QF to Haneda

[mannej]

PER-HND anyone?

 

[smit0847]

There was talks JL was looking to move SYD-NRT to HND and opening a 2nd Australian destination, again either MEL or BNE so maybe QF operating HND services elsewhere might make sense as both JL and QF would provide both options of HND and NRT. In the case of MEL & BNE lets have a look:

- BNE: People love to bunch BNE with the whole of SE Queensland (for larger population pool), and since we are looking at SE Queensland as a whole, JQ currently already offers daily OOL-NRT services, I think this caters well for leisure (and some business) passengers. Why doesn't JQ operate the services out of BNE? Is it because the market is generally low yielding and better suited for OOL? What is the case that BNE needs a direct link to Tokyo? What businesses are there? Whats the Premium load breakdown? I believe the Japanese traffic in recent years have seen a major shift towards Cairns with SE Queensland being more attractive to Mainland Chinese visitors, so that might see a shift in demand.

- MEL: Jetstar currently offers MEL-NRT x4 weekly, it seems the flights are doing rather well and pushing up Japanese arrivals into Melbourne, with last month alone, bumping Japanese arrivals up 80%. My guess is, QF maybe getting a feel for the demand of MEL-NRT and is probably testing the market with the less riskier JQ flights first before committing to its own mainline services, we could see JQ bump off and QF step in. However the current JQ schedule links up well with GK and optimises connections at both ends (besides the awful midnight arrival into MEL!) in MEL (outbound) and NRT. Or QF could supplement with an extra x3 weekly services to make MEL daily.

Either way, I think both JL & QF are about to announce something big, both will announce new routes launches and schedule changes.

JQ fly OOL-NRT instead of BNE-NRT because OOL for several reasons:
1. Landing fees are much lower at OOL - they set out to be THE LCC airport for Queensland and have done it perfectly;
2. For outbound Australian passengers its more of a leisure route than a business route so less need to fly out of a convenient city airport; and
2. To attract inbound Japanese passengers, they are more likely to want to visit the Gold Coast than Brisbane city.

I'd done MEL-OOL-NRT-OOL-MEL on JQ before and while OOL is nothing flash it was a very easy transfer in OOL - everything is close together and its certainly nice having all terminals under one roof unlike SYD, BNE and PER.

 

[soorox]

JQ fly OOL-NRT instead of BNE-NRT because OOL for several reasons:

1. Landing fees are much lower at OOL - they set out to be THE LCC airport for Queensland and have done it perfectly;
2. For outbound Australian passengers its more of a leisure route than a business route so less need to fly out of a convenient city airport; and
2. To attract inbound Japanese passengers, they are more likely to want to visit the Gold Coast than Brisbane city.

I'd done MEL-OOL-NRT-OOL-MEL on JQ before and while OOL is nothing flash it was a very easy transfer in OOL - everything is close together and its certainly nice having all terminals under one roof unlike SYD, BNE and PER.

So I guess wheres the business case for BNE then if the market is more gravitated towards OOL? I definitely agree with all of your points, I too have done the same connecting routing and it was very quick and very straightforward, even with luggage its just a quick stroll to the check in counters.

 

[Himeno]

Good news for QF. Whenever I've been on QF22 there has always been a solid load, even on a 747.

Almost every time I've been on a QF or JL flight between AU and NRT, it's been oversold with Japanese school groups.

I assume that QF will be likely to use JLs ground services and lounges etc. at HND

Likely. BA does, AA did. Not sure if CX does.

Operating aircraft not revealed yet. Does the A333 have the range? With the refurbed J seat it could be quite competitive.

Yes. A330's more then have the range for AU-Japan. They are used for JQ MEL-NRT, 767s have in the past done PER/MEL/BNE-NRT and QF had an A330 on SYD-NRT for a while in 2010/11.

Good news! The location of HND is better.
The one thing I do love about NRT is the JL F lounge. How is the new JL F lounge in HND?

There are now 2 JL lounge complexes at the HND IT. There is also a CX lounge opening soon.

Either way, I think both JL & QF are about to announce something big, both will announce new routes launches and schedule changes.

Hopefully codeshares on each others flights?
This is quite unexpected. QF had said before they weren't interested in HND and have until now refused to look at the QF21/22 flight times. They do have some extra flights to NRT over xmas/new year.
With JL also talking about possible route changes/additions, I'd like to wait until we get more details about any new flights and timings before I get overly excited about this.

Reading some of the comments on the AusBT article shows that some people just have no idea about transport options in/around Tokyo. The article itself doesn't appear to know about the 36 minute NRT-Nippori Keisei express train.

Odd that there isn't anything about this in the QF newsroom yet.


The current Australia-Japan air treaty allows for unlimited flights between Australia and Japan, except for HND which is limited to 7 return flights/week. 5th freedom is limited to 79 "units"/week with aircraft type determining the "unit" (A380 2.5, 747 2.0, A330/A350/777 1.5, 763 1.2, 762/787/737/A320 1.0).

 

[RickyT84]

Ups total capacity of Aus-Japan,
Syd-Tokyo goes down slightly, but forcing connecting traffic through MEL/BNE (poor WP/P1s if BNE) probably means about the same or more seats for the direct flyers.

With the new route (whether it would be BNE or MEL), QF can afford to change the SYD-NRT from a 744 to an A333 as many pax can now either fly direct to Tokyo or connect in a port other than SYD. Judging from my travel on evening services from MEL to SYD, it seems like a quite few pax on those flights connect to QF21.

 

[TomVexille]

There is no "if" given their scarcity.

Just like how airlines never order planes that they never take delivery of right?

I do believe that they will use the slots. I just meant that there's no guarantee that they will.

 

[trentusjuventus]

This is indeed great news, HND is a very convenient airport for access to Tokyo. As an additional benefit, this might be of particular use to those heading over to Hokkaido for the snow, as there are more domestic connections available to CTS from HND than from NRT, which may mean no more inter-airport transfer in Tokyo.

 

[Daver6]

PER-HND anyone?

Oh snap...I was going to make that joke

 

[Bundy Bear]

I thought Sydney would have been the obvious choice but it might depend on the actual slot times.

It is possible that the flight has to leave and or land in Australia between 11pm and 6am; so there is always a chance the flight has to leave after say 11pm and the return flight could be a day flight with the chance the flight has to arrive back in Australia at 10pm.

Someone should know the slot times they have received to work out the answer. If Sydney can work they will get the new flight and I am sure Qantas will use the exist Narita slot for Melbourne, but if the slot times don't work for Sydney then I would bet Melbourne will get the new flight.

 

[Mr_Orange]

This is indeed great news, HND is a very convenient airport for access to Tokyo. As an additional benefit, this might be of particular use to those heading over to Hokkaido for the snow, as there are more domestic connections available to CTS from HND than from NRT, which may mean no more inter-airport transfer in Tokyo.

GK have several daily connecting flights to CTS from NRT, at least they did in March this year.

 

[Himeno]

I thought Sydney would have been the obvious choice but it might depend on the actual slot times.

It is possible that the flight has to leave and or land in Australia between 11pm and 6am; so there is always a chance the flight has to leave after say 11pm and the return flight could be a day flight with the chance the flight has to arrive back in Australia at 10pm.

Someone should know the slot times they have received to work out the answer. If Sydney can work they will get the new flight and I am sure Qantas will use the exist Narita slot for Melbourne, but if the slot times don't work for Sydney then I would bet Melbourne will get the new flight.

Prior to the new International terminal being opened at HND, the only international flights allowed where "scheduled charters" to cities within the range of the longest ex-Tokyo domestic flight (1,210 miles). After the new terminal and 4th runway opened in 2010, long haul slots were allocated by the Japanese MLIT (30,000/year). These slots could only be used between 11pm and 7am. Following the International terminal expansion which opened last March, another 30,000 slots/year were released for day time. It is not clear if the 7 weekly slot pairs available to Australia are for the 11pm-7am period or the 7am-11pm period.

Flight timings would be easier for the night slots for Australian flights then for the US slots (most of the issues are due to the shut down of Tokyo public transport over night) as the time difference isn't as much between Australia and Japan as for US and Japan.
Assuming SYD-HND with the HND night slots, something like this could be used:
SYD 2030
HND 0430
HND 0630
SYD 1830

I've found a copy of the QF press release
http://centreforaviation.com/files/analysis/198701/Qantas.pdf

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Most of the news sources say syd is staying with nrt. I suspect it will remain so with easy connection on to jetstar japan. My money is on BNE-HND. Queensland has always been more popular with the Japanese than Melbourne.

 

[Himeno]

Most of the news sources say syd is staying with nrt. I suspect it will remain so with easy connection on to jetstar japan. My money is on BNE-HND. Queensland has always been more popular with the Japanese than Melbourne.

The press release doesn't say that. I suspect the "SYD-NRT remains" is just media speculation or inability to read what the release actually says.

The press release states that HND will be added, the NRT service isn't being removed and that NRT will see schedule changes.
It says NRT will keep daily service. It doesn't say that said service will be from SYD.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

The press release doesn't say that. I suspect the "SYD-NRT remains" is just media speculation or inability to read what the release actually says.

The press release states that HND will be added, the NRT service isn't being removed and that NRT will see schedule changes.
It says NRT will keep daily service. It doesn't say that said service will be from SYD.

Yes I know, I didn't say the press release said that... did I?

I said most of the news sources.

I then said what I suspect will happen. Cheers.

 

[soorox]

Most of the news sources say syd is staying with nrt. I suspect it will remain so with easy connection on to jetstar japan. My money is on BNE-HND. Queensland has always been more popular with the Japanese than Melbourne.

But JL is also planning on launching a 2nd Australian route too, so are you suggesting JL will choose MEL?

 

[Isochronous]

But JL is also planning on launching a 2nd Australian route too, so are you suggesting JL will choose MEL?

If QF choose BNE-HND it would be great to see some co-operation and JL choose PER or MEL.

Maybe QF also wants an extra 747 to make the MEL-LAX double daily more regular/frequent. If SYD-NRT and BNE-HND were both 1xA330 allocated, there is suddenly 2 spare 747s. Retire one more unrefurbed 747 and keep the remaining NRT 747 for more US/Canada flights.

 

[yohy?!]

SYD-HND would be attractive to business/premium pax travelling in either direction on both the JL and QF existing services

Other ports would not have the existing market share to steal (ie JLs)

 

[Bundy Bear]

But JL is also planning on launching a 2nd Australian route too, so are you suggesting JL will choose MEL?

If JL is planning a 2nd route to Australia it has to be Brisbane, they used to fly daily to Brisbane for years and the 787 would be about the right size aircraft something Qantas doesn't have.

 

[Cool Cat Phil]

Certainly, an exciting prospect should the Red Roo follow through with a second service to Japan with a starting port outside of SYD.

Still speculation at this stage, & as a number of members have pointed out plenty of various options for the Red Roo, but my gut feeling is MEL may get the second QF service & JQ could be off to service another route perhaps KIX.

BNE may get the route too..... So it's anyone's guess.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

If JL is planning a 2nd route to Australia it has to be Brisbane, they used to fly daily to Brisbane for years and the 787 would be about the right size aircraft something Qantas doesn't have.

That might be right too, only time will tell! JL to BNE and QF from MEL would be nice.

I notice MEL-HND is about the same distance as SYD-HNL so the A330-300 seems like it would make the distance. Of course it could become an A330-200 route too which has eve more range.