Rex to fly between Australian capital cities

[jb747]

I think that one will be Virgin spies. Head office in BNE after all!

Why would you need more than one spy. Do they shoot them when caught?

 

[Mattg]

Why would you need more than one spy. Do they shoot them when caught?

Good old country hospitality

 

[Must...Fly!]

Why would you need more than one spy. Do they shoot them when caught?

Companion sale next for Rex?

 

[mad_atta]

How are people finding reliability / punctuality on the MEL-SYD route now that it has settled in a little?

 

[Saab34]

Bit hard to judge as they are flying empty boarding is done in 5 mins everyone is always just waiting on the tech crew.

What’s the plan to turnaround the current low pax numbers? Sort of plateaued on that front. The issue they have is Jetstar and Virgin are about to up the capacity in the next quarter significantly. Further putting the pressure on them. Jetstar are adding 6 machines and Virgin 9

 

[HS-TQE]

The ex-Tiger 738s, VOR and VUD are currently rumoured to be heading REX's way. Out of the remaining VA 738s scattered around the yards in the USA, most of them will be ferried back/returning to VA, leaving only the two parked ex-Tiger machines for REX.

Only a few ex-owned (mortgaged) VA units will be remaining in the yards at this stage. REX can't get a hand on those until the banks decide what to do with those units (or if VA decides to start reactivating those/start paying the mortgage to the banks on them again).

 

[henrus]

The ex-Tiger 738s, VOR and VUD are currently rumoured to be heading REX's way.

They'll be perfect for rex because they've already got orange head rests so it'll make the rex fleet seem less like flying Virgin although with a lack of business seat and extra leg room (economy x seats) they'll likely have to do some reconfiguring first and perhaps a new rex 737 business seat? All of this can't be good for band consistency.

 

[Melburnian1]

How are people finding reliability / punctuality on the MEL-SYD route now that it has settled in a little?

Saab34 made some interesting comments.

I have not monitored in the last few days as I was away, but prior to that most punctuality seemed good, with often say early arrivals at what passes for 'the gate' in MEL or SYD. However as Saab34 points out, if the planes were consistently full ZL would not be able to push back in advance of departure time, so this is skewing results.

From what I hear QF and VA 2.0 are often not full either, but we'll have to wait a couple of months to see the BITRE figures (which don't disclose individual company passenger numbers, overall or by route, but give an indication of how much passenger numbers have dropped across the avaition sector by route compared with two or three years ago. BITRE only shows this information where two or more airlines fly a route).

 

[PineappleSkip]

they'll likely have to do some reconfiguring first and perhaps a new rex 737 business seat?

How did the seat pitch in Tiger compare with standard Virgin Y?

 

[Melburnian1]

How did the seat pitch in Tiger compare with standard Virgin Y?

The records I looked up indicated that defunct TT and VAd (1.0, but same I assume with VAd 2.0) had/have a seat pitch of 75cm in standard economy rows.

This seems counterintuitive as one would expect TT to have been less roomy.

 

[henrus]

We should start collecting our own AFF data and selling it to QF/VA (then they don't need spies ). It seems Rex was recently added to expertflyer which means it's now possible to view the seat maps, checking after the flight has departed gives a good idea. Here is this mornings (11/4) ZL9, no one in business and just 77 in economy (load factor of ~45% total or ~47.5% in Economy). For comparison the Qantas flight at the same time had 87 in economy (it wouldn't show me business) which makes the QF flight at least 50% (or ~53% in economy).

How did the seat pitch in Tiger compare with standard Virgin Y?

Yep, actually an inch better.

 

[Melburnian1]

We should start collecting our own AFF data and selling it to QF/VA (then they don't need spies ). It seems Rex was recently added to expertflyer which means it's now possible to view the seat maps, checking after the flight has departed gives a good idea. Here is this mornings (11/4) ZL9, no one in business and just 77 in economy (load factor of ~45% total or ~47.5% in Economy). For comparison the Qantas flight at the same time had 87 in economy (it wouldn't show me business) which makes the QF flight at least 50% (or ~53% in economy).
View attachment 244861
View attachment 244860


Yep, actually an inch better.

Hasn't AFF discussed Expert Flyer a few times in its own little section and members concluded that it routinely underestimates the number of booked passengers?

Of course there may sometimes be airline staff members travelling, added at the last moment, but IIRC the forum concluded that EF was not overly accurate in informing how many revenue passengers travel on each flight?

Admittedly I did it in the past far more for international flights but EF would show quite a lot of empty seats and when I boarded various airlines like EK, PR or SQ they were routinely somewhat 'more occupied' than EF's seat map suggested.

However if you contend EF is accurate and this random sample, albeit early on a Sunday morning - hardly peak time - is a good representation, it indicates that QFd's loads are suffering, not just ZL's.

If I have counted correctly, today from SYD southbound to MEL there are:

17 QFd flights
15 JQd flights
14 VAd 2.0 flights
7 ZL flights

making a total of 53.

I neglected to keep a copy of what it would have been on a similar Sunday in April 2019, pre COVID-19,. but QFd alone used to often operate 30-36 flights on a Sunday from memory - fewer in the morning but typically a half hourly schedule through much of the afternoon, and the early to mid evening, and JQ and VA 1.0 around the 17-20 mark each.

If so, then demand continues to be way down, and as jb747 pointed out, there are fewer widebodies operating flights. The 'trend to favour B738s' had been the case for a while but again memory tells me that there were indeed more A332s running up and down with QFd and VAd on this leading patronage-wise route in say April 2019 than today. VAd 2.0 lacks any A332s.

 

[Mattg]

Hasn't AFF discussed Expert Flyer a few times in its own little section and members concluded that it routinely underestimates the number of booked passengers?

Yes, if checking in advance of departure.

That's why @henrus looked after the flight departed. (By this point, every passenger has an allocated seat and there can't be any more changes.)

@henrus - interesting that Expert Flyer shows row 30 but the seats are all blocked. I didn't think ZL had 30 rows on its 737s (just 29)?

 

[henrus]

However if you contend EF is accurate and this random sample, albeit early on a Sunday morning - hardly peak time - is a good representation, it indicates that QFd's loads are suffering, not just ZL's.

Yeh, I was more making a point that both are low. Would hardly recommend Sunday morning for long term comparsions but on the SYD-MEL route, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone is suffering.

I neglected to keep a copy of what it would have been on a similar Sunday in April 2019

This is the April 2019 timetable:

Wayback Machine

Page 37 is MEL to SYD and Page 56 is SYD to MEL.

 

[Melburnian1]

Yeh, I was more making a point that both are low. Would hardly recommend Sunday morning for long term comparsions but on the SYD-MEL route, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone is suffering.


This is the April 2019 timetable:

Wayback Machine

Page 37 is MEL to SYD and Page 56 is SYD to MEL.

In April 2019, Easter Sunday was on 21 April so today's equivalent (say 14 April 2019) was not in school holidays when passenger loadings are generally heavier (although less business traffic if some businessmen/women take leave to be with children).

From your excellent record, on as similar a day as we can get to, QFd operated 29 flights SYD - MEL (but if we add two or three more given school holidays, we get to 31 or 32: I said '30 to 36').

So this suggests QFd's passenger numbers in April 2021 are significantly down on April 2019.

 

[Saab34]

I was looking at Expert Flyer and seat maps how do you tell what is unsold? Blue is indicated as ‘Occupied’

you cannot tell me OOL-MEL flights have a dozen bodies on them?

 

[henrus]

I was looking at Expert Flyer and seat maps how do you tell what is unsold? Blue is indicated as ‘Occupied’

I just manually counted them. Anything that is blue is occupied which means if you're looking at EF after the flight departs then someone sat in that seat. Subtract that number of occupied seats from the total number of seats and that's how I got the number unsold.

All Rex seats are charged on a basic fare hence they show as Paid & Premium. Row 30 was likely blocked because some aircraft don't have a row 30.

On Qantas, you'll see any available seats as white but you'll also see plenty of blocked seats, no one actually sat there but the seat was "unavailable" for selection due to frequent flyer blocks or other random blocks .

 

[Saab34]

Ok unless I’ve got it the wrong way around all SY-ML this arvo and evening are sold out or nearly

 

[Mattg]

Ok unless I’ve got it the wrong way around all SY-ML this arvo and evening are sold out or nearly

Wow, yes, some of this evening's flights do look very full in Y! (One even has a couple of seats in row 30 occupied, so perhaps one of their planes does have 30 rows of seats.)

 

[henrus]

Ok unless I’ve got it the wrong way around all SY-ML this arvo and evening are sold out or nearly

No all of them look very full.