be Jetstar to Rome and I bet Jetstar to Bombay , thus releasing a plane for elsewhere as the A330 is costing money with stopover.
QF money people recite "go jetstar" as they attend work everyday. Ah the job is mine and the bottom dollar is all we care about................

I think that you are right. QF mainline will be reluctant to go into Europe again, JQ would seem logical. I agree about BOM too, not seen as a premium location, at least yet, I think SFO will also go JQ, perhaps back into YVR too. QF will only fly the big ticket, big volume and glamour destinations. You will eventually see the QF product flying much bigger J class cabins too.

 

[NM]

You will eventually see the QF product flying much bigger J class cabins too.

With the reduced J seating density as a result of bigger, flatter seats/beds in J, I think this in inevitable for the QF mainline product. The move from Dreamtime to Skybed has two issues - less J seats in the same space and more demand as people wanted to fly with an airline with flat beds. The result is more flights with limited or no availability in business class, and even less availability for J class FF awards.

 

[Wunala Dreaming]

SYD-PEK is unable to operate non-stop at full capacity. Seats are continually blocked off and there is major restrictions on Cargo. In some cases this also occurs with services to Shanghai. Qantas is so restriced on the amount of freight it can carry to China, it must resort to wet-leasing (Atlas Air). Qantas (through 5Y operate the following services:

SYD-PVG-ANC-JFK
SYD-PVG-ANC-LAX
SYD-PVG-ANC-ORD
SYD-PVG-GYD-HHN
SYD-PVG-SYD

With regards to the 747-300s. They are costly to run but are useful during this current time. They still continue to operate services to HNL from SYD and PER from SYD and MEL. They are also scheduled to fly to CGK and NOU over the next few months as well as MEL-AKL-LAX. After February 2007, the 747-300s will only be flying SYD-PER-SYD and an opportunity arises for Qantas to rid of them or do something else.

I'm wondering whether Qantas will secure the Garuda Indonesia Hajj charters again like in 2005/6. If so, the aircraft always come back in a bad state - this will present an opportunity for Qantas to retire them. On the other hand, they may be converted to freighters (costly) as QF have stated they may look at 747 freighter aircraft of their own. Now I would have expected to see some of the earlier delivered 744s such as VH-OJA to be converted, but its up to Qantas what they decide. IIRC, before ex-QF 742 VH-EBQ (@ LRE) retired, the aircraft was placed on SYD-PER-SYD services. After February, it seems the same will happen with the 743s. Makes you wonder if (like with the 742) this will be the last route before retirement.

Some time ago Qantas were thinking of bringing -EBU back online (the most irrational thing I have ever heard - costs would be high), but that appears to have been axed.

They may keep the 743s, but after FEB 2007, there only use will be on SYD-PER-SYD services, operating extra services on the "Golden Triangle" during peak events and holiday periods, and operating services on MEL-AKL-LAX (although often the damn plan has to route via HNL due to weight issues) and SYD-PER-JNB during times of 2-class 744 downtime (say for maintenance or promotion/charter work).

Qantas were due to send VH-OEH across to Mexico for the latest Captains Choice Tour, although with -OJQ having a "D" check in Singapore, OJJ being down for AVOD and various other commitments, 747-300 VH-EBT was sent instead. 333s are ops SYD-NRT in lieu of the 743s now so there is now a chance for 743s to operate charters and other services.

With regards to the extra 2 A330-200s Qantas will get from mid-2007, I'd expect to see Skybed to pass 2L as there is now way Qantas will install less than 20 Skybeds in the 332s short Zone A cabin.

I'd like to see daily PEK and PVG services and would love to see the 332 operate SYD-PVG-PEK-SYD daily. Qantas does well in the premium cabins with its services to China and it is affecting some of the Chinese airlines flying to Australia. Air China has been affected so much by Qantas on the China route, that it iniated a codesharing agreement with Qantas. While Qantas aren't making money on PEK services, although will soon on PVG services, QF is most definitely making an impact.

Interesting times ahead...

Cheers

 

[NM]

SYD-PEK is unable to operate non-stop at full capacity. Seats are continually blocked off and there is major restrictions on Cargo. In some cases this also occurs with services to Shanghai. Qantas is so restriced on the amount of freight it can carry to China, it must resort to wet-leasing (Atlas Air).

These limitations are due to QF wanting to carry freight rather than passengers. They could operate a passenger service with a full cabin load on the SYD-PEK route if they chose. The 5560 miles for SYD-PEK is less than what Airbus quote for A330-300 ops with "typical seating configuration". Just because Qantas choose to carry freight instead of passengers does not mean the aircraft is not capable of flying the route.

So yes, to carry a full load of passengers plus additional freight, an aircraft other than the A330-300 would be required. Or they can carry the freight on the freighter services mentioned. Of course I am assuming the major freight requirement is PEK-SYD rather than vice versa, but that is just a guess.

The freight vs pax trade-off also applies to the LAX runs.

Some time ago Qantas were thinking of bringing -EBU back online (the most irrational thing I have ever heard - costs would be high), but that appears to have been axed.

Sanity prevailed! She will not grace our skys again :-| .

They may keep the 743s, but after FEB 2007, there only use will be on SYD-PER-SYD services, operating extra services on the "Golden Triangle" during peak events and holiday periods, and operating services on MEL-AKL-LAX (although often the damn plan has to route via HNL due to weight issues) and SYD-PER-JNB during times of 2-class 744 downtime (say for maintenance or promotion/charter work).

Yep, they will go the same way as the 747SPs. Relegated to the high capacity trans-cons to see out their days. At least they can be used to sub for some 744 services, but I would not like to be a J pax on such a sub flight :evil: .

Qantas were due to send VH-OEH across to Mexico for the latest Captains Choice Tour, although with -OJQ having a "D" check in Singapore, OJJ being down for AVOD and various other commitments, 747-300 VH-EBT was sent instead. 333s are ops SYD-NRT in lieu of the 743s now so there is now a chance for 743s to operate charters and other services.

Ahh, that explains why EBT got the job. Now I would be disappointed if I had booked J class for the tour and ended up with EBT. I assume there were no F bookings.

With regards to the extra 2 A330-200s Qantas will get from mid-2007, I'd expect to see Skybed to pass 2L as there is now way Qantas will install less than 20 Skybeds in the 332s short Zone A cabin.

Yes, it will be interesting to see just what the config ends up looking like. How many Y seats will be included?

I'd like to see daily PEK and PVG services and would love to see the 332 operate SYD-PVG-PEK-SYD daily. Qantas does well in the premium cabins with its services to China and it is affecting some of the Chinese airlines flying to Australia. Air China has been affected so much by Qantas on the China route, that it iniated a codesharing agreement with Qantas. While Qantas aren't making money on PEK services, although will soon on PVG services, QF is most definitely making an impact.

No major advantage in operating the 332 over the 333 on the route. You end up with significant drop in pax capability as a tradeoff for carrying freight. Its a similar ends result to blocking off seats on the 333 so they can carry more freight. The best result will depend on the volume of freight more than the weight of the freight.

I expect the 332s will operate the SYD-BOM route and that is going to require one aircraft pretty much full time to continue the 3 weekly services. SYD-BOM non-stop will require about 13:10 hours, while BOM-SYD is about 12:20. Add in the 90 min turnaround at BOM plus load/unload time at SYD and we have a mission time of around 28 hours. So to go daily will require two aircraft, with them being available for a shorter round-trip in their other 20 hours, but that would be tight even for a SYD-SIN-SYD turn-around so not sure where they would op to unless perhaps an AKL or PER turnaround??

Interesting times ahead...

Indeed. It will be interesting to see what pans out.