VA to HKG from Jul 5 2017, ex MEL

[Spacetravel]

I know these things may not necessarily be up to VA but I am so sad the start date is the 5th of July. Why not make it a Monday? I have travel planned to LHR and was holding out to fly on this route, my latest outbound travel date is 3rd July I miss it by 2 days.

 

[JohnK]

I know these things may not necessarily be up to VA but I am so sad the start date is the 5th of July. Why not make it a Monday?

The 4th of July? USA Independence Day? Also number 4 is considered an unlucky number by Chinese.

 

[eastwest101]

I think one major plus from this is the opportunity to push Chinese Pax around Australia on the domestic network. I have noticed this more in the last couple of years, large groups of Chinese tourists on nearly every flight. Flew into Avalon from Sydney last week with a group of 40 Chinese tourists.

Indeed - I think this is/was one of the main opportunities that may seemed to have drive the deal and the service to HKG, but two questions remain,

1. why not fly direct to HU's hub in either Haikuo or Beijing? Why fly to a slot constrained HKG that isn't a HU hub that has heaps of competitors that want to protect their market share?
2. Do they expect HU pax to stop at both HKG on the way to MEL? Undoubtedly getting Chinese tourist flying on VA's domestic network is a good thing for VA to aim for. but why not just do a codeshare deal with HU? Maybe there is a logic to it but it doesn't jump out at me.

I think this is clearly a route to please newly founded shareholders but I don't think they had a choice, their balance sheet is stuffed, they need the cash to keep the place going.

Maybe its a case of 'beggars can't be choosers' as you imply, but could be other investment /political/economic considerations for the owners of Hainan to make the investment in VA. We don't know for sure that HU even insisted on this (it could be a purely VA decision) - will have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Possibly another way to view it is that we look at the existing VA A330 fleet and start working out where they could send them and make money? Their owners hubs of SIN AUH AKL and now HAK are all within range but just end up competing with their owners (a nil sum game), certainly as far as A332s go - Asia and Southeast Asia are the logical places to send them if you cant make money with them transcon in Australia.

I am surprised that VA wasn't looking at places to send their A332s somewhere that didn't have QFi as a competitor (or were underserved) and places that had weak overseas competitors, obviously with the range limitation then North and South America and Africa can be ruled out, anything to an owners hub can be ruled out, Europe would require multiple stops and just end up competing with EY anyway, anything in the Pacific does not have the yield and market at the moment to justify A330 services so they were pretty much 'stuck' with somewhere/anywhere in Asia or SE Asia to send the A332s. So they chose the most slot constrained, competitive, modest yielding and crowded market that they could find.

 

[andyhui01]

I think HKG was the right choice. Most other routes apart from PVG/CAN/PEK are long and skinny, hardly high yielding. At least HKG has decent direct traffic. And HKG allows connections with HX for most of Asia.

 

[yohy?!]

Choosing HKG was likely to try and balance market demand from both ends, rather than just ferry Chinese tourists - pick up some through traffic from HNA via China and intra-Asia plus demand ex-MEL. Pax from smaller Chinese cities would be accepting of multiple connections when travelling internationa, HKG would be superior for transit experience vs domestic Chinese ports.

They also expand their international network in Asia to shore up value to VFF for redemptions as Europe and TPAC wither without cannabalizing their owners.

HK is magnitudes more popular for leisure and business for Oz-based pax than little-known Haikou (and Beijing is a money-losing bloodbath as QF and CA duke it out...). HNA also does more international traffic out of other Chinese ports - I'd expect in future to see VA possible heading to Xian or other second tier cities in their network.

 

[hummel]

Choosing HKG was likely to try and balance market demand from both ends, rather than just ferry Chinese tourists - pick up some through traffic from HNA via China and intra-Asia plus demand ex-MEL. Pax from smaller Chinese cities would be accepting of multiple connections when travelling internationa, HKG would be superior for transit experience vs domestic Chinese ports.

They also expand their international network in Asia to shore up value to VFF for redemptions as Europe and TPAC wither without cannabalizing their owners.

HK is magnitudes more popular for leisure and business for Oz-based pax than little-known Haikou (and Beijing is a money-losing bloodbath as QF and CA duke it out...). HNA also does more international traffic out of other Chinese ports - I'd expect in future to see VA possible heading to Xian or other second tier cities in their network.

Personally for me this new route will work if it's priced reasonably well. I fly into Guangzhou every 1-2 months via SIN so would be happy to fly into HKG and jump on the train across to Foshan.

 

[Oxy]

Choosing HKG was likely to try and balance market demand from both ends, rather than just ferry Chinese tourists - pick up some through traffic from HNA via China and intra-Asia plus demand ex-MEL. Pax from smaller Chinese cities would be accepting of multiple connections when travelling internationa, HKG would be superior for transit experience vs domestic Chinese ports.

They also expand their international network in Asia to shore up value to VFF for redemptions as Europe and TPAC wither without cannabalizing their owners.

HK is magnitudes more popular for leisure and business for Oz-based pax than little-known Haikou (and Beijing is a money-losing bloodbath as QF and CA duke it out...). HNA also does more international traffic out of other Chinese ports - I'd expect in future to see VA possible heading to Xian or other second tier cities in their network.

They could be planning to fly from HKG to to other AU ports, once they have established MEL-HKG and other slots open up too. With some better slot timings and one more frame they could do PER/SYD/MEL daily. This would make HKG more of a hub rather than an additional transit point.
Who knows what their medium term plan is haha.

 

[tm.smile]

I'd be curious to see what timings they'd get if they did start to expand. HKG is constrained as it is and VA's times from MEL have already proven VA isn't able to secure decent.

 

[andyhui01]

Have the HX's codeshares not been loaded in yet? Trying to book a flight to a PVG flight but only see SQ options.

 

[yohy?!]

I'd be curious to see what timings they'd get if they did start to expand. HKG is constrained as it is and VA's times from MEL have already proven VA isn't able to secure decent.

The third runway will put paid to that problem in a few years

 

[tm.smile]

5-6 years time is a long time in Aviation....

 

[Saab34]

Are they blocking reward seats in an effort to reduce redemptions? Any Seat only it appears.

 

[grubbidok]

Was really looking forward to testing this in July, but I have to fly in and out of HK on the only two days VA doesn't offer a service :/

 

[Marty_]

J pricing is quite good.

Can't find any reward seats though.

 

[alexy23]

When trying to book this route I get:

For Economy and Business Reward seat availability travelling to or from Hong Kong please contact our Membership Contact Centre on AU 131 875 / NZ 0800 230 875 / Other international +61 2 8667 5924

 

[johnnyfive]

They could be planning to fly from HKG to to other AU ports, once they have established MEL-HKG and other slots open up too. With some better slot timings and one more frame they could do PER/SYD/MEL daily. This would make HKG more of a hub rather than an additional transit point.
Who knows what their medium term plan is haha.

I recently got a massive education on a few things. HKG only releases better slot timings for new airlines after they have proven good on time performance for at least one year. Once that's proven VA will be able to get better slots and also open up other routes to those slots. 2018 should bring SYD, BNE and possibly ADL flying to HKG. When that happens say goodbye to A330 trans-cons. The mining boom is over and "The Business" isn't selling. I couldn't believe it... but only time will tell if this is indeed the medium term plans...

 

[tm.smile]

The times of the flights arent really the issue. Its the days on which they can get those slots so that the schedule is the same across the week. HK is severely constrained no matter how you slice and dice the slots. The fact is, a carrier with little presence starting up is always going to struggle getting consistent slots. QF ran two SYD-HKG flights within minutes of each other for years.

 

[Moopere]

The mining boom is over and "The Business" isn't selling. I couldn't believe it... but only time will tell if this is indeed the medium term plans...

People always say this and certainly I don't fly every day of the week, only a few times a year, but J on the 330's when I've flown is always >50% full. Thats not bad imho for domestic J. It might all be rewards redeemers for all I know, but still, I believe that burning points was pretty much the whole reason for the high level of J domestically in any event - not many are ever going to be willing to shell out $4000 PER-East return.

If we think the transcon J load levels are bad now, wait until the route is pretty much _only_ serviced by the 737 ... it will be empty - once bitten twice shy, theres no value in paying with money or points for a 3-4-5 hours flight in J on a 73H as its currently fitted-out, again, imho.

 

[Melburnian1]

...If we think the transcon J load levels are bad now, wait until the route is pretty much _only_ serviced by the 737 ... it will be empty - once bitten twice shy, theres no value in paying with money or points for a 3-4-5 hours flight in J on a 73H as its currently fitted-out, again, imho.

Completely agree. I can't see any benefit in travelling in a B738 or A320/1 in J at any time if I'm shelling out the coin.

Only individuals such as parliamentarians (plus staff?) and senior public servants as well as company directors, barristers and so on "might" consider it worthwhile. To me it's just a massive waste of money. (Apologies to TonyHancock: any visits to the West are self funded.)

 

[CJEMNMAC]

Are they blocking reward seats in an effort to reduce redemptions? Any Seat only it appears.

J pricing is quite good.

Can't find any reward seats though.

When trying to book this route I get:

Just booked 2 x J HKG-MEL-SYD rewards for October

At present it is booking over the phone only