QF's Asia announcement

[browski]

And there is something classy about the 747's as well. Hard to explain but I really like them and since I am paying for the airfare I will try to avoid other aircraft as much as possible....

Concorde was classy. 747 was and remains a freighter.

 

[casanovawa]

The thing with Qantas is they used to make it work so well... I know things have changed with LCCs coming into the market place and the ME carriers etc... But Qantas use have a much loved, iconic brand with plenty of customer loyalty and goodwill and to fly to more destinations in Europe didn't they FCO, did they got to CDG as well???

So you had more flights going through to more detsinations in Europe as well as India etc which meant more passengers flying from Oz cities all the way through to final destinations... They then progressively start cutting those back until there only flying to FRA and LHR and then just LHR, and that just from SIN... So once you do that of course your not going to have the onward flights to put all the people on you fly up to Singapore or HK or BKK if you don't have a feeder arrangement into an Asian partner...

So with fewer destinations in Europe people will start trying more of the competition (SQ, CX etc) combined with not keeping your fleet as cutting edge as you can so people use more of the competition... They then start adding 2 or 3 or 4 daily flights down to Oz cities to QF's 1 or 2, more people seeing the convenience of using the competition with one stop, you now just have point to point services up to Asia which you start cutting back and replacing with Jet*, the nasty cycle towards competitors conintues, the economics of keeping the remains of your old network gets more tenuous so you cancel more routes, competitors grow, customer's commitment to you deteriorates...

Till we get where we are now... They seem to have been collapsing their route network inwards, not keeping their fleet up to spec, giving away their passengers to their own LCC whether they wanted to shift or not and they're now scratching their heads as to where to now... Maybe if they hadn't let it deteriorate for so long, which is probably more than just Joyce's doing, there wouldn't be such a big hole to dig themselves out of with limited choices...

And how much confidence would you have booking into QF to Europe anyway these days, with all the chopping and chaging that has been going on over the last year... Every second month people are complaining about routes being cancelled and having to have to rebook their flights through different locations or with different partners etc, etc... So where is the certainty for anyone???

 

[oz_mark]

Concorde was classy.

pfft, it was a narrow body :mrgreen:

 

[xt_20]

You would think there would be considerable opportunity to deploy the 738s ex-PER (like trans-tasman product) to places like SIN and CGK.

and compete with JQ?? no way.

 

[jgm]

Just off the phone to Qantas. My award flight MEL-SIN on 20/4 has just been changed (again). Originally was a 1530 departure on an A380 - changed to 1340 departure on B744. Now it's a 1000 departure (still on B744). It's really difficult for me to get to MEL in time, so I asked for anything later. Rep said no QF availability, but they expect to have FF arrangements sorted out with EK within a week, so I'll wait for a bit & see if the EK flight leaving at 1600 opens up.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

The thing with Qantas is they used to make it work so well... I know things have changed with LCCs coming into the market place and the ME carriers etc... But Qantas use have a much loved, iconic brand with plenty of customer loyalty and goodwill and to fly to more destinations in Europe didn't they FCO, did they got to CDG as well???

So you had more flights going through to more detsinations in Europe as well as India etc which meant more passengers flying from Oz cities all the way through to final destinations... They then progressively start cutting those back until there only flying to FRA and LHR and then just LHR, and that just from SIN... So once you do that of course your not going to have the onward flights to put all the people on you fly up to Singapore or HK or BKK if you don't have a feeder arrangement into an Asian partner...

So with fewer destinations in Europe people will start trying more of the competition (SQ, CX etc) combined with not keeping your fleet as cutting edge as you can so people use more of the competition... They then start adding 2 or 3 or 4 daily flights down to Oz cities to QF's 1 or 2, more people seeing the convenience of using the competition with one stop, you now just have point to point services up to Asia which you start cutting back and replacing with Jet*, the nasty cycle towards competitors continues, the economics of keeping the remains of your old network gets more tenuous so you cancel more routes, competitors grow, customer's commitment to you deteriorates...

Till we get where we are now... They seem to have been collapsing their route network inwards, not keeping their fleet up to spec, giving away their passengers to their own LCC whether they wanted to shift or not and they're now scratching their heads as to where to now... Maybe if they hadn't let it deteriorate for so long, which is probably more than just Joyce's doing, there wouldn't be such a big hole to dig themselves out of with limited choices...

And how much confidence would you have booking into QF to Europe anyway these days, with all the chopping and changing that has been going on over the last year... Every second month people are complaining about routes being cancelled and having to have to rebook their flights through different locations or with different partners etc, etc... So where is the certainty for anyone???

Well said.

PER and ADL have been left by the way-side by QF.

 

[browski]

I'm sure it's a type but the EK flight to SIN departs after 6pm

 

[JohnK]

Concorde was classy. 747 was and remains a freighter.

I never had the opportunity to try the Concord so cannot comment.

In my opinion the 747 is one of the best around and will be sad to see it go when it's time comes.

And I am not one of those who is too keen on aircraft servicing routes such as PER-LHR without a stop(s) somewhere in between. Too long to sit in economy for that length of flight.

 

[JohnPhelan]

And there is something classy about the 747's as well. Hard to explain but I really like them and since I am paying for the airfare I will try to avoid other aircraft as much as possible....

Hear, hear!!

 

[Isochronous]

How does the 787 compare in terms of pax load to the 777, 748, and A333? Is it possible QF would need some of those latter aircraft to expand routes?

 

[JohnPhelan]

Concorde was classy. 747 was and remains a freighter.

Concorde was very noisy and the seating was cramped. I did one transatlantic flight on it and that was enough. It reminded me of the DC 9. You were paying for the speed, not for the comfort.

 

[dajop]

In my opinion the 747 is one of the best around and will be sad to see it go when it's time comes.

It all depends on what it's like inside! I had the dubious pleasure of travelling in the last few rows of an (I would guess relatively old) BA 747 from SIN-SYD at the start of November. It was anything but classy, reminded me of a greyhound bus. Oh how I wished I was on an SQ or QF 380 ...

I would however like to try the new 747-800 if I ever get a chance. That may be classy.

 

[eastwest101]

How does the 787 compare in terms of pax load to the 777, 748, and A333? Is it possible QF would need some of those latter aircraft to expand routes?

I think Markis10 did an analysis upthread and the short answer was - "not enough seats and capacity to replace the ageing/retiring fleet", plus losing your economy of scale of crewing that you get with the bigger aircraft like 777, 748, A333 and A380.

 

[Anna]

So really I think if we want to hammer Qantas we should not be hammering them for their relationship with Emirates, because all bulldust aside partnering with Emriates to Europe/Africa makes sense.

I don't want to hammer QF and I agree the EK relationship makes sense. I said as much to the QF marketing people when they canvassed me about a potential unnamed middle east relationship sometime in 2011.

What I am trying to hammer is how QF have implemented the EK relationship in a hamfisted way that makes it highly unattractive for QF frequent flyers, especially when flying ex ADL and PER.

If I could earn SCs on EK flights at a reasonable price comparable to the competition I would be planning multiple EK flights now. Or even if there was a chance of using QF points to upgrade on the 13-14 hour journey to DXB I would be thinking about it (less eagerly due to the upgrade lottery). On the current QF/EK arrangements - not so much.

 

[JohnK]

Just off the phone to Qantas. My award flight MEL-SIN on 20/4 has just been changed (again). Originally was a 1530 departure on an A380 - changed to 1340 departure on B744. Now it's a 1000 departure (still on B744). It's really difficult for me to get to MEL in time, so I asked for anything later. Rep said no QF availability, but they expect to have FF arrangements sorted out with EK within a week, so I'll wait for a bit & see if the EK flight leaving at 1600 opens up.

I ended up cancelling my booking as my SYD-MEL-SIN flights were almost impossible and I had a few flights on that booking that I not longer wanted so perfect opportunity. I ended up asking to cancel the booking and will be refunded amount paid in full but cancellation may take a few days to process.

Stupidly I then went and made another booking and chose the same flights outbound SIN-BNE-SYD and then BNE-SYD(overnight)-SIN. Unfortunately my other booking has 43H already allocated so I have now allocated 60H.

I hope both bookings do not get cancelled. Interesting few days wait....

 

[jgm]

I'm sure it's a type but the EK flight to SIN departs after 6pm

Nope.

 

[ajw373]

Well said, in the context of the discussion hubs are almost irrelevant when your looking at both inbound and outbound tourist data, the reality is the traffic does not need a hub for approximately 75% of travellers, as direct flights are on offer. Europe represents 16% of outbound travel (slightly more than NZ), while 45% is Asia , for tourists Europe has a much higher representation at 21% of all tourists but still lags Asia on 43%. With close to half the market coming to/from Asia, I would have thought it would be more of a priority, rather than an afterthought!

With Asia Qantas gets screwed at this end. We have a country that is physically large and in the grand scheme of things not all that populated. From an air traffic perspective we have 2 big cities and 3 smaller ones, with some niche tourist destinations (read Gold Coast, Cairns, Darwin etc).

So whilst traffic from certain cities in Asia to Australia may well be able sustain 300 odd seats a day (for example), the fact is those 300 seats all don't want to go to the same city. So if Qantas flies for arguments sake Phnom Penh to Sydney, you get howls of Qantas being Sydney centric and people not wanting to fly to Sydney to change. If they fly Phnom Penh to Perth then you won't get the east coasters flying to Perth to change because they would have to fly domestic to get there and if they need to change they may as well get Thai to Bangkok and go from there. If they split it to fly to multiple destinations then either you have half empty planes, which loose money or you have smaller planes that either cannot make non stop and need to stop or they only have narrow body product.

Simple fact is the way Australia is geographical in terms of where the cities are, if you want to serve Asia from Australia (except for major city pairs) then the only way to do it properly is to hub somewhere and the best place to hub is in Asia. Then you have your daily wide body from Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney (and maybe even Canberra) flying to that destination and feeding from there. Point to point will only work to the larger of our cities.

 

[markis10]

So whilst traffic from certain cities in Asia to Australia may well be able sustain 300 odd seats a day (for example), the fact is those 300 seats all don't want to go to the same city.

Have a look at the data, like I said hubbing is not relevant, plenty of destinations are supporting over 1000 seats a day both ways, ask yourself if Qantas is serious, why are they halving frequency on the fourth business international route in Australia, Singapore Perth???

 

[Beasley]

Don't get me wrong, the A330 is a
fine bird. I actually like flying on it. I do Mel to Syd and Mel to Per many time a year and try and make my travel around the A330 timetable. However, I originally booked on an A380 because I like to "J" experience. I can't stand to Angle Flat Bed for an overnight flight longer than 4 hours. Replace it with a Mark II and I will be much more happy.

Our Sin-Mel flight has changed from a 747 to A330-300 and we are travelling business class. I have checked the Qantas website to see the seat configuration of the A330 and it shows these planes have skybeds in business class. Seat Maps for the Airbus 330-300 | Qantas

Is this not the case?

 

[ajw373]

Have a look at the data, like I said hubbing is not relevant, plenty of destinations are supporting over 1000 seats a day both ways, ask yourself if Qantas is serious, why are they halving frequency on the fourth business international route in Australia, Singapore Perth???

Please give me two city pairs, one in Australia and one in Asia that are generating 1000 seats a day between just those two cities? By that don't include places like Singapore or Hong Kong that are hubs (unless you can show that the traffic is originating in or going to those cities), because clearly a lot of their traffic comes from destinations further out.

Also even if you can you clearly didn't read a word of what I wrote, because I did acknowledge that there may well be city pairs that can justify point to point services, but for the most part they need to hub somewhere to justify and to keep punters in Australia happy. That also doesn't help access to the smaller Australian cities.

As for Qantas dropping one of the PER-SIN flights isn't it the same reason they are dropping frequencies to Singapore from all over Australia, which is they are not using Singapore as a hub to Europe any more? But the number of seats specifically between Singapore and various Australian cities is actually increasing. Clearly Adelaide is a tad different in that it is being fully dropped, but maybe because the number of seats per week specifically between Adelaide and Singapore is so small it would only fill 1 or 2 aircraft a week which isn't worth flying.