Virgin Australia applied for ADL/OOL-PER-DPS. Failed due International Terminal Requirement

[Saab34]

I see.

I wonder if Jetstar will replace the ‘D’ Legs with the current domestic flights. Could be a bit more painful as more time required to checkin etc.

 

[SeaWolf]

Looking through the draft determination it seems like there was considerable discussion (and confusion?) between IASC, the Department and Virgin Australia about what was or wasn't allowed.

In particular, 4.4 and 4.5 indicate the Department confirming that the sequencing was permissible, following a string of correspondence and a meeting between IASC, the Department and Virgin (1.7 and 1.8).

Following all that Virgin advised how it was going to operate it (1.9) and then IASC went back to the Department again for further advice (4.11), the Department has deliberated for two months and then advised last week (4.12) that it wasn't permissible.

 

[Saab34]

I don’t know if Virgin would take up the ‘D’ option? They don’t operate these sectors at the moment, Jetstar has significant experience in these ops.

It does add another level of complexity to an operation.

 

[HS-TQE]

I don’t know if Virgin would take up the ‘D’ option? They don’t operate these sectors at the moment, Jetstar has significant experience in these ops.

It does add another level of complexity to an operation.

It does a little.bit (e.g rostering immigration officers in PER/ADL/OOL for what would have been VA's domestic tag legs) but not that complex.

VA would've had to update the website with the D sticker procedures for domestic leg passengers had they been willing to operate the domestic legs as international tags.

 

[elanshin]

Hold on.

Are JQ not wanting to fly these tag flights as Domestic also? I don’t think the intention was to fly International Terminal Cairns to International Melbourne?

JQ already has/had CNS > MEL Int'l leg coming from NRT so it's nothing new there for them.

 

[oz_mark]

Hold on.

Are JQ not wanting to fly these tag flights as Domestic also? I don’t think the intention was to fly International Terminal Cairns to International Melbourne?

They did say they intend to operate out of the international terminals at all three points.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Looking through the draft determination it seems like there was considerable discussion (and confusion?) between IASC, the Department and Virgin Australia about what was or wasn't allowed.

In particular, 4.4 and 4.5 indicate the Department confirming that the sequencing was permissible, following a string of correspondence and a meeting between IASC, the Department and Virgin (1.7 and 1.8).

Following all that Virgin advised how it was going to operate it (1.9) and then IASC went back to the Department again for further advice (4.11), the Department has deliberated for two months and then advised last week (4.12) that it wasn't permissible.

Reading between the lines, I think Virgin got the answers it requested from the department and then sought it's own legal advice indicating that it was permissible to operate with a purely domestic tag flight. The department, I think, was blindsided by it so then deep-dived itself, and came to a different conclusion - hence the two month pause.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at VA HQ in BNE...

 

[justinbrett]

Why was VA so hell bent against operating the domestic legs as international?

 

[elanshin]

Why was VA so hell bent against operating the domestic legs as international?

Probably adds a whole layer of complexity they didn't want to deal with. Is there currently any domestic operated through Int'l?

 

[HS-TQE]

I'm.guessing the rough costs of.VA had they taken this up is partially covering for the costs of immigration staff in OOL/ADL/PER, especially to process those travelling on the domestix legs with D stickered boarding passes/mandatory ID. VA may have baulked at partially covering the costs of rostering immigration staff at the 3 nominated ports, maybe?

There is also the minor cost of updating the VA website to explain the D sticker procedures for domestic tag passengers.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Why was VA so hell bent against operating the domestic legs as international?

Complexity, cost, causes issues with staffing, they are not high frequency routes where finding other options for passengers who don't understand ID requirements is easy, either. I would think there would be a concern with domestic transit in Perth too, there would be a few who would travel ADL-xPER-PHE/KTA/KGI/ONS etc etc. For them, I can see why the domestic option was the one to go for.

It does seem like they did their DD from a management perspective - wonder if their legal advice on the legislation came in house or from an external firm. Does beg the question if they were presented with no other option but to run these services as international from start to finish, would they have still sought the slots? Hmm. Something does have to be done, PER-DPS should be very workable.

 

[justinbrett]

Complexity, cost, causes issues with staffing, they are not high frequency routes where finding other options for passengers who don't understand ID requirements is easy, either. I would think there would be a concern with domestic transit in Perth too, there would be a few who would travel ADL-xPER-PHE/KTA/KGI/ONS etc etc. For them, I can see why the domestic option was the one to go for.

It does seem like they did their DD from a management perspective - wonder if their legal advice on the legislation came in house or from an external firm. Does beg the question if they were presented with no other option but to run these services as international from start to finish, would they have still sought the slots? Hmm. Something does have to be done, PER-DPS should be very workable.

Did they not know what they were applying for?

I don't think any of us considered for a minute these flights would be true domestic flights. I'm absolutely astonished this has happened.

I think for IASC to consider it a flight from a regional port, it has to be direct (1 stop) - ie single flight number, international.

Well, at least I never considered it (my post from Jan)

 

[Saab34]

Did they not know what they were applying for?

I don't think any of us considered for a minute these flights would be true domestic flights. I'm absolutely astonished this has happened.

This does seem like Virgin intended to operate these from Dom to Dom. I assume capacity would be maintained between the domestic ports, so essentially they are just reducing margin and adding a whole lot of cost to this flight if it’s moving to operate from Int to Int instead. Also an inconvenience to passengers as checkin times, boarding times are often inflated for these Int to Int flights. Which is why they don’t seem interested in doing that.

 

[HS-TQE]

This does seem like Virgin intended to operate these from Dom to Dom. I assume capacity would be maintained between the domestic ports, so essentially they are just reducing margin and adding a whole lot of cost to this flight if it’s moving to operate from Int to Int instead. Also an inconvenience to passengers as checkin times, boarding times are often inflated for these Int to Int flights. Which is why they don’t seem interested in doing that.

There is still the cost of towing the aircraft from a domestic gate to an international gate in PER or if using the swing gate, rostering staff to close the gate off for the international departure. Either way there was still costs to operating xx-PER-DPS for VA.

 

[Saab34]

This isn’t great for Virgin’s overall market share into DPS which will decline even further.

 

[HS-TQE]

This isn’t great for Virgin’s overall market share into DPS which will decline even further.

Well VA did drop the ball here and very much can blame no-one but themselves in this case.

This does have some similarities with the previous Tigerair fiasco with the Indonesian authorities

 

[justinbrett]

This does seem like Virgin intended to operate these from Dom to Dom.

Which raises the question, do they have a bunch of work experience kids in HQ running this?

That was never going to get up.

 

[serfty]

Which raises the question, do they have a bunch of work experience kids in HQ running this?

That was never going to get up.

I doubt it. VA likely decided it was not worth it to them doing it from international and were never going to do so, so they tried to get the criteria changed. Didn't happen ... So be it.

 

[serfty]

Well VA did drop the ball here and very much can blame no-one but themselves in this case.

This does have some similarities with the previous Tigerair fiasco with the Indonesian authorities

Not really, no ball dropped. It wasn't going to work for them using the international terminals so they unsuccessfully tried to change the rules.

Nothing wrong with trying - nothing wrong with failing.

 

[SeaWolf]

And there must have been some question mark around if this was possible or it wouldn't have taken the Department two months to get back to IASC when the question was asked.