After taking a few more flights this weekend, saw a few doing the same as me, PHL for roll aboard and a big briefcase or additional bag that will fit in the cabin, but clearly not the 1 bag.
The latest Q400's (LQB onwards) have the newer interior that should fit anything cabin sized. There shouldn't be a need for it with the new 400's though as anything that won't fit should be checked anyway (I haven't tried this in practise, however it's what Bombardier claim is correct).
This weekend I flew VH-LQF from MKY-ROK. I wasn’t sure if the interior would be any different so left my PHL tagged bag at the foot of the stairs. I’m glad I did, because the lockers didn’t look much bigger, perhaps not as tapered on the inside, but not vastly bigger either.
I guess most of you are thinking that if a Q400 isn't big enough then the only solution is a 717. 737s... most places in question would need a better airport for a start, right? 'Cos most of them are not much better than a shack or a portable office with a paved area on the side. If it's a popular FIFO area then that's probably a no-brainer, but for non-FIFO fed destinations, that's a rock and hard place affair….
A Q400 is 29,260KG (MTOW)
A B717 is 54,900KG (MTOW)
A B738 ranges from 65,500 - 85,100KG (MTOW)
So the next logical aircraft being nearly twice as heavy is probably quite a big issue in most regional ports, but then I don’t know how much it’d cost to upgrade aprons.
Perhaps QF just need to enforce the limits much more strongly, period. Of course, leniency is probably what everyone's been used to on QantasLink for a while, so a sudden evaporation of discretion will not be met nicely, particularly by the folks in the back of Bourke. Surprisingly, I'd thought Qantas would've kept the freight on and prioritised it above customer baggage or PHL.... given the profit-centricity, isn't that what everyone would've thought would happen first (and be mad about as a consequence)?
Depends what’s in the T&C I suppose. I’d think if you’d bought a ticket, on a passenger service, that included luggage, and they chose to not honour the luggage part of that ticket in favour of a freight contract then you’d have a reasonable gripe, depending on what the terms are of course.
In many of their regional markets there’s been no alternative for a while, so offloading your loyal (because there’s no other choice) customers bags in favour of freight would be easy. But with the competition now, they’d have to watch themselves.
Also worth wondering how much extra it then costs to get the bag back to the passenger. They need to fly it down on another service and then deliver it to each person. In my case that’d be an hour drive South to the Gold Coast, just to give me one bag. Now imagine people on properties or mine sites out in the middle of no where, those costs are going to increase!
And if freight is really that lucrative, perhaps it’s time to buy some regional freight planes, and expand that side of their business. Who knows though…
