QF zeroing flights - cancellation impending?

[RichardMEL]

It's not a big issue, if you're not booked on a flight that is zeroed out

And I don't have a problem with QF cancelling flights in volatile times, the main problem is they're not cancelling flights that they have no intention of operating, which may mean less options are available for people to make alternative arrangements when they eventually get around to cancelling the flight.

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have written "widespread" in terms of affecting lots of routes - as it does not appear to be (yet).

and I absolutely agree with your point about leaving people in limbo without proper cancels potentially for weeks.

 

[Ktan89]

Thank you @RichardMEL & @dajop

 

[dajop]

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have written "widespread" in terms of affecting lots of routes - as it does not appear to be (yet).

Agreed, Chile, Japan and Singapore (from MEL, not sure about BNE, but definitely not from SYD) seem to the main ones affected.

 

[RichieKaen]

Fair enough. Perhaps I should have written "widespread" in terms of affecting lots of routes - as it does not appear to be (yet).

and I absolutely agree with your point about leaving people in limbo without proper cancels potentially for weeks.

As Mattg suggested "I can only assume this is so they can hold onto passengers' money for longer, since the flights aren't technically cancelled yet."
In other words it's a scam!

 

[chodo]

As Mattg suggested "I can only assume this is so they can hold onto passengers' money for longer, since the flights aren't technically cancelled yet."
In other words it's a scam!

I called it a scam and was told that's inappropriate? lol

 

[JohnPhelan]

I'm looking at flights to Honolulu (HNL) in late April with Qantas and having the same sort of problem. Sydney to HNL showing "no results found" on any date despite listing prices. Been like this all this week, except for a few times when they do show. Irony is that if you try book MEL-HNL, or BNE-HNL, QF103/QF104 show.

We've got friends already booked onto those flights, but kind of makes us a little hesitant to book at the moment if the route is not really showing flights. Wonder if another round of cancelations is looming.

It appears that Qantas intends to resume flights to HNL from Easter Saturday (16 April) onwards. Originally they were supposed to be back from late March. And yes, the system is allowing me to book seats SYD-HNL on 16 April and later. So that's a good sign.

I have a feeling the HNL situation in particular may be tied up with the BNE-LAX arrangements. Without the A380s, QF has been using B787s to fly SYD-LAX and MEL-LAX. To do that, they've taken the B787 off the BNE-LAX route and are using two A330s instead (there are two BNE-LAX flights on many days). My guess is that HNL services (among others) were suspended to allow the A330s to be moved onto BNE-LAX. When the A380s start flying SYD/MEL-LAX again, then BNE-LAX will get back its B787s, and the A330s can go back onto HNL, BKK, etc.

But - worst case scenario - when QF announced the suspension of the HNL services from the end of January, those people already booked on QF103/104 were moved (at QF's expense) to Hawaiian Airlines flights where HA had seats available. (Most QF pax were able to be accommodated this way, though there were exceptions when HA didn't have enough seats available to cover all the QF pax.) Jetstar flights to HNL have also now started again, which gives another alternative to move pax to, if it comes to that.

 

[RichardMEL]

I called it a scam and was told that's inappropriate? lol

uh yeah. Let's review what I ACTUALLY wrote, and the context:

Probably not. And in this case I feel the use of the word "scam" is inappropriate.

In post #32, You were looking at MEL-BKK flights that were showing U0 (ie: no upgrade seats) on flights that otherwise showed availability in revenue classes and award economy (X).

I had indicated that for one you were only looking at award availability and NOT full flight availability in EF. This is important in terms of THIS THREAD which is about zeroing out ALL revenue(and award) fare classes but not cancelling a flight for weeks at a time.

They are very different situations,

I wrote "in this case..." referring to the situation you were asking about for QF23 SYD-BKK on 16th March, which is just over a week away now. I was not referring to the actual situations this thread is about.

Again, in my view, this is a very different case to the situation this thread is about. And as such, suggesting that this is part of the "scam" was not appropriate.

the flight is still not zero'd out and almost certainly will run baring operational instances - as I already posted.

Also pro tip when using EF flight availability to try and determine such things(ie if a flight is fully zero'd out) it is always best to look at only the specific flight and date (ie QF23 16/3) rather than a connection. The reason for this is that the GDS will show what an airline is willing to sell on the combined flight sectors, which may not reflect availability on the one you're interested in. For example, say you're looking at Business Class fare buckets (J C D I or even U) and you pick say MEL-SYD-BKK, but the connections offered up on the 737's all are sold out in J class aleady, that will then show up as zeros for J class, because they can't sell the combined itin, even if QF23 has an availability of J1 C1 D1 (as it currently is showing).

of course being aware that very popular flights or single day flights on popular routes can and do really get sold out and will show 0's and not mean anything in terms of a cancel, but this will usually show much close in the departure, which is a very different situation to what others in this thread are experiencing.

 

[dajop]

Also pro tip when using EF flight availability to try and determine such things(ie if a flight is fully zero'd out) it is always best to look at only the specific flight and date (ie QF23 16/3) rather than a connection. T

Good tip. The other one is even it is zeroed out, to look at the return sector as well - typically (apart from LAX) QF planes turn around and come straight back to Australia 2-12 hours later.

 

[chodo]

uh yeah. Let's review what I ACTUALLY wrote, and the context:



In post #32, You were looking at MEL-BKK flights that were showing U0 (ie: no upgrade seats) on flights that otherwise showed availability in revenue classes and award economy (X).

I had indicated that for one you were only looking at award availability and NOT full flight availability in EF. This is important in terms of THIS THREAD which is about zeroing out ALL revenue(and award) fare classes but not cancelling a flight for weeks at a time.

They are very different situations,

I wrote "in this case..." referring to the situation you were asking about for QF23 SYD-BKK on 16th March, which is just over a week away now. I was not referring to the actual situations this thread is about.

Again, in my view, this is a very different case to the situation this thread is about. And as such, suggesting that this is part of the "scam" was not appropriate.

the flight is still not zero'd out and almost certainly will run baring operational instances - as I already posted.

Also pro tip when using EF flight availability to try and determine such things(ie if a flight is fully zero'd out) it is always best to look at only the specific flight and date (ie QF23 16/3) rather than a connection. The reason for this is that the GDS will show what an airline is willing to sell on the combined flight sectors, which may not reflect availability on the one you're interested in. For example, say you're looking at Business Class fare buckets (J C D I or even U) and you pick say MEL-SYD-BKK, but the connections offered up on the 737's all are sold out in J class aleady, that will then show up as zeros for J class, because they can't sell the combined itin, even if QF23 has an availability of J1 C1 D1 (as it currently is showing).

of course being aware that very popular flights or single day flights on popular routes can and do really get sold out and will show 0's and not mean anything in terms of a cancel, but this will usually show much close in the departure, which is a very different situation to what others in this thread are experiencing.

Hey Rich, when I referred to the QANTAS 'scam', I had just read through all the posts and was referring to the situations where the gent has a reward flight to Sg and another chap has a paid ticket to Japan. The fact QANTAS appears to not be running these flights, yet they haven't alerted (or admitted) the customers to this, is terrible. As others have pointed out, it means that people can't make contingency plans, don't have access to their funds and may be forced to cancel the flights first (that weren't even going ahead), leaving them with the dead weight of a QANTAS credit. I strongly believe that this is an absolute scam (unless I'm misunderstanding the sitaution). There's no other way to describe it. You could dispute the transaction with your credit card provider, but that may jeopardise any frequent flyer point stash you have. It's ridiculous and shouldn't be allowed.

On another note, I haven't got back to checking out Expert Flyer (only used it that once and snipped the result into this forum), but appreciate your tips and will definitely put them to use when I spend more time on it. Cheers,

 

[MEL_Traveller]

It's not a big issue, if you're not booked on a flight that is zeroed out

And I don't have a problem with QF cancelling flights in volatile times, the main problem is they're not cancelling flights that they have no intention of operating, which may mean less options are available for people to make alternative arrangements when they eventually get around to cancelling the flight.

I have a problem with QF cancelling flights for purely commercial reasons. Government restrictions are understandable, but to cancel just because you can’t make as much money on a route as you thought you would is not my problem, as a passenger.

There was no particular government restriction in place when they cancelled their SFO flights. They just wanted to make more money elsewhere

 

[justinbrett]

I have a problem with QF cancelling flights for purely commercial reasons. Government restrictions are understandable, but to cancel just because you can’t make as much money on a route as you thought you would is not my problem, as a passenger.

There was no particular government restriction in place when they cancelled their SFO flights. They just wanted to make more money elsewhere

Are you serious?

You want a private company to lose money so you're not inconvenienced?

They're absolutely obligated to give you a full refund if they cancel, but that's where it ends. Otherwise perhaps move to a country with a state owned airline that can afford to operate non profitable routes.

You want restaurants not doing well to stay open and lose even more money because you have a reservation?

 

[RichardMEL]

QF has been responding to the market conditions, and it seems SFO demand was way less than predictions and most likely a break even load factor, and SFO is/was not a key route (unlike say LAX) so you can understand a commercial decision being made to axe those flights. Look at the suspension in HNL flights (which I suspect has a lot more to do with HNL covid restrictions than ex-AU demand) had seen the service pulled for a few months and that impacted a lot of people of course.

It is unfortunately a reality of the commercial world. I am not so sure it is about making "more" money, but enough to make the route viable at least in the short term. Specially when you've just lost a billion bucks.

And it's not just QF who has pulled flights - MANY carriers. UA might have kept serving SFO-SYD (and that likely was an issue for QF) but they pulled SFO-MEL and LAX-MEL long ago and are only just coming back to MEL in May IIRC.

and iirc QF didn't pull the "zero sum" game with SFO they made a hard choice and pulled the pin - at least they can still get pax there relatively (yes I know people will disagree!) easily via LAX.

I totally get the frustration. I've had any number of flights (domestic mostly) impacted by cancels and changes - and not all due to the border merry-go-round. A sign of the very unsettled times

 

[chodo]

Are you serious?

You want a private company to lose money so you're not inconvenienced?

They're absolutely obligated to give you a full refund if they cancel, but that's where it ends. Otherwise perhaps move to a country with a state owned airline that can afford to operate non profitable routes.

You want restaurants not doing well to stay open and lose even more money because you have a reservation?

I think the point is that Qantas know weeks, sometimes months ahead of time that the flight isn’t going ahead. No need to cancel at the last moment and often cost the passenger unnecessary costs. It’s not expected they run the flight if it’s empty. That’s not so outrageous.

 

[RichardMEL]

If the last two years has taught us anything it's that during these times if one knows ANYTHING for sure months out they're doing pretty good I reckon

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Are you serious?

You want a private company to lose money so you're not inconvenienced?

They're absolutely obligated to give you a full refund if they cancel, but that's where it ends. Otherwise perhaps move to a country with a state owned airline that can afford to operate non profitable routes.

You want restaurants not doing well to stay open and lose even more money because you have a reservation?

Yup. That’s the nature of running an airline. Not all your routes make maximum profit for the entire year. You have ups and downs.

An EU261 type arrangement would at least mean the passenger is not out of pocket trying to source alternative or last-minute fares.

 

[justinbrett]

Yup. That’s the nature of running an airline. Not all your routes make maximum profit for the entire year. You have ups and downs.

An EU261 type arrangement would at least mean the passenger is not out of pocket trying to source alternative or last-minute fares.

That’s the nature of running airlines that go bankrupt. A very poor business model.

 

[RichardMEL]

I think this discussion is going OT but I'd just point out the reason one has seasonal services in some markets is exactly because not all routes make sense to fly all year round because demand is not going to be there to support them. You see this a lot, for example, in the US with a huge upswing in winter flying to ski destinations in CO which just don't work in the summer). That's perfectly OK and makes sense to a profitable operating model.

Just like QF usually increases capacity to FNQ and even OOL in Australian winters vs summer and shoulders due to demand.

Again though, seasonal scheduling and planning is very different to the situations being encountered in this thread (such as on flights to/from SIN).

 

[redwoodw]

Appears QF has now also zeroed out the QF25 SYD-HND flights till 31/5. No cancellation received though.

Looks like QF has again changed its stance - QF25 SYD-HND is now back on from 27/4, as reported on some sites. Flights prior to 27/4 is still zeroed out with no official cancellation

 

[mbell1510]

It appears that Qantas intends to resume flights to HNL from Easter Saturday (16 April) onwards. Originally they were supposed to be back from late March. And yes, the system is allowing me to book seats SYD-HNL on 16 April and later. So that's a good sign.

I have a feeling the HNL situation in particular may be tied up with the BNE-LAX arrangements. Without the A380s, QF has been using B787s to fly SYD-LAX and MEL-LAX. To do that, they've taken the B787 off the BNE-LAX route and are using two A330s instead (there are two BNE-LAX flights on many days). My guess is that HNL services (among others) were suspended to allow the A330s to be moved onto BNE-LAX. When the A380s start flying SYD/MEL-LAX again, then BNE-LAX will get back its B787s, and the A330s can go back onto HNL, BKK, etc.

But - worst case scenario - when QF announced the suspension of the HNL services from the end of January, those people already booked on QF103/104 were moved (at QF's expense) to Hawaiian Airlines flights where HA had seats available. (Most QF pax were able to be accommodated this way, though there were exceptions when HA didn't have enough seats available to cover all the QF pax.) Jetstar flights to HNL have also now started again, which gives another alternative to move pax to, if it comes to that.

Thanks for that update John. I notice Qantas has launched sales to HNL from mid April as you say until end of May, so certainly looks like those flights are happening. My particular flight is starting to fill up in the last few days, which is good. Fingers crossed my upgrade to Business class comes through haha.

 

[jrfsp]

Even domestically there seems to be lots of changes going on. Lots of cutting flights - even well into the future. Some of my SYD-MEL flights have been cancelled as well as MEL-PER flights