The demise of Qantas international flights

[Kezzer]

Absolutely *ADELAIDE* What a disgrace that our international airline boycotts the capital city with a population of over 1.2 million.
Adelaide, a Qantas "NO-FLY-ZONE"

 

[dgwally]

I go to Hong Kong every year with Qantas.. they then cancel the PER->HKG flight... I understand this as it may not be viable... so I still book with Qantas and fly via Singapore... takes and extra 4 hours !

Im shocked to find out that because the SIN->HKG is with Cathay (Qantas dont fly) I cant use the Qantas Club in Singapore because Im only a paid member and not Gold. Load of cough.. Only reason for a stopover in SIN is due to Qantas not flying to HKG !!!! Yep... Qantas don't want to play International with Perth or Adelaide !

 

[Quentin]

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I've booked to fly to SFO with them later in the year. Getting my travel agent to check the flights now.

 

[Shorns]

Ditching Adelaide always seemed a little odd to me, the simple fact is that we have significant choice out of Adelaide now, and across the classes its hard to pick the difference IMHO. So its only a matter of time for me before I work out where I want my loyalty and business to go, and of course QF will be off the list. The reason it seemed an odd choice is that leaving an Asian route from Adelaide had the potential to retain a good portion of Adelaide customers, the EK tie up covers Europe, the americas via the east coast and asia via Singapore. Someone mentioned earlier that QF leaving Adelaide was a blessing in disguise because of the better products offered by other carriers. For me it just means I no longer need to even consider loyalty (unless I decide to place it elsewhere) as I have so many more choices to get across the globe.

 

[Surfin1230]

I would love too see the Adelaide -Singapore - London Heathrow back on.
Dont like the Via Dubai route at al.
qantas is the best, I don't want to use Emirates

 

[ajw373]

I would love too see the Adelaide -Singapore - London Heathrow back on.
Dont like the Via Dubai route at al.
qantas is the best, I don't want to use Emirates

Herein lies why Qantas doesn't fly to Adelaide or any of the smaller cities. This person wants Adelaide-Singapore-London. Someone else for example may want Adelaide-Dubai, another Adelaide-Hong Kong, another Adelaide-Jakarta, another Adelaide-Auckland etc. Simple fact Qantas cannot service every possible direct route that someone may want, indeed I would say even direct daily flights to a place like Singapore the traffic wouldn't be there. As for indirect destinations, Asia in particular they don't have strong enough partnerships to offload passengers onto other carriers at other ports. And where they do offload they then have complaints like above that passenger XYZ cannot use their paid Qantas club membership when flying another airline.

Now having said that where I would critisie Qantas is their lack of partnerships in Asia. I mean to say they have been fellow OneWorld members with Cathay since inception of OneWorld and they sponsored MH into OneWorld yet do nothing with them. Now if they built that partnership up, then maybe, just maybe there could be enough traffic to fly daily direct Adelaide-Kuala Lumpur feeding into MH.

 

[drdpr]

I can not understand why PER to MLE (Male, Maldives) is not flown. U have connection in afternoon with BA to gatwick also flying there is AB, MA and EA. As this is a premium location, fits premium service Q not J*. At the moment everyone needs to go via out of way ports Sin, KL, COL, BXD, and a host of Eu ports.

 

[BD1959]

Herein lies why Qantas doesn't fly to Adelaide or any of the smaller cities. This person wants Adelaide-Singapore-London. Someone else for example may want Adelaide-Dubai, another Adelaide-Hong Kong, another Adelaide-Jakarta, another Adelaide-Auckland etc. Simple fact Qantas cannot service every possible direct route that someone may want, indeed I would say even direct daily flights to a place like Singapore the traffic wouldn't be there. As for indirect destinations, Asia in particular they don't have strong enough partnerships to offload passengers onto other carriers at other ports. And where they do offload they then have complaints like above that passenger XYZ cannot use their paid Qantas club membership when flying another airline.

I was amazed - when the concept of RedQ was first mooted - that QF weren't looking to leverage the SIN hub. Maybe it was the Singapore Government being protective of SQ, but to my mind it made perfect sense to have a hub to the west of the Australian continent to compliment Sydney. After all, if it was good enough for Perth and Brisbane to feed in to (as well as Melbourne and Sydney by default), why not extend that to Adelaide and Darwin on Australian soil as well as the major Indian, Chinese cities. Sure, QF paid lip service to Mumbai but looked at it as an add-on (in the same way that FRA was an add-on) rather than truely hubbing. I should imagine if any economy was fit to act as a "union buster" it would be the Singaporean government and basing a Jetconnect-type franchise there, operating under a SG AOC with mostly Singaporean crew *might* just have worked.

Now having said that where I would critisie Qantas is their lack of partnerships in Asia. I mean to say they have been fellow OneWorld members with Cathay since inception of OneWorld and they sponsored MH into OneWorld yet do nothing with them. Now if they built that partnership up, then maybe, just maybe there could be enough traffic to fly daily direct Adelaide-Kuala Lumpur feeding into MH.

Let's not forget that Qantas Group is forging partnerships, just under the Jetstar rather than the Qantas banner. But if we come back to what you're saying with respect to legacy partnerships, I think Qantas is hampered by what it sees as a legacy partnership. The early talk of RedQ gave us some insight: basically QF were looking to leverage off MH flights using QF codeshares at QF prices into KL to feed the RedQ network. We've since seen similar with the EK partnership. The reason I don't think this would have worked with MH is that MH is now fully ingrained into oneWorld. I said at the time: why would you pay QF prices to earn oneWorld SCs and OW privileges, which could be had at a lesser price buying on the MH code? We've since seen QF apply very "light" award point earnings to the MH Kangaroo sectors, although the jury is still out as to whether this has been instigated at MH or QF's behest. The one thing that is bleedingly obvious to anyone who flies through KL is the obvious willingness of MH to partner on other's metal; looking at the departure boards, I couldn't see one flight departing the Satellite Terminal which didn't bear an MH codeshare.

Regards,

BD

 

[ajw373]

I can not understand why PER to MLE (Male, Maldives) is not flown. U have connection in afternoon with BA to gatwick also flying there is AB, MA and EA. As this is a premium location, fits premium service Q not J*. At the moment everyone needs to go via out of way ports Sin, KL, COL, BXD, and a host of Eu ports.

Go where? You do realise that to Europe there is more than one way to skin a cat, and rightly or wrongly Qantas has gone with Dubai. Just because somewhere else has connections doesn't make it an ideal via point.

 

[RooFlyer]

Herein lies why Qantas doesn't fly to Adelaide or any of the smaller cities. This person wants Adelaide-Singapore-London. Someone else for example may want Adelaide-Dubai, another Adelaide-Hong Kong, another Adelaide-Jakarta, another Adelaide-Auckland etc. Simple fact Qantas cannot service every possible direct route that someone may want, indeed I would say even direct daily flights to a place like Singapore the traffic wouldn't be there. As for indirect destinations, Asia in particular they don't have strong enough partnerships to offload passengers onto other carriers at other ports. And where they do offload they then have complaints like above that passenger XYZ cannot use their paid Qantas club membership when flying another airline.

Now having said that where I would critisie Qantas is their lack of partnerships in Asia. I mean to say they have been fellow OneWorld members with Cathay since inception of OneWorld and they sponsored MH into OneWorld yet do nothing with them. Now if they built that partnership up, then maybe, just maybe there could be enough traffic to fly daily direct Adelaide-Kuala Lumpur feeding into MH.

Sorry, I'm really struggling with the first para.

I don't think anyone is arguing that QF should service every port people might want to fly to, or even, say, the top 10. Straw man argument.

As for SIN as a destination - well, who knows if the traffic is there for QF - but if you look at other airlines doing the route, ask yourself - are these pax mostly non Australians (who might favour their own airlines) who are making a beeline for Adelaide, or mostly Adelaidians who want to go from ADL to SIN (and onwards) and are flying other airlines?

As for partnerships. I don't get that OneWorld isn't an effective and in fact very good partner / network in Asia - not just the Asia domiciled CX and MH, but AA, BA etc who also service the ports. How does QF "not do anything" with MH and CX? I manage to fly to Asia and then catch CX, MH etc etc without any trouble at all.

As for lounges - the 2 most obvious Asian destinations from ADL - SIN and HKG - both have good QPs that QP members can use.

QF simply have hacked away all routes that aren't handsomely profitable; well, its a commercial business so why not. But that doesn't mean ADL-SIN couldn't be profitable if marketed and managed properly (subject to aircraft availability etc).

 

[docjames]

I can not understand why PER to MLE (Male, Maldives) is not flown. U have connection in afternoon with BA to gatwick also flying there is AB, MA and EA. As this is a premium location, fits premium service Q not J*. At the moment everyone needs to go via out of way ports Sin, KL, COL, BXD, and a host of Eu ports.

That's quite an interesting suggestion and not one i've seen suggested here before.


PER-MLE would be an interesting route say 2x/week.

Not sure QF have the risk appetite currently to trial this route but it's certainly an interesting suggestion.

If they wanted to add capacity it would allow QF to serve the PER market say PER-MLE-DXB would also be interesting 2x or 3x/week say as a start to connect to EK / QF to LHR allowing you to go QF all the way.

I assume MLE is within range for the A330 ex-PER? (Edit: easily: Great Circle Mapper )

 

[draper]

Melbourne (if the aircraft has the legs) or Sydney to Vancouver
Air Canada has all my bookings + family + friends
Would prefer a Qantas flight and would switch back to Qantas metal immediately if this route was made available
Anything to avoid a transit through the USA
Even the "old" route thru Hawaii with a aircraft and carrier (QF to Canadian) change was acceptable (to a point)
Melbourne or Sydney to Vancouver - Please Qantas bring it back and bring me, my Family and friends back into the fold.

 

[smit0847]

That's quite an interesting suggestion and not one i've seen suggested here before.


PER-MLE would be an interesting route say 2x/week.

Not sure QF have the risk appetite currently to trial this route but it's certainly an interesting suggestion.

If they wanted to add capacity it would allow QF to serve the PER market say PER-MLE-DXB would also be interesting 2x or 3x/week say as a start to connect to EK / QF to LHR allowing you to go QF all the way.

I assume MLE is within range for the A330 ex-PER? (Edit: easily: Great Circle Mapper )

Agreed - never thought of this before but makes perfect sense. Obviously a premium holiday destination and if QF have been successful with NOU and HNL then I cant see why MLE wouldn't be similar. I know EK run Suites to MLE so there must be demand for premium travel.

 

[docjames]

Agreed - never thought of this before but makes perfect sense. Obviously a premium holiday destination and if QF have been successful with NOU and HNL then I cant see why MLE wouldn't be similar. I know EK run Suites to MLE so there must be demand for premium travel.

And would be a boon for PER customers who want to travel on QF metal to EU.

Be a great 3x/week flight option (for crewing / rest reasons).

 

[smeacs]

So like a lot of people I would love a flight that went to Vancouver and or Calgary. Also after recently flying through San Francisco on ( Adelaide – Auckland – San Francisco) the simplicity of san Francisco rather than LA is amazing, not sure why Qantas abandoned it not to long ago. Also and Adelaide, Queenstown would be nice as otherwise there is an overnight stop somewhere on that trip.

As for Adelaide I think the proof is in what has actually happened, Since QF stopped its only flight to Singapore ( and previously Hong Kong?) have seen sin go to a daily SIN flight and then twice daily on some days ( I think it is 11 flights a week), CX has added direct flights that don’t go via Melbourne. Malaysian is still there and emirates has now started with daily flights and we are soon to get Air Asia X.

Now this either says LOTS more south Australians are travelling overseas or we are getting LOTS more tourists? I am not sure which but it would be reasonable to say that there are profitable routes that exist.
On the expansion for this topic as so much of the marketing of flights has started to revolve around frequency what is the minimum amount of flights that an airline could run to be successful? Eg I think ( guess, hypothesise) one reason QF81 died was that it just didn’t match SIN’s daily service.

 

[JohnPhelan]

Im shocked to find out that because the SIN->HKG is with Cathay (Qantas dont fly) I cant use the Qantas Club in Singapore because Im only a paid member and not Gold. Load of cough.

The reason you can't use the QF SIN Lounge is because your next onward flight is with CX. You can certainly use it on your return flight to Australia on QF.

Though if you were Gold, you could use the QF Lounge when flying with CX, under the oneworld entry rules.

 

[MH_fan]

While it means I don't get to build FF points with QF, at least I don't have to suffer with coughstar any longer!

Now than Malaysian are flying back to DRW, there's your opportunity to build QFF points! Let coughstar be but a distant memory...

 

[Archphoto]

The reason you can't use the QF SIN Lounge is because your next onward flight is with CX. You can certainly use it on your return flight to Australia on QF.

Though if you were Gold, you could use the QF Lounge when flying with CX, under the oneworld entry rules.

This has *always* annoyed me no end - I can understand if I have chosen to fly another carrier, but when they don't service the route at all (and you're paying for lounge access) is does seem to be a raw deal. Thankfully when I made Gold, it became a moot point, but that had me wondering how they made any $$ out of me, if I only chose to fly other carriers, and yet I still had QF lounge access.

Now that I'm back to PS, my QP Membership has been trimmed yet again, as my return flights to BKK via SYD no longer allow enough time to enjoy the International Business Lounge - and no, I don't want to be arriving at 1:30am on EK; could QF make that flight an hour later? It was *not* an enjoyable experience last week - too tight QF, waaaaay too tight!!!

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Now than Malaysian are flying back to DRW, there's your opportunity to build QFF points! Let coughstar be but a distant memory...

Ahmm, have you seen the earning chart for QFF flying Malaysia? it's awful

 

[RooFlyer]

Ahmm, have you seen the earning chart for QFF flying Malaysia? it's awful

Awful beats zero. Then there's the actual flight experience ....