What's wrong with Qantas?

[yo yo ma]

Standby, I agree with you that most preferences/comments are subjective, but your comment on OTP is factually incorrect. Virgin Blue has had fewer cancellations and more flights leave on time than Qantas every single financial year since records began 5 years ago. Follow this link and download each of the financial year pdf reports for yourself to verify. Airline On Time Performance Annual Reports

Thanks for the link and your valuable input to the forum crazydave98. I also agree with the point about people's experiences being subjective.

I believe that flights leaving on time should not really be looked at. Rather, flight arrival times should be the important factor. Also, instead of looking at cancellation numbers, the percentage of flights cancelled should be looked at. You state that VB has fewer cancellations than QF... JQ has fewer cancellations than VB but what really should be looked at is the percentage of cancelled flights.

The most recent report states that "Virgin Blue achieved the highest level of on time departures for 2008-09 at 81.5 per cent... Qantas achieved the highest on time arrivals among the major domestic airlines at 81.0 per cent..."

For those who don't have the time to read the attached documents, I have summarised them below:

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 08/09 financial year:
JQ - 78.2% - 0.9%
QF - 81% - 2.6%
VB - 79.7% - 2%
TT - 80.4% - 0.4%

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 07/08 financial year:
JQ - 76.3% - 0.9%
QF - 79.6% - 2.3%
VB - 77.6% - 1.9%
TT - N/A

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 06/07 financial year:
JQ - 84.6% - 0.5%
QF - 87.1% - 1%
VB - 86.9% - 0.9%

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 05/06 financial year:
JQ - 84.9% - 0.5%
QF - 85.9% - 1.1%
VB - 88.7% - 0.8%

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 04/05 financial year:
JQ - 87% - 1.3%
QF - 85.7% - 1.1%
VB - 86.2% - 1%

 

[haydensydney]

Quite frankly, I am shocked.

What happened to "b*itch please, I don't fly economy" ???

Haha! How did I know that was going to come bite me in the a$$...

...although, let it be known that if there was a good J option in Australia I would be all over it like a rash...

Crazydave - I want a Virgin America-esque F product on DJ. It would be the only "first" product on the domestic network, and well - it looks hot - and I think it would sell. Do it Dave, do it.

 

[dajop]

Percentages of on time arrivals and cancellations - 08/09 financial year:
JQ - 78.2% - 0.9%
QF - 81% - 2.6%
VB - 79.7% - 2%
TT - 80.4% - 0.4%

For the on time arrival figures, I would be extremely surprised if figures this close would be considered significantly different statistically (I can't quite remember the stats involved). If one took 100 flights over the course of a year, it would be just a matter of luck - or not - whether 19,20,21 or 22 of them ran late (or another number altogether).

When performance is this close together, a perhaps more useful statistic would be how late the late flights actually are. I imagine most people have some "fat" in their schedules, and I wonder which is the preference - an airline that has 75% on time arrivals, with average delay 25 mins for those that run late or an airline with 85% on time arrivals and average delay of 50 mins for those that are late?

 

[PaulC83]

If one took 100 flights over the course of a year, it would be just a matter of luck - or not - whether 19,20,21 or 22 of them ran late (or another number altogether).

This is very true, but as also mentioned before, the routes on which these flights are not performing makes a difference too. If my flight from ASP->ADL is on time, the OTP of SYD->MEL or PER->SYD wouldn't really bother me for my flight patterns, but it might be a problem for other people. From listening to some of JohnKs comments regarding his commuting, that seems to be a route that is often lacking performance. I have a feeling it could come down to certain routes, and certain aircraft (reliability), which comes back to the common sentiment here that its one of those YMMV things, some people are lucky, some are less lucky <looks at JohnK>, and people are usually once bitten twice shy, usually on a matter of principle.

It is interesting to note that majority of time the ASP->ADL flight is late is due to delays in the arriving aircraft as it comes from MEL->ADL in the morning before coming up to ASP. Usually its the fog out of MEL etc.

 

[docjames]

a Virgin America-esque F product on DJ. It would be the only "first" product on the domestic network, .

Exactly. "First class at a Business price". Sure, it would be little different from a decent J class service, but call it F and the marketing (and sales) are easy.

 

[sampson]

Haha! How did I know that was going to come bite me in the a$$...

...although, let it be known that if there was a good J option in Australia I would be all over it like a rash...

Crazydave - I want a Virgin America-esque F product on DJ. It would be the only "first" product on the domestic network, and well - it looks hot - and I think it would sell. Do it Dave, do it.

I'd love to book onward flights on Virginamerica. The 20% discount, 85c/$US and the amount of luggage makes first class very tempting.

Regarding "what's wrong with Qantas', I don't know a 747 from a A380 but we tried Qantas again to NZ. The economy seats felt as squeezed together as the flights to USA which prompted us to try United, Vaustralia and AirNZ. We won't be using Qantas in October, November, Jan, Feb, March or April. They're just not the same as they were, and they're overpriced.

 

[yo yo ma]

For the on time arrival figures, I would be extremely surprised if figures this close would be considered significantly different statistically (I can't quite remember the stats involved). If one took 100 flights over the course of a year, it would be just a matter of luck - or not - whether 19,20,21 or 22 of them ran late (or another number altogether).

Agree with this... only 2.8% difference between all the airlines last year.

 

[oz_mark]

For the on time arrival figures, I would be extremely surprised if figures this close would be considered significantly different statistically (I can't quite remember the stats involved). If one took 100 flights over the course of a year, it would be just a matter of luck - or not - whether 19,20,21 or 22 of them ran late (or another number altogether).

It may also suggest that the reason for a large proportion of the delayed flights are not attributable to the airline. It would be interesting to see a breakdown at the air traffic control/weather/etc level.

 

[Blackadder]

A few reasons for me :

1) Gold FF status and associated OW Status
2) Alot of my international flights are to/from the US are to LAX then transfer onto elsewhere in the US, the transfer proccess at TBIT from QF to AA is smooth as can be.
3) Both Int and Dom, no standout bad experiences or delays with Qantas, same can't be said for DJ, and no desire to use JQ

 

[harvyk]

Regarding "what's wrong with Qantas', I don't know a 747 from a A380 but we tried Qantas again to NZ. The economy seats felt as squeezed together as the flights to USA which prompted us to try United, Vaustralia and AirNZ. We won't be using Qantas in October, November, Jan, Feb, March or April. They're just not the same as they were, and they're overpriced.

Learning the different types of planes may be a good thing. The product on offer (in all classes) can be very different based on the type of operating aircraft. Whilst you can never guarentee that they won't switch the aircraft type on you (it's happened to me, although it was switched to a better aircraft type ) by understanding a little bit about what is on offer by each type can really make a massive difference. (For example QF until recently offered AVOD on a TT route because of the plane type flying)

Again for example soon QF will again be offering a larger seat pitch, and AVOD on one type of TT plane (the B737). It's these little things that don't have any additional costs associated with them which can make a big difference.

 

[penegal]

In terms of Australian domestic travel, I don’t really have a choice... 90% of my travel is for work, and QF is the preferred supplier for the vast majority of my clients and my employer. (This probably means someone way more important than me is enjoying CL).

For the 10% which is personal I am open to other options. I have done DJ, JQ and TT before, but recently QF has been cheaper (taking into account baggage and CC fees), and QF has the added advantage of free QP access due to status, as well as [cough] food & drinks in the air.

Having said that I think DJ has a lot of potential, and their brand seems to be doing well with the younger generation. A 'first' product, better than their current PE offering would be very interesting.

 

[pauly7]

Having said that I think DJ has a lot of potential, and their brand seems to be doing well with the younger generation. A 'first' product, better than their current PE offering would be very interesting.

Being from the younger generation, it did ok with me until they repositioned (read put ther prices up) with very little to add for customer/my benefit.

But I will +1 your 'First' product comment! DJ PE is a waste of space, would love to see a decent product up front!!

 

[penegal]

But I will +1 your 'First' product comment! DJ PE is a waste of space, would love to see a decent product up front!!

Even QF domestic J is nothing special (especially the older incarnations of it), but it is better than DJ PE IMHO.

I think a better premium domestic product from any carrier would generate a lot of interest, especially on longer routes (eg PER-SYD/MEL/BNE, etc).

 

[Dave Noble]

Even QF domestic J is nothing special (especially the older incarnations of it), but it is better than DJ PE IMHO.

I think a better premium domestic product from any carrier would generate a lot of interest, especially on longer routes (eg PER-SYD/MEL/BNE, etc).

The only flights with an old incarnation are those on the 734s and there arn't too many of those. I do not see that improving the domestic QF business product would generate many more sales but would involve a price increase to offset the fewer seats that could be held ( if more pitch was provided for example ) which could lead to fewer sales

Personally, I think that the millenium seats are quite adequate for the domestic flights.

Dave

 

[jakeseven7]

I don't think anything is really wrong with QF lol.... I think they've worked hard to get over all the union issues last year and are now back on top of their OTP.

IMHO there is no statistically significant difference between DJ and QF OTP. I'm sick of both airlines saying they are both better when clearly they are the same. I would prefer DJ use another method of measuring their OTP which is directly comparable but meh....

The rest, I'm happy with them!

+3 (I think we are up to that!?) on DJ fixing up the front of their plane, it is I agree quite literally a waste of space, no one is ever sitting there and I think a BusinessFirst product would give QF a run for their money and help DJ break away from the LCC image they are trying to shed.

 

[Justinf]

Did anyone here fly OzJet?
Good concept, poorly implemented.
I am due to fly Virgin America from LAX to Seattle in November and although I am only flying economy, the 1st class fare was reasonable and I definitely considered it. The main select (PE) seat did not seem worth it.

 

[Dave Noble]

Did anyone here fly OzJet?

Yep. used it for SYD/MEL/SYD whenever possible when it was running; was excellent value

Dave

 

[ozimax]

After flying round world with Swissair (eg Lufthansa), any airline seems good. I suppose as an ex-QF employee (TN actually) there is some sort of attachment to the Red Roo, but the main reason is that the connections from my home town of Coffs Harbour are far better on QF than DJ.

(Having said that, the lady on the check-in counter at Coffs airport is usually horrible. She obviously doesn't like working there and would rather be elsewhere. Just think of it, customers coming along and taking HER time!)

Getting back on topic. I haven't flown DJ for a year or so because their schedule/price doesn't suit my normal sectors.

QF club also makes a difference I suppose.

The bottom line is, QF is losing money fast, and cost cutting is the order of the day. Trimming of budgets will continue into the forseeable future. Service will decline in the meantime.

 

[sampson]

We tried Qantas again after trying UA and others. We're back on Vaustralia, Pacific Blue and Jetstar and AirNZ over the next few months.

 

[Justinf]

Qantas' ageing fleet on the MEL-SYD run worries me. I avoid the old 767s and to a leseer extent the 737-400s in favour of the Next Generation Boeings whenever I can.