VA loads with HKG?

[Isochronous]

maybe with the recession QF want to fly smaller aircraft anyway, so they might downgrade an airport that currently has QF flights with aircraft over 40 seats to smaller aircraft.

Look at BNE/LAX going from 10/week to daily. Unfortunately, VA haven't got a smaller aircraft that could do BNE/LAX nonstop, BUT they do have A330s that do currently do HKG & heard reports of very poor load factors to HKG even when giving seats away.

So maybe could VA do eg

BNE/LAX via somewhere with an A330 ?

NAN would be obvious choice, but Fijians might give them a hard time re NAN/LAX, but they do have flights SYD/NAN & MEL/NAN that could connect with a VA NAN/LAX.

Will start a new thread about this now.

If VA HKG service is struggling to give away seats as you say, how come there is never any award availability?

 

[ozfflyer]

If VA HKG service is struggling to give away seats as you say, how come there is never any award availability?

no idea. All I was told was load factors was awful.

 

[dajop]

no idea. All I was told was load factors was awful.

In March, VA's load factors were 64.7% inbound from HKG and 66.1% outbound. QF's were 83.7% and 82.3%, CX's were 76.1% and 78.9%. Of course says nothing about yields nor how full business class is, but once load factors fall below 70% doesn't sound too promising.

Anyway, still not that relevant to rural services. As I've said, there are multiple factors that may either exacerbate or counter the effects of a "recession". Two of the most significant factors would be drought and mining.

 

[dajop]

no idea. All I was told was load factors was awful.

In March, VA's load factors were 64.7% inbound from HKG and 66.1% outbound. QF's were 83.7% and 82.3%, CX's were 76.1% and 78.9%. Of course says nothing about yields nor how full business class is, but once load factors fall below 70% doesn't sound too promising.

Anyway, still not that relevant to rural services. As I've said, there are multiple factors that may either exacerbate or counter the effects of a "recession". Two of the most significant factors would be drought and mining.

 

[p--and--t]

staying slightly off topic. Given there are 332 seats on the VA aircraft to HKG, does that equate to 116 empty seats per flight on average that are not being released for Velocity members nor being sold to raise revenue.

 

[SeaWolf]

staying slightly off topic. Given there are 332 seats on the VA aircraft to HKG, does that equate to 116 empty seats per flight on average that are not being released for Velocity members nor being sold to raise revenue.

Maybe, sort of... it's complicated. Just having a (very unscientific) browse through points seats available on that route in Business I'm seeing availability on a variety of days next week and during October for both SYD-HKG and MEL-HKG. Obviously VA would prefer to sell these seats for actual money so it has a bit of a balancing act about how many to release to Velocity and when, it doesn't want the cabin filling up with Velocity passengers and displacing paying customers. So there's probably a few seats initially released, a few later on (months) and a few just before departure (week or days). But of course those that are released just before departure will probably not get snapped up because it's much harder for people to travel at that kind of short notice. There's UpgradeMe bidding as well, which is probably more lucrative than people booking with points. Also there doesn't seem to be much in the way of connecting rewards available so that limits the usefulness of them as well.

So it's probably a bit of a combination of seats not being sold, not being released to Velocity, being taken by UpgradeMe or being released to Velocity but not picked up. Looking at the availability though I don't think they're just denying the seats to Velocity and preferring to fly them empty (which I think is what you might have been suggesting).

 

[p--and--t]

So it's probably a bit of a combination of seats not being sold, not being released to Velocity, being taken by UpgradeMe or being released to Velocity but not picked up. Looking at the availability though I don't think they're just denying the seats to Velocity and preferring to fly them empty (which I think is what you might have been suggesting).

That's exactly what I am suggesting - I'm looking back at actuals on BITRE - they did fly with 35% empty seats on that route.