QF's Asia announcement

[cosi]

I'm still in shock. QF 67 & 68 were my most flown QF routes. I flew on these both full and very empty. They were never really given a chance, schedule-wise, and after the 'enhancement' to the timetable some months ago, things only got worse. I remember thinking when I last did this route mid-December, that the levels of pax would be putting in danger of being culled. Far sooner than I anticipated, it seems. A complete absorption of QF into EK is inevitable.. first the routes, then the lounge, then the brand.

As a female traveller who often travels alone, I'd much rather layover in SIN, HKG or BKK than freaking DBX where it's hot, but I can't wear a tank top or shorts, because that is just cause for a good ol' fashioned gang rape. Blame the viewed for the actions of the viewers. Misogyny is even part of their legislation. No thanks. I wouldn't be leaving the airport, which takes the fun out of breaking it up.

It is insulting that 3K is sited as an alternative for QF PER pax. The food is actually inedible. I'm surprised the maggots they found in it a couple of years back were managing to ingest it. It makes Delta's food look like a Neil Perry degustation. Not to mention their on time running is unreliable at best, and the point to point LCC model means a long layover in SIN, collecting baggage etc. If we choose to go that way, and if we miss our next flight, it's buyer beware, we are on our own. I'm not surprised the 3K SIN-PER flights are not coming up in the booking engine as an option for the SIN leg to PER. QF knows better than to back that horse for connections.

I'm grieving. This is the death of QFi in Perth. One SIN is a joke - rip off the band aid already. Time to start reading up on Asia Miles.
No flights, no lounge, no options... no choice but to jump ship.

+1 for another frequent regaulr passengers on this services

 

[V1213]

Wow....... This is just awful, I am extremely disappointed. I'm flying PER HEL about once a month at the moment, and this is going to throw my current AY run into chaos.

At least the return leg from HEL will be better with the new timetable... a tidy 18 hour journey with at times only an hour to connect in SIN is great!
Too bad that there's the 8 hours in SIN on the way up to HEL.

If you book through AY you can, on a few days of the week in northern summer only, get CX overnight to HKG and then the seasonal morning flight from there on AY for a 20 hour journey (too bad if you wanted the QF codeshare, though). Most days for most of the year we're stuck with no option but the 26 hour waste of time, with waiting in SIN or an extra flight via SYD or HKG (at least for no financial penalty), depending who you book through.

It would've been great if QF organised codeshares ex PER and ADL to somewhat ameliorate this situation, and I don't mean on the 3K flights PER-SIN. Velocity members have more real and virtual non-Euro VA destinations out of PER now - DPS, HKT, SIN and AKL. QFF members just have SIN & JNB, plus DPS and CGK if you count 3K. Codeshares with MH and CX would fix this uncompetitive situation IMO...

It's amusing that that QF are saying that the Emirates tie-up allows them to stop being Euro-centric with their Asian flights and create a better Asian network, when their reduced focus on Europe has ruined the PER Asian network and made PER almost a Europe-only (EK) international port, effectively the opposite of what they're saying they're doing. In short, "less EU, more Asia" has played out as "lots of EU, hardly any Asia".

 

[Mal Ware]

I'm about ready to give up on Qantas. Their international services out of Perth are poor at best at the moment, and with this latest change, it's only going to get worse. I'm wondering if it's worth the hassle anymore and just transferring all my international travel elsewhere.

SQ looking real good.

One daily flight from Perth sucks.

I am often in Perth and also Asia, looks like no flights from here now.

Looks like QF have not delivered on the "key benefit" of the relationship with EK, focusing on Asia. ADL cut, PER reduced, SYD-HKG reduced, no new cities and no commitment to A330 upgrades. An QF wonder why people don't trust their brand any more!

Anyone who ever trusted Joyce is a fool.

Have you flown on Jetstar Asia? It's really not that bad, as far as LCC's go and it does give people alternatives. Throw in a plus bundles, you get pts/scs + meal and what you have in product terms, is not too different to a QF 737 domestic services, just without IFE.

Have you? So your saying Jetstar Asia is comperable with Qantas full service flights?

Would be interesting to have the airline which uses a foreign airline's lounge in its home country!

QF is now #11 in the list of airlines by the number of international seats out of PER.
SQ, EK, CX, MH, GA, NZ, JQ, QZ, TG and D7 all have more seats.
Even QR and SA have only slightly fewer seats.

That is actually an embarrassment.

ADL has been Joyced.

Where are all the Joyce apologists right now? Seems they come and go, just like his decisions with Qantas.:mrgreen:

Just when your competitor lets off an exploding cigar in their own face thanks to a poorly implemented Sabre transition then QF jump in with this press release. Translated, summarized, simplified and de-spun:

Qantas ASX Announcement - Qantas Enhancements to Asia Network

- Abandon the fastest growing state and city in Australia making it impossible to fly between Perth and Asia
- some vague promises of code sharing with other carriers
- Dump all our QF customers onto inferior 3K Jetstar Asia once in Singapore for connections to Asia
- Dump Perth and Adelaide loyal Qantas customers and deliver them to SQ CX & EK
- Sabotage our relationship with MH (our newest and sponsored member of OW)
- Sabotage connectins through SIN for anyone whom had the temerity to consider flying our OW partner BA to London
- Drop our most popular and profitable market segment of Premium Economy to some ports
- Prevent Flounge runs on QF81
- Returning some A330's from JQ to QF now that they are ageing and becoming expensive to run
- Pie in the sky promises of QF operating 787 services to some places at some point in the future

-Oh and ignore all our previous announcements about our SIN-FRA service - its annoyingly popular and profitable so we may keep it running until our next press release.

Nice but you left out pathetically old 767 flights from the East coast to Perth without PB most of the time and a hopeless non existant IFE. Oh Qantas.......your the reason people change airlines. Actually that is not quite true, I have always loved Qantas, but what Joyce has done to this once great airline is now forcing people away from it, Qantas the brand has always been good, but that is slowly changing day by day, week by week, month by month under Joyce.
He is gutting the airline from the inside out.

It was on the cards considering that this was announced last week.

QF love to play the loss making card, makes you wonder doesn't it

Does it make you wonder about your previous patriotism for Qantas?

It appear that confidence has been dramatically diminished for Qantas product in general as a result of these announcements..
What 'sweetener" will they now try to sprinkle over the pessimists?

You will probably see someone on here mention a few.

Qantas fanbois are MIA in this thread minus one or two.

 

[JohnK]

Pardon my ignorance but is less than 24 hours on an international booking regarded as a transit?
My booking says "no stopovers" but I don't want to leave home at 03.15 for the 6 o'clock flight SYD-MEL ( the only legal connection AFAIK) Think I'll be pushing the transit angle as well !

As serfty mentions a connection of >24 hours is a stopover but my experience with the Qantas booking engine is that it generally does not allow overnight flights as a transit unless absolutely unavoidable.

e.g. One cannot book the last flight of the night BNE-SYD to connect to something like SYD-BKK/HKG the next morning. It actually considers that routing a stopover even though it is clearly <24 hours.

For something like OOL-SYD-BKK/HKG/SIN it then actually allows the last flight of the night OOL-SYD to connect to SYD-BKK/HKG/SIN the next morning as there is no other possible connections.

 

[serfty]

As serfty mentions a connection of >24 hours is a stopover but my experience with the Qantas booking engine is that it generally does not allow overnight flights as a transit unless absolutely unavoidable. ....

That is correct - to get this you have to call.

Given Qantas have made the reschedule one has a good opportunity to avail themselves of this facet without further charge.

FWIW, the booking I have that's been affected now has me arriving into MEL at 11:35am and departing for HKG -35 minutes later at 11:00am.

Clearly a work in progress (I'll ring later today ...)

 

[atreides]

At least the return leg from HEL will be better with the new timetable... a tidy 18 hour journey with at times only an hour to connect in SIN is great!
Too bad that there's the 8 hours in SIN on the way up to HEL.

If you book through AY you can, on a few days of the week in northern summer only, get CX overnight to HKG and then the seasonal morning flight from there on AY for a 20 hour journey (too bad if you wanted the QF codeshare, though). Most days for most of the year we're stuck with no option but the 26 hour waste of time, with waiting in SIN or an extra flight via SYD or HKG (at least for no financial penalty), depending who you book through.

It would've been great if QF organised codeshares ex PER and ADL to somewhat ameliorate this situation, and I don't mean on the 3K flights PER-SIN. Velocity members have more real and virtual non-Euro VA destinations out of PER now - DPS, HKT, SIN and AKL. QFF members just have SIN & JNB, plus DPS and CGK if you count 3K. Codeshares with MH and CX would fix this uncompetitive situation IMO...

It's amusing that that QF are saying that the Emirates tie-up allows them to stop being Euro-centric with their Asian flights and create a better Asian network, when their reduced focus on Europe has ruined the PER Asian network and made PER almost a Europe-only (EK) international port, effectively the opposite of what they're saying they're doing. In short, "less EU, more Asia" has played out as "lots of EU, hardly any Asia".

That 18hr journey looks awesome for the return. My biggest worry now is if there is a delay HEL SIN, before it didn't matter so much because you could jump on the midnight express. Now with this tighter connection, an overnight in SIN is a real possibility.

True, booking an AY ticket as opposed to QF gives a lot more flexibility and a much much better price. Still, I might look at going back to TG PER BKK ARN instead, as I usually have to visit both Helsinki and Stockholm anyway.

 

[JohnK]

Now this paves the way for VA to introduce some Asian flying out of Perth.....First route PER-HKG and maybe operate one of the 4 dailys to Singaport for SQ and a Tokyo flight would do alright too.

That is an awfully long flight on a 737! :shock:

By the way Virgin started this trend of using codeshares on other carriers to fly internationally. Now Qantas is just following suit....

 

[Awesom Andy]

I've somewhat baffled by the announcement... Allow me to be east coast centric for now, but even so, I can't make sense of it.

1. Ignoring the axings at the moment, flights to HKG and BKK have been retimed. What are they exactly connecting to? BKK has no OW or codeshare partners, while anyone who would transit via HKG regularly is probably already a member of the CX MPC.
i.e. Timings are changed, but there's nothing to connect to at those ports in the first place.

2. The earlier arrivals into SIN would only connect to a few more 3K flights, with the following destinations:
a. KUL - which is now served by MH
b. BKK - which QF and JQ already fly to
c. SGN - which is already mostly taken care of with the VN codeshares from SYD and MEL.
d. CAN - probably the only useful one out of the lot here; and
e. HKT - already served by JQ from SYD and MEL.
i.e. the additional connections options from SIN are practically useless given the current availability of flights and codeshares.

3. QF81/82, while it served the direct ADL-SIN flight, it also used to make a great connection to other flights, e.g. QF107 to LAX. By axing 1 flight, ADL pax are practically shafted twice. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone... I guess it would actually make more sense if QF81/82 operates SYD-ADL-SIN everyday. That way, it also serves as an overflow for the other non-stop SYD-SIN flights. And with the terminal mostly a combined international/domestic terminal, it would also work well as an overflow for MEL-SIN, and can also be used to connect to HBA.
i.e. Axing this 1 flight has numerous consequences to other parts of the network.

4. If QF5/6 to FRA is loss making with what is generally regarded as a very healthy load, I would be quite surprised if they can make money else where. They might as well just close the airline down and put the money somewhere else. It's true that they need to park the aircraft in FRA for pretty much the entire day, but the planes are also flown pretty much 20 hours straight. Using an aircraft for SYD/MEL-SIN and back means there's about 15 hours of flying time and 9 hours of parking time per day - the ratio isn't much better.
i.e. Either they are just making excuses, or they haven't realised that they won't make any extra money by only flying to SIN.

5. Why would the future destinations suddenly be profitable with a 787-900? If the routes are only marginally profitable, then there's no real point in pursuing such options. If they're going to be decent cash cows, they would have (or at least should have) bought/leased some A330s for those routes.
i.e. The 787 is just marketing spin. We probably won't see them.

 

[cove]

My dream of flying PER-LHR on a direct QF 787 looks so much more unlikely now. I read Missafternoondelight's thoughts and I think why put yourself at risk. Singapore Airlines and Cathay are both great alternatives if you are thinking about your choices.

 

[markis10]

That is an awfully long flight on a 737! :shock:

By the way Virgin started this trend of using codeshares on other carriers to fly internationally. Now Qantas is just following suit....

Qantas was actually the trend starter in this instance in 1989, and with AA actually came up with the term codeshare.

 

[oz_mark]

That is an awfully long flight on a 737! :shock:

By the way Virgin started this trend of using codeshares on other carriers to fly internationally. Now Qantas is just following suit....

<History Lesson>
While the concept was not new, the term 'codeshare' was created by Qantas and American Airlines, and they were the first two airlines to 'codeshare' to any great extent.

 

[gibspmuh]

I'm just glad to see the CGK flights still hanging in there, though the pointy end of the plane always seems pretty full whenever I take QF41 or QF42. An increase of frequencies would be nice, but seeing what's happening elsewhere I'll just be grateful for what I've got!

 

[markis10]

I'm just glad to see the CGK flights still hanging in there, though the pointy end of the plane always seems pretty full whenever I take QF41 or QF42. An increase of frequencies would be nice, but seeing what's happening elsewhere I'll just be grateful for what I've got!

CGK and MNL will go within the year with the 787 delays being blamed for the aircraft being needed elsewhere, replaced by JQ alternatives.

 

[simongr]

Does it make you wonder about your previous patriotism for Qantas?

You will probably see someone on here mention a few.

Qantas fanbois are MIA in this thread minus one or two.

Doesn't the fact that people aren't leaping in to defend this decision discredit your belief that there is a posse of blind QF supporters posting here defending QF in every instance?

 

[kamchatsky]

My dream of flying PER-LHR on a direct QF 787 looks so much more unlikely now. I read Missafternoondelight's thoughts and I think why put yourself at risk. Singapore Airlines and Cathay are both great alternatives if you are thinking about your choices.

You can catch QF787 right now! It just starts at SYD and finish in CBR ....

 

[tofe]

"Dear Valued Customer"?? Being based in Adelaide I find it insulting being addressed in this way when the actions are in stark contrast to this empty statement.

Enough is enough, the time has come for me to switch to VA.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

I like the option of using QF flight numbers on EK flights to BKK, SIN and KUL for lounge access/QF FF points and SC.

Now got 3 flights a day MEL-SIN including JQ, QF and EK but all available to earn SC's/points, 2 on SYD-BKK ... and others. I will probably give them a bit of a go

 

[markis10]

I like the option of using QF flight numbers on EK flights to BKK, SIN and KUL for lounge access/QF FF points and SC.

Now got 3 flights a day MEL-SIN including JQ, QF and EK but all available to earn SC's/points, 2 on SYD-BKK ... and others. I will probably give them a bit of a go

Ex BNE we have only 2AM and 10 AM, hardly the choice of business folk wanting to work close to a full day and then get into Asia in time for some decent sleep, which is what the mid- late afternoon departures offered.

 

[mannej]

Doesn't the fact that people aren't leaping in to defend this decision discredit your belief that there is a posse of blind QF supporters posting here defending QF in every instance?

Couldn't have said it better myself. Just because I don't agree with malware over the 767 refurbs, it makes me a blind QF supporter...

(Comment moderated)

 

[gibspmuh]

CGK and MNL will go within the year with the 787 delays being blamed for the aircraft being needed elsewhere, replaced by JQ alternatives.

I certainly hope that QF can keep flying until Garuda joins SkyTeam at least. Definitely in no hurry to fly JQ that sort of distance anyway. Even SQ via SIN or MH via KUL would be more appealing.