QF A380 to DFW; QF9/10 retiming

[sjd]

There are reports on FT of the hard product being of poor quality with inoperative seating and IFE.

I am booked on one LAX-JFK next month.

trip report!

 

[Danger]

I guess the challenge with any 93/4 retiming is the 107/8 connections to/from JFK. If you deviate too much with 93/94 then either they'd have to people to travel using AA to JFK (undermining the loads on 107/8), or via SYD to JFK or also muck around with 107/8 timings, which in turn could affect BNE (15/16) timings.

If they start pushing people off the LAX-JFK leg of the 107/108, I'm not sure if it will be economical at all for much longer (assuming it is economical to start with). Or perhaps that's what they're trying to achieve?

My thoughts exactly. An opportunity for Qantas to do one of the things it's very good at: cut a route. God knows the template they use gets enough use.

 

[Mattg]

It does not cover all the options and misses the one that will be used, the pattern for aircraft use will no longer involve mixing it with the US fights, the aircraft will operate QF 1, QF10, QF9 and then QF2.

I did take this into account, but it leaves us no closer to solving the QF94/93 mystery.

 

[MelUser]

I have heard that UA is starting to do LAX to MEL direct. If anything was done to upset MEL pax this might become an alternative.

By the way, I have been in LAX when QF have delayed 94 to wait for 108 because of snow storms in JFK. We ended up leaving LAX at 3am the following morning.

I have also flown out of LAX where QF have decided NOT to keep QF94 waiting which means that J cabin has had empty seats due to no shows.

 

[Himeno]

I have heard that UA is starting to do LAX to MEL direct. If anything was done to upset MEL pax this might become an alternative.

UA are changing the LAX/SFO-SYD flights from 747s to 777s, dropping the SYD-MEL tag and starting LAX-MEL non stop with a 787. This would mean fewer seats on MEL-LAX.

How do the new 9/10 timings compare to the 93/94 timings at MEL? Are they likely to have more MEL-SYD positioning flights or change the timings for 15/16/93/94/107/108 slightly?
Are the QF slots at JFK for 107/108 during the busy slot constrained period, or do they get away before the flood of Europe flights?

 

[serfty]

I did take this into account, but it leaves us no closer to solving the QF94/93 mystery.

Instead of spending 15 hours at LHR a 388 will be spending 6 hours.

Operating several aircraft over a 6 day period means there's two whole days saved - enough to dispatch one off to DFW and back.

Thats the gist of how it is planned - I have not delved more deeply as yet.

 

[otchi]

Instead of spending 15 hours at LHR a 388 will be spending 6 hours.

Operating several aircraft over a 6 day period means there's two whole days saved - enough to dispatch one off to DFW and back.

Yes But even so this does not explain how Qantas is going to turn QF94/93 around. QF94 arrives into Melbourne at 09:20 & QF93 departs at 10:20 leaving only 60 min to turn the aircraft around.

 

[Isochronous]

Customer Care left me a voicemail yesterday in response to my complaint about HKG looking likely to lose A380 service. Got the standard spiel 'thanks for the feedback, we will pass it on to management, sorry you're disappointed but QFi is going through a lot of challenges and changes have to be made due to unviable routes' blah blah.

 

[serfty]

Yes But even so this does not explain how Qantas is going to turn QF94/93 around. QF94 arrives into Melbourne at 09:20 & QF93 departs at 10:20 leaving only 60 min to turn the aircraft around.

Obviously a different aircraft - back in the days of just NancyBird they used to fly into MEL as QF94 and ferry (sans PAX) to SYD for QF11.

 

[Awesom Andy]

Or, they might have just made a mistake somewhere. When they retimed the Asian flights, my parents had a booking where an A330 was supposed to get from SYD to SIN with just 7 hours of flying time. It took QF 2 months to realise what was going on and to fix it.

 

[Mattg]

Obviously a different aircraft - back in the days of just NancyBird they used to fly into MEL as QF94 and ferry (sans PAX) to SYD for QF11.

So do you think they will have 2x daily A380 ferry flights between SYD and MEL? (1 in each direction). I wonder if they could turn those into revenue flights - would easily be the best and a very popular way to fly between SYD and MEL.

 

[drron]

No fluke at all - Tullamarine Airport was purpose built ... of course that was back in the day when Bolte said - "this will happen" - and it did!

Anyhoo, back on topic ...

Not quite right.Both SYD international terminal and MEL at Tullamarine were Commonwealth Government projects.Look closely at the 2 terminals and their design is similar.Just that SYD is all international and MEL both international and domestic.
SYD was completed on time and under budget whilst MEL was late and over budget.That meant on one of the Queen's visit she opened the SYD terminal instead of Tullamarine which was the original plan.

 

[geordieladinoz]

So do you think they will have 2x daily A380 ferry flights between SYD and MEL? (1 in each direction). I wonder if they could turn those into revenue flights - would easily be the best and a very popular way to fly between SYD and MEL.

Dreaming. Imagine the queue for the FLounge!

 

[serfty]

So do you think they will have 2x daily A380 ferry flights between SYD and MEL? (1 in each direction). I wonder if they could turn those into revenue flights - would easily be the best and a very popular way to fly between SYD and MEL.

No .. They didn't back in the early days and would be unlikely to start now ...

 

[smit0847]

So do you think they will have 2x daily A380 ferry flights between SYD and MEL? (1 in each direction). I wonder if they could turn those into revenue flights - would easily be the best and a very popular way to fly between SYD and MEL.

I think they'll have to do the 2 x ferry flights but they won't be revenue flights. Although it would be an extremely popular way to travel between SYD and MEL (they could set a base Y fare of $199 without any problem) the effort will not be worth it. Much easier to just grab two pilots and have them ferry each A380 from city to city. There's a reason A380s are not used on 1 hour domestic hops - it would take longer just to board and deplane everyone!

I don't think they'll risk killing the LAX-JFK leg just to avoid the ferry.

 

[Mattg]

I'm not sure I'm convinced that they'll solve the QF94/93 problem by ferrying aircraft everyday. IIRC they had three ferry flights per week in the early days, but this would require 14 per week - that's quite a bit of money.

 

[Quickstatus]

I dont understand the big deal some people make about connecting. It is a few hours extra. I know it is tiring. You forget about it after a day or 2. It is not like anyone is forcing you to fly

You are right, however pax have more choice now. Fly to one hub (eg EK) or two hubs (non east coast pax flying QF)

 

[dajop]

I think they'll have to do the 2 x ferry flights but they won't be revenue flights. Although it would be an extremely popular way to travel between SYD and MEL (they could set a base Y fare of $199 without any problem) the effort will not be worth it. Much easier to just grab two pilots and have them ferry each A380 from city to city. There's a reason A380s are not used on 1 hour domestic hops - it would take longer just to board and deplane everyone!

Yep, taking on passengers doesn't seem possible, at least on the Australian winter timetable. QF2 arrives in SYD at 5:10 and QF93 departs MEL @ 9:10. 4 hours is not enough to do 2 complete turnarounds and taxi/fly 1.5 hrs. Seems just OK without pax though, it means 70 minutes after arriving in SYD, needs to depart for MEL and then has 75 minutes to load again ... I guess passenger flights could (in theory) work in the other direction, assuming that QF94 becomes QF1, there's plenty of time.

Would ferry flights take on freight?

 

[dajop]

I'm not sure I'm convinced that they'll solve the QF94/93 problem by ferrying aircraft everyday. IIRC they had three ferry flights per week in the early days, but this would require 14 per week - that's quite a bit of money.

But how does the cost of 14 1.5 hour ferry flights a week stack up against a whole extra plane required for LHR routes? The retiming of the MEL-LHR flights mean that QF will only use 5 A380's for LHR, instead of 6 under the previous schedule.

 

[gwilli1]

Forget the ferry flights , they won't happen. the new schedule links QF1 / 10 / 9 / 2 in a 6 day W flying pattern , so 93/94 will sit out of this as a stand alone pattern , (although the aircraft may exchange with 11/ 12 in LAX ). The down time in SYD from QF2 arrival to QF1 will be used for incidental maintenance as it is now .

From the Qantas Source
The new schedule, from July 20th, retimes the Melbourne services and means aircraft will fly a six day W pattern originating in Sydney. The aircraft schedule will be follows:
QF1 Sydney 1550 – Dubai 0035+1
QF1 Dubai 0215 – London Heathrow 0645
QF10 London Heathrow 1330 – Dubai 2325
QF10 Dubai 0115+1 – Melbourne 2055
QF9 Melbourne 2255 – Dubai 0705+1
QF9 Dubai 0905 – London Heathrow 1340
QF2 London Heathrow 2125 – Dubai 0720+1
QF2 Dubai 0920 – Sydney 0510+1.