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.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.
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JQ already has/had CNS > MEL Int'l leg coming from NRT so it's nothing new there for them.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.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?
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.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.
Probably adds a whole layer of complexity they didn't want to deal with. Is there currently any domestic operated through Int'l?Why was VA so hell bent against operating the domestic legs as international?
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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.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.
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.
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.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.
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.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.
Well VA did drop the ball here and very much can blame no-one but themselves in this case.This isn’t great for Virgin’s overall market share into DPS which will decline even further.
This does seem like Virgin intended to operate these from Dom to Dom.
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.Which raises the question, do they have a bunch of work experience kids in HQ running this?
That was never going to get up.
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.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