It seems still a rumour, so where did it come from?
There's a lot of major talk here just for something that's still in rumour stage, with no "reference" (e.g. even to PPrune or something).
Assuming that the rumour is true, perhaps QF would do best to try and secure codeshares with MH and/or CX (latter unlikely).
Talking to a number of people from the West in mining (particularly FIFO and those who are not engineers, e.g. drivers, construction etc.), most of them are flying LCCs anyway for their leisure flights. That kind of surprised me a bit, though suffice to say most of them were going to Bali, which isn't serviced by QF metal anyway.
One of QF's PER/SIN services has a BA codeshare attached to it (or at least BA uses this service when they are searching out flights to PER, which is possible with BA). Can't imagine BA codesharing on JQ (and without flying to KUL, they can't piggy back on MH either).
I really don't see normal Australians (who we deem are inferior to AFFers as seasoned travellers) or even AFFers thinking it reasonable (more often than not, if at all) to cross the country, spending 3-5 hours to get to SYD or MEL in order to fly out of the country, particularly towards Asia. Sure, we like the F Lounges, but spending 3-4 hours and an overnight to do it? Alright, I'd do it but I'm probably 'that' crazy. (Also, probably would need to see how much extra time and cash that would involve). Let's not even mention that you can avoid the overnight by taking the red-eye flights to the gateway, but that onward flight then had better be in F or J because after that red-eye you'll be more wrecked than a NASCAR accident.
For PER residents wanting to fly QF to Asia or Europe, the side effect of removing QF metal services between PER/SIN would either:
- Force PER to QFi destination flights (Asia, Europe) to use a JQ sector to get to SIN (which is nil points for Economy Sale fares), or
- Push up all prices ex-PER to at least the levels for departures from the Eastern seaboard (which will guarantee almost nil success in sales)
For those reasons, I hope this rumour is just that - a rumour. Yes, QF's network ex-PER is pretty pitiful as it stands, but at a minimum QF should at least keep PER/SIN.
PER people - where do you really want to fly? (Apart from SIN and HKG... and of course LHR is too far away to get in one hit)
Yuk!
