Flying in Australia - like a bleeding competition with a blood bank

[markis10]

Watching the war of words between our two dominant airlines is not to far removed from watching a marathon game of team tennis, well the players have been subbed and now we see a nice backhand by RB:

We began competing with Qantas in 2000 with just two planes and one route. Over the last 13 years we have grown the airline to more than 140 planes but flying in Australia has sometimes been akin to having a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/government-should-encourage-competition

 

[harvyk]

Actually no, they started in 2000 and where competing with both Qantas and Ansett. In 2001 they had a gift given to them which the last attempt at an LCC - Compass never had, and strictly speaking is a once in a life time event in business, and that was the removal of a major competitor in the duopoly, virtually handing them an entire network of potential routes, empty terminals and highly trained staff.

They have also had the money of Virgin (not to mention the brand) behind them from day 1. This meant that they had much more time to find their feet than had Mr Branson decided one day to give up his desk job to go start an airline. By the time VA (DJ) came around they had already been running 2 airlines, one of them for 16 or so years, so it is not like they where strangers to the airline business.

IMHO The current QF /VA shouting match is nothing more than a billion dollar pissing contest, of the "but that's not fair, you promised I'd get to stay up as late as my older brother" type...

 

[eastwest101]

Yes Richard Branson's comments are always funny and have a grain of truth to them. But to take the analogy further - the management of the blood bank haven't got any better/smarter, and have just about bled themselves dry trying to eliminate DJ/VA with a list of mistakes, mis-calculations and mis-steps as long as your arm....

 

[Mwenenzi]

Actually no, they started in 2000 and where competing with both Qantas and Ansett. In 2001 they had a gift given to them which the last attempt at an LCC - Compass never had, and strictly speaking is a once in a life time event in business, and that was the removal of a major competitor in the duopoly, virtually handing them an entire network of potential routes, empty terminals and highly trained staff..

The biggest gift was when Ansett shutdown. In the fine print of documents for the Patricks Ltd takeover some years is was stated what the annaul fee was to Branson to use the Virgin brand. Is not cheap

 

[Melburnian1]

markis10, notwithstanding that JQ and TT often - but not always - offer cheaper fares than QF and VA respectively, and hence attract a different class of passenger - but are subsidiaries, do you consider that the mainline routes (and some secondary routes) now effectively have a duopoly, or do you believe that the JQ and TT offerings have 'Chinese walls' or are otherwise largely quarantined from their legacy airline parents such that there are up to four true airlines competing on major routes such as MEL - SYD?

 

[harvyk]

markis10, notwithstanding that JQ and TT often - but not always - offer cheaper fares than QF and VA respectively, and hence attract a different class of passenger - but are subsidiaries, do you consider that the mainline routes (and some secondary routes) now effectively have a duopoly, or do you believe that the JQ and TT offerings have 'Chinese walls' or are otherwise largely quarantined from their legacy airline parents such that there are up to four true airlines competing on major routes such as MEL - SYD?

As far as I'm concerned, we're back to duopoly flying again. The advantage this time is each airline is at least offering budget (JQ / TT) as well as the traditional value (Y) / premium travel (J).