Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth)-Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soar

[dk4]

Perth Airport isn't stupid, they know someone will be flying PER-LHR non-stop by the end of the decade. They aren't going to subsidise one airline over another to do it! If Qantas shoots itself in the foot (which is most likely, given they have done it before in Perth - e.g. the withdrawal from SIN) it will probably be one of the Vigins that does it (VA or VS)! There is high possibility that BA could even come back to PER, the only reason they stated they left, was a network-wide reduction in two stage flying due to costs, so a non-stop flight alleviates this issue! Wildcard: Could even be another EU airline, depending on what happens with post-Brexit negotiations!

 

[JessicaTam]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

It could offer a lot more one-stop coverage from MEL or SYD to secondary (or is tertiary?) European cities, such as Salzburg, Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Tallin, Riga, Vilnius, Basel, Luxembourg, secondary Germany & Italian cities, etc , and the list goes on. Plus other Turkey destinations, and not forgetting Tel Aviv.

Good point. TK have exceptional EU coverage.

 

[Melburnian1]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

Good point. TK have exceptional EU coverage.

Without veering completely off-topic on the thread, TK does, but demand between Australia and many of these smaller cities is in the overall scheme of things miniscule. Nonetheless TK is an expanding airline: it started one of the few nonstops from Europe to MNL, for instance.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

Without veering completely off-topic on the thread, TK does, but demand between Australia and many of these smaller cities is in the overall scheme of things miniscule. Nonetheless TK is an expanding airline: it started one of the few nonstops from Europe to MNL, for instance.

but small demand to 100 cities still means a full plane Australia to IST.

 

[Pleb Status]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

From the latest article on the front page of the West Australian -

QF are not willing to pay 'a cent' for the T3/T4 upgrade.
PER airport willing to fund upgrade on commercial terms.
QF are not willing to commit long term to any direct Europe flights.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/33348684/qantas-and-airport-at-war-over-london-route/#page1

It is also a bit of a stretch for QF to say that they have a long term commitment to PER. It was not that long ago when QFi did not operate a single service from PER.

 

[Lurch]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

As a local I agree with Pleb Status, though the issue has become a political football.
I think the long term commitment or lack thereof by QF is the real sticker here as it doesn't make any real commercial sense to upgrade any of the facilities without said agreement in place.
I suspect that things would be different if a minimum contract term were to be offered.

 

[Danger]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

How about the WA Government commits to what Qantas wants in return for Qantas guaranteeing a minimum of three international QF marketed and operated flights per day for the next 50 years. Play hard ball, I say.

 

[Ansett]

Re: Qantas: non-stop Australia (Perth) -Europe (London) Boeing 787 flights set to soa

How about the WA Government commits to what Qantas wants in return for Qantas guaranteeing a minimum of three international QF marketed and operated flights per day for the next 50 years. Play hard ball, I say.

Cant see Qantas committing to 50 days never mind 50 years lol

 

[moa999]

But since when does any airline commit to flights forever.

Perth should just decide to fund moving of all QF/JQ international services to T3/4 which will alleviate pressure on T1 Int, and probably mean they don't need to build the new central terminal for 10yrs. Win/win imho.

Qantas gets the disadvantage of being 1km from the planned railway to T3/4 but closer driving distance.

 

[Pleb Status]

It would be far more cost effective to throw some money at another carrier to expand out of T1 and tell QF to 'panhandle' elsewhere.

VA could go daily with their new A332 service to AUH and bring more pax to PER (275 vs 236 with no weight restrictions) for less corporate welfare overall.

 

[Pleb Status]

From The West Australian today -

It looks like the company that made over $1B profit last year has managed to extract some welfare...

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/33371504/barnett-cash-offer-to-end-flights-row/#page1

QF will be very unhappy however as this welfare does not cover the $40M construction cost.

Colin will need to sell all of Western Power to fund QF.

 

[yohy?!]

how very Ryanair....

 

[Danger]

But since when does any airline commit to flights forever.

Perth should just decide to fund moving of all QF/JQ international services to T3/4 which will alleviate pressure on T1 Int, and probably mean they don't need to build the new central terminal for 10yrs. Win/win imho.

Qantas gets the disadvantage of being 1km from the planned railway to T3/4 but closer driving distance.

Since when does an airport stump up a bucket load of money almost overwhelmingly just to make money for an airline?

If Perth Airport pays for changes to T3/4, who pays the ongoing labour costs for CBP staff? And where do those extra staff come from?

 

[moa999]

Also making money for themselves in more parking/ concessions etc.

Anyhow Perth spent a boatload on the regional terminal only have the bottom fall out of the charter mining market.

CBP staff are over recovered from the govt charges in most cases -- and it should be a pretty standard relationship to the number of pax

 

[Cheatah]

From The West Australian today -

It looks like the company that made over $1B profit last year has managed to extract some welfare...

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/33371504/barnett-cash-offer-to-end-flights-row/#page1

QF will be very unhappy however as this welfare does not cover the $40M construction cost.

Colin will need to sell all of Western Power to fund QF.

I struggle to understand the WA government actively considering subsidising the required modifications to the current QF domestic terminal - QF obviously want to ease transfers. This implies that a large number of passengers, probably most, will be connecting and not O/D traffic.

Therefore whats in it for WA? If most passengers are merely transferring between Domestic & International flights then the benefits seem little to WA, certainly doesn't justify the taxpayer subsidising the service.

Even if the majority of passengers would be O/D then will it stimulate demand so much to justify taxpayer investment? How much new demand would it create? Hard to quantify, I would wager most people visiting Perth already need to have a strong reason to visit given its distance & remoteness. I doubt there is much pent up demand which will suddenly be realised if it takes an hour or so less to travel from London.

(and it'll be quicker for most UK folks to transfer in Asia/Middle East rather than Heathrow)

In summary - WA Gov would be wasting money putting any taxpayer funds towards this. Marginal at best, and certainly better value elsewhere for the economy.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I struggle to understand the WA government actively considering subsidising the required modifications to the current QF domestic terminal - QF obviously want to ease transfers. This implies that a large number of passengers, probably most, will be connecting and not O/D traffic.

Therefore whats in it for WA? If most passengers are merely transferring between Domestic & International flights then the benefits seem little to WA, certainly doesn't justify the taxpayer subsidising the service.

Even if the majority of passengers would be O/D then will it stimulate demand so much to justify taxpayer investment? How much new demand would it create? Hard to quantify, I would wager most people visiting Perth already need to have a strong reason to visit given its distance & remoteness. I doubt there is much pent up demand which will suddenly be realised if it takes an hour or so less to travel from London.

(and it'll be quicker for most UK folks to transfer in Asia/Middle East rather than Heathrow)

In summary - WA Gov would be wasting money putting any taxpayer funds towards this. Marginal at best, and certainly better value elsewhere for the economy.

Free publicity for QF?

Wasn't part of the tie up with EK exactly as you mention... to provide connections to all of Europe without having to transit LHR. EK already flies to PER, offering one stop connections to all of Europe.

Either the service is about generating traffic/tourism to PER (in which case you don't need to move customs and immigration), or it's for transit passengers (in which case PER/WA doesn't benefit).

 

[Cheatah]

Free publicity for QF?

Wasn't part of the tie up with EK exactly as you mention... to provide connections to all of Europe without having to transit LHR. EK already flies to PER, offering one stop connections to all of Europe.

Either the service is about generating traffic/tourism to PER (in which case you don't need to move customs and immigration), or it's for transit passengers (in which case PER/WA doesn't benefit).

Publicity? Maybe. I think QF would want the flights to work but are realistic they need support.

I'm of the view that the benefits to WA do not justify taxpayers support. There was a Deloitte report predicting $140m per year from additional tourism spending from this single daily flight. Nonsensical numbers. Based on 236 seats and 365 flights per year that equates to $1600 in spending per passenger. Obviously not all passengers will be tourists, and not all the tourists would be additional compared to the tourists already coming to Perth so to make the $140m figure work you'd need to double/triple/quadruple that $1600 figure - unrealistic spend per tourist.

Getting Perth Airport to spend anywhere between $25m-$45m for one daily flight isn't feasible - they wouldn't make anywhere near a reasonable return and QF knows that. The so called extra flights to Europe (QF said it "might" eventually to 4 daily flights) wouldn't materialise until well after 2020 and by that time the new QF terminal could be built on the International side of the airport.

QF are smart, they know the WA Gov is desperate for any good economic news given the dire economy. QF are playing it well I just hope the WA gov realises it would be a bad investment - better return elsewhere.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Based on 236 seats and 365 flights per year that equates to $1600 in spending per passenger.

That seems about right for a coffee and sandwich at an airport cafe!!!

 

[Economy_Gold]

Therefore whats in it for WA? If most passengers are merely transferring between Domestic & International flights then the benefits seem little to WA, certainly doesn't justify the taxpayer subsidising the service.

In summary - WA Gov would be wasting money putting any taxpayer funds towards this. Marginal at best, and certainly better value elsewhere for the economy.

I don't want to play the devil's advocate here, but I think you need to get realistic: Hardly any airline nowadays will start a new route without government support in some form or another, so I actually think it is reasonable that Qantas also plays the game and tells the WA government that they will not go ahead if they need to take on too much of the commercial risk. This is the modern global aviation world and I think that, for too long, Australian state governments simply took Qantas for granted and I can understand that Qantas is under pressure from their shareholders to get the best deal that they can.

From the WA government perspective, it is important to remember that it is not only a pure economic decision, but also the non-monetary prestige that comes with being the "gateway to Australia".

 

[esseeeayeenn]

There are two arguments here.
First, Qantas argues that a seamless transfer experience is necessary to make the flights attractive.
Second, they argue that enough passengers will stop over in Perth to have a significant economic benefit for WA.
These are not necesarily contradictory.
Most Australians flying from other cities will probably not stop over in Perth. Nor will business travellers from Europe to Sydney.
But this cadre will be necessary to make the flights viable.
Many inbound tourists probably will take the opportunity to stop over.
It's not necessarily all one or the other.
ALthough to be honest I don't really care.
I just want my non-stop flight to Paris on QF metal.