Qatar denied extra capacity into Australia

[justinbrett]

That is just laughable, if it were sincere there wouldn't be on going legal action.

Might have been better to provide a report from somewhere other than Qatar state owned media.

Yes, ADL is not capped under the Qatar-Australia air service agreement.
Neither are AVV or OOL.

Also NTL is in the market for someone to use their brand new international facilities including aerobridge and have been known to give very good deals to new entrants

OOL runway is too short for direct flights to the ME

OOL-CNS-DOH would be a good route

It could still operate from OOL with a minor payload restriction

 

[Quickstatus]

Isn't ADL exempt from the cap so maybe Qatar should just run lots of services to ADL and setup well-timed VA connections?

Yes. - an option when the opposing stakeholders are "well done". Currently she is "medium rare"

The Government has long moved on from that figleaf of an excuse for its decision.

Not the court case.

 

[anyonebutqantas]

Yes, ADL is not capped under the Qatar-Australia air service agreement.
Neither are AVV or OOL.
If QR wants to add flights to Melbourne, they can fly to Avalon. If anyone complains about the distance to the airport, they don't have a leg to stand on. The Skybus takes an hour between the Melbourne CBD and AVV, which is the same time as the Narita Express takes between NRT and Tokyo Station.
OOL is also reasonably close enough to Brisbane.

Qatar should not be forced to fly to the less convenient AVV to give QF an unfair advantage by monopolising flights to MEL.

Qld Government should extend the OOL runway and offer a subsidy for QR to operate OOL-DOH. They should also subsidise BNE-CNS-DOH as an interim solution.

 

[Himeno]

They should also subsidise BNE-CNS-DOH as an interim solution.

QR can't operate BNE-CNS-DOH while they are flying DOH-MEL-ADL.

 

[justinbrett]

Qld Government should extend the OOL runway and offer a subsidy for QR to operate OOL-DOH. They should also subsidise BNE-CNS-DOH as an interim solution.

OOL is privately owned

 

[kyle]

Yes, ADL is not capped under the Qatar-Australia air service agreement.
Neither are AVV or OOL.
If QR wants to add flights to Melbourne, they can fly to Avalon. If anyone complains about the distance to the airport, they don't have a leg to stand on. The Skybus takes an hour between the Melbourne CBD and AVV, which is the same time as the Narita Express takes between NRT and Tokyo Station.
OOL is also reasonably close enough to Brisbane.

OT, but who really wants to go to Avalon? And who really wants to ride on the bus if there's a train?

 

[Clayton]

Isn't ADL exempt from the cap so maybe Qatar should just run lots of services to ADL and setup well-timed VA connections?

Excellent lateral thinking idea. Arrival into ADL, easy transit through immigration to strategically coordinated VA flights to SYD, BNE and MEL within a couple 100 steps. Imagine if 4 QR flights arrived , spaced 1 hr apart, and the heart-ache this would cause whoever is in control of QF at the time, and the respective Labor minister.

 

[justinbrett]

Excellent lateral thinking idea. Arrival into ADL, easy transit through immigration to strategically coordinated VA flights to SYD, BNE and MEL within a couple 100 steps. Imagine if 4 QR flights arrived , spaced 1 hr apart, and the heart-ache this would cause whoever is in control of QF at the time, and the respective Labor minister.

I'm not sure a 2-stop offering to Europe is all that threatening. But all power to them if they want to try.

 

[jase05]

Excellent lateral thinking idea. Arrival into ADL, easy transit through immigration to strategically coordinated VA flights to SYD, BNE and MEL within a couple 100 steps. Imagine if 4 QR flights arrived , spaced 1 hr apart, and the heart-ache this would cause whoever is in control of QF at the time, and the respective Labor minister.

No point.
They are better of riding this out and the decision will get overturned soon enough

 

[PineappleSkip]

OOL is also reasonably close enough to Brisbane.

Hardly. I’m 90km and an hour from BNE, and 200km and 2 ¼ hours plus from OOL, with both the Bruce and Pacific highways between here and OOL. I want more flights into BNE please.

The PM dug in even further on this

Many was the pollie who dug deeper and deeper, then exited the hole when too much earth rained down. Lets see…

 

[anyonebutqantas]

QR can't operate BNE-CNS-DOH while they are flying DOH-MEL-ADL.

Why's that?

 

[justinbrett]

Hardly. I’m 90km and an hour from BNE, and 200km and 2 ¼ hours plus from OOL, with both the Bruce and Pacific highways between here and OOL. I want more flights into BNE please.

Sure, but for large sections of suburban Brisbane it's less than an hour to OOL - then of course you have the Gold Coast itself as a major city and tourist destination in its own right; not to mention Northern NSW inc Byron which is also a popular destination.

QR would have virtually no competition as the only full service international airline at OOL flying towards Europe.

Why's that?

There's only an additional 7 flights available if they operate either from or via a major gateway. Whether the flight originates in the gateway or it operates via the gateway doesn't matter.

 

[Quickstatus]

OOL is privately owned

Qantas is privately owned

---

But there is no room for runway extension

 

[RooFlyer]

Qld Government should extend the OOL runway

OOL is privately owned

Point being? HBA is privately owned but the Feds and State still ponied up for a runway extension and later, strengthening. Yeah, I don't understand that either.

 

[clifford]

Point being? HBA is privately owned but the Feds and State still ponied up for a runway extension and later, strengthening. Yeah, I don't understand that either.

10 senate seats ++

 

[justinbrett]

Point being? HBA is privately owned but the Feds and State still ponied up for a runway extension and later, strengthening. Yeah, I don't understand that either.

Probably so a certain PM's A330 can land there.

 

[levelnine]

Disagree it is definitely partly about that as it should be.

LOL

 

[Himeno]

Why's that?

The current air service agreement allows 28 weekly flights to the 4 major ports, +7 additional that are to/via an unlimited port.
If they are using that +7 to fly via MEL to ADL, they have nothing to use to fly BNE-CNS-DOH. OOL-CNS-DOH would be fine.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

It makes no sense to me why Qatar's bid for extra capacity was denied. Qantas wants them to add more capacity, Virgin wants their partner to have more capacity (to feed into Virgin domestic flights). The only people I can tell who are opposed to it are politicians who cite the national interest but fail to explain why it is in the national interest to reduce competition. Has Qatar been shown to be dumping fares illegally on the Australian market? Keep in mind too that Australia is in a bad state when it comes to flying to Europe. Qantas operates what 3 flights a day to the entire continent (i.e. just LHR and FCO)? Compare that with North America where that figure is closer to a dozen from major cities like SYD, MEL and BNE to LAX, SFO, DFW and JFK.

Yes you could argue that airlines like Singapore and Emirates help fill the gap but it's a major gap nonetheless. And that's where the pain is mostly felt. Try flying to Europe in economy for under $3000 these days. You'll be lucky if you can find one or two flights with a reputable airline. Meanwhile to the US (where there is competition) we see dozens of options with flights being well under $2000. And who does it hurt? Everyone! It hurts the Australian business person who needs to fly to Zurich to attend an important meeting to close a deal. It hurts Europeans looking to visit Australia during their winter. There are frankly no winners in denying this approval. Alan Joyce said it's a good idea to approve, state premiers have said if they had the choice they would approve it, heck the CEO of rival Virgin Australia strongly argued in Qatar's favour.

What are these policy makers seeing that we aren't?

 

[justinbrett]

The PM was a bit cryptic in QT today, and certainly implied it was his decision on the Qatar saga, and referenced an extensive conversation with someone other than QF about it.

When asked to detail discussions he or his office has had with the Qantas CEO Alan Joyce or with other senior Qantas directors or executives concerning the Qatar request:

As I was saying before with regard to this question on this issue of Qatar, I'll make two points. One is that the deal that was asked for in February 2018 took not that term but till January 2022 to come into place. That was an interesting deal because it wasn't just over flights. What they did on that deal was put in a safeguarding mechanism, a special thing which other countries did not have to do, to safeguard Australia's national interest. That was put in the agreement between Australia and Qatar. Unlike any agreement that was made during the six years in which I was a minister, there was a special agreement put in, and I agree with the actions of the transport minister.

This updated deal was a special arrangement between Australia and Qatar, because the Australian government at the time was clearly concerned about an abuse of market power. I assume that's why it was put into the agreement. That is something that I do not think has been put out there—I don't think there was a media release done at the time—but that was done because of the special circumstances which are there. If you want to keep asking questions about this, I'll go through the whole answer.

I had one extensive conversation with someone about Qatar. It was not someone from Qantas. In terms of the arrangements that are made, the truth is that a lot of the time, when these agreements are put in, they are deferred. There is nothing unusual about that. Indeed, when I was a minister, Qatar had their access doubled from seven to 14 flights in February 2009. There's an aviation green paper process underway to make sure that we get all of the settings right, just as, when I was a minister, I put in place the green paper and white paper which set Australia up with the most competitive aviation market in the world, bar none.