VA to HKG from Jul 5 2017, ex MEL

[DavidFlynn]

Yeah, silly typo!

 

[TomVexille]

Yeah, silly typo!

 

[Melburnian1]

This is a $64 million question, but do AFFers perceive that VA will stick with this route for a long time (assuming it still operates as an airline) should loads and particularly yields prove to be poor?

Its record with AUH does not inspire confidence.

 

[Justchecking]

I have every confidence that VA will do with this route what they do with all routes deemed not profitable, should it go in the same direction. How much of a go they give it is anyones guess but they dont have the $$ to fly an unprofitable route for long.

 

[pauly7]

I have every confidence that VA will do with this route what they do with all routes deemed not profitable, should it go in the same direction. How much of a go they give it is anyones guess but they dont have the $$ to fly an unprofitable route for long.

Agreed and the price war with CX and QF will make yield harder and thinner. Will come down a lot to how much they get fed by their Chinese owners I suspect and what cut of the codeshare they have negotiated. In the meantime us pax should make the most of these incredible airfares on all 3 airlines!

 

[Justchecking]

Agreed and the price war with CX and QF will make yield harder and thinner. Will come down a lot to how much they get fed by their Chinese owners I suspect and what cut of the codeshare they have negotiated. In the meantime us pax should make the most of these incredible airfares on all 3 airlines!

Yep get it while it's hot folks.

 

[serfty]

VA appear to have not correctly set up the GDS seat maps for these flights.

On FT there was a query:

...
but ExpertFlyer and the lovely lady at Virgin both indicate that it is 2/2 config.
...
My flight dates at MEL-HKG - 30/04 and HKG-MEL - 19/05 if that makes any difference.
...

This was interesting as VA never had 2x2 on their 332's, only 2x2x2 or 1x2x1.


However, looking at seat maps on expertflyer I can see:


Results from https://www.ExpertFlyer.com

Seat Map Search:
Departing MEL on 30/04/18 for HKG
Flying VA flight 87 in Business


        A   D       G   K   
1       +   +       +   +       
2      [COLOR=#0000ff][B] -   -[/B][/COLOR]       +   +       
3       +   +       +   +       
4       +   +       +   +       
5       +   +       +   +       
        A   D       G   K

... which with its single aisle matches no business configuration ever operated by VA.

Expertflyer generally only returns seat maps based on information retrieved from GDS's


The economy seat map shows 2 aisles as normal.


I suspect it's a miscoding of where the aisle seats are. Here's a normal seat map for business on these - same seat numbers, just the aisle showing actuality.


Results from https://www.ExpertFlyer.com

Seat Map Search: Departing MEL on 15/07/17 for PER, Flying VA flight 693 in Business


        A       D   G       K   
1       +       -   -       +       
2       -       -   +       +       
3       +       +   +       +       
4       +       +   +       +       
5       -       -   +       +       
        A       D   G       K

So, with the HKG flight, those in 2A and 2D would be across the aisle from each other.

 

[Pleb Status]

This is a $64 million question, but do AFFers perceive that VA will stick with this route for a long time (assuming it still operates as an airline) should loads and particularly yields prove to be poor?

Its record with AUH does not inspire confidence.

I would assume that VA have budgeted for a pretty large loss over the first year or two of operations (>AUD10M).

VA know they have to operate for a year to get any chance of decent slot times in/out of HKG and that the incumbents will use their market power to undercut pricing etc (certainly at the beginning, they may lose interest moving forward). I would therefore assume a minimum two year plan before they decide to 'cut and run' or continue on.

This whole venture appears to have been setup on the request of HNA and I assume they would have given the other VA shareholders a forecast of feed from their services etc to make the VA HKG services viable, particularly at a loss. I would assume VA management will be mainly looking at the actual loads versus the HNA forecasts in the short term more than profitability...

 

[jpk]

I have every confidence that VA will do with this route what they do with all routes deemed not profitable, should it go in the same direction. How much of a go they give it is anyones guess but they dont have the $$ to fly an unprofitable route for long.

Historically they haven't been great at long haul route planning - it has often been "suck it and see" or "throw it at the wall and see what sticks". eg: JNB, HKT, NAN, MEL-LAX, PER-AUH.

This is the first time that they've had a partner so closely involved in it though, which would surely help. I hope they're prepared to bleed a lot for a year though...

 

[tm.smile]

This is the first time that they've had a partner so closely involved in it though, which would surely help. I hope they're prepared to bleed a lot for a year though...

AUH had EY pretty closely involved no? I mean half the time, EY was operating the flights for VA...

The biggest thing about MEL-HKG for VA right now is frequency and timing of flights. On that scale, they are just not even in the ball park when competing against QF and CX for high yield fares. Until they can secure more favourable slots, they'll be operating it at a loss. VA simply cannot command the fares they need to properly compete (even HNA codeshares, how valuable are those fares really?).

 

[kevrosmith]

Keep in mind, VA may not be looking at this route from the MEL-HKG perspective, but rather the HKG-MEL perspective, and may have some good inbound travel agencies working within HKG and Mainland China to get pax in seats. And their connections with HNA et al may provide the pax they need to make this route viable.

 

[tm.smile]

Absolutely, but then are they going to be commanding premium fares from those pax when you're competing against the likes of CZ, MU, CA, MF and all the other airlines that fly China to Australia? VA's costs are certainly much higher than those of their Chinese competitors and I'd dare say that the Chinese aren't going to be going out of their way to fly VA and pay more for the privilege.

Connecting via HKG is falling out of favour for the Chinese already (look how well CX is doing right now).

 

[Awesom Andy]

Connecting via HKG is falling out of favour for the Chinese already (look how well CX is doing right now).

Most Chinese in the past preferred to pay more and connect with CX for the superior service, and they can boast to their peers that they flew on CX. Nowadays, spending money isn't as easy, CX services are going downhill very quickly, and the other Chinese airlines are improving.

 

[Melburnian1]

...Nowadays, spending money isn't as easy, CX services are going downhill very quickly...

Awesom, are you making an oblique reference to the mainland Chinese government's alleged capital controls that make it harder to take money out of the country for local residents?

 

[Awesom Andy]

Awesom, are you making an oblique reference to the mainland Chinese government's alleged capital controls that make it harder to take money out of the country for local residents?

I guess that's part of the story, although I was thinking more along the line of crackdowns on spendings by various levels of government, especially on anything that is excessively luxurious even if it's the employee's own personal spendings.

 

[grubbidok]

Historically they haven't been great at long haul route planning - it has often been "suck it and see" or "throw it at the wall and see what sticks". eg: JNB, HKT, NAN, MEL-LAX, PER-AUH.

This is the first time that they've had a partner so closely involved in it though, which would surely help. I hope they're prepared to bleed a lot for a year though...

My only guess is that VA are trying to create an Asian equivalent of the DL-VA arrangement in North America, which IMO is the bet link-up of any NA airline with any international partner. I'd imagine HK is the beachhead (largely to get runs on the board for more and better slots at HK - and not being on the mainland has some other benefits in not cannibalising partner routes), and the new Chinese partners/owners of VA have probably committed to help VA through the loss. I would also imagine VA are prob in discussions with other partners about leveraging HK in the future (e.g. VS).

I'm not sure if the AUH comparator is a good one, as I'm not sure if EY were as supportive of helping VA out on that as they were just doing the routes themselves. EY ownership has been more hassle for many of the airlines they own than benefit. SQ is not a natural partner for these kind of endeavours either.

I usually give VA a lot of (often deserved) cough for their lack of forward planning, but I actually think HK is prob one example where they're prob thinking about long-term strategic pay-off, rather than just doing it on the fly.

I'm flying this route next week - looking forward to seeing how they manage it in practice!

 

[Saab34]

OTP has been pretty bad this week (ex HKG) any news on this?

 

[mel-world]

Sorry OTP?

 

[serfty]

Sorry OTP?

On time performance ...

 

[hummel]

Sorry OTP?

On Time Performance I would say.

I have posted previously but I am interested in this route being VA Gold and based in MEL with some travel into Guangzhou I could fly into HKG and jump on the train across.

Some of the fly buys fares (~$400) are incredibly cheap...