Australian domestic travel 10 years on

[straitman]

A little longer than 10 years but....

I flew on Hazelton from Traralgon to Sydney via Albury for a weekend in 1995. The sole flight attendant on the way up had our refreshments (sandwich, muesli bar, apple and 'Prima' juice in brown paper bags) in a washing basket next to her small rear-facing seat at the front of the cabin.

The flight home on the Sunday evening was in an even smaller aircraft so no flight attendant. It was one of the first, if not the first, of their Sydney / Traralgon direct flights. As our pilot hadn't landed there before, he did a few circles of the Latrobe Valley, I guess to check it out first. Seeing the lights of the power stations and the dredges in the open-cut mines from the air was a bit of a buzz!

( I also remember the pilot giving the usual spiel about remaining in your seat until advised. We dutifully did exactly what we were told (polite country people?). No-one moved when we landed. Pilot shut off the engine, fiddled around doing whatever they have to do, then grabbed his bag from beside his seat and stood up to get off. Was stunned to see all his passengers still sitting in silence waiting (well, we HADN'T been told it was okay to move). "It wasn't that bad, was it???", he said. It HAD been a long and somewhat bumpy ride due to winds at that time, resulting in a delay of about an hour leaving SYD, but basically everyone was just doing exactly as instructed.)

Sadly there are no RPTs out of Latrobe Valley or West Sale these days.

 

[rdb]

10 years ago flying was enjoyable. We had, in my opinion, much better quality service on the airlines. I flew AN 95% of the time. Frequencies might be more now but they would have increased and new routes started up even without the LCC which I generally do not like - especially TT. It might cost $650 or thereabouts for ADL/SYD return but I was likely to do that that pay discounted fares witrh conditions and not think twice about it.
Australian aviation went downhill with the demise of AN and I still can not see how it was allowed to happen. I blame Murdoch, Abeles and 2 international airlines for it all.
Today we pay ridiculously low fares and feel hardly done by if we can't get the cheapest level of fare. We have become obsessed with cheapness in many spheres of life, not just aviation, and we are no happier. There has been no progress because of cheapness, just unhealthy obsessions with wanting more. I would rather have AN back and the quality of service and friendliness that existed then than what we have today.

 

[straitman]

10 years ago flying was enjoyable. We had, in my opinion, much better quality service on the airlines. I flew AN 95% of the time. Frequencies might be more now but they would have increased and new routes started up even without the LCC which I generally do not like - especially TT. It might cost $650 or thereabouts for ADL/SYD return but I was likely to do that that pay discounted fares witrh conditions and not think twice about it.
Australian aviation went downhill with the demise of AN and I still can not see how it was allowed to happen. I blame Murdoch, Abeles and 2 international airlines for it all.
Today we pay ridiculously low fares and feel hardly done by if we can't get the cheapest level of fare. We have become obsessed with cheapness in many spheres of life, not just aviation, and we are no happier. There has been no progress because of cheapness, just unhealthy obsessions with wanting more. I would rather have AN back and the quality of service and friendliness that existed then than what we have today.

rdb,

Welcome to AFF.

An interesting first post with a lot of good guts in it. Excellent :!:

 

[NM]

... Today we pay ridiculously low fares and feel hardly done by if we can't get the cheapest level of fare. We have become obsessed with cheapness in many spheres of life, not just aviation, and we are no happier. There has been no progress because of cheapness, just unhealthy obsessions with wanting more. ...

Welcome to AFF. I agree that its our obsession for low fares that drives the reducing quality of the product and hence the experience.

 

[oz_mark]

There has been no progress because of cheapness, just unhealthy obsessions with wanting more. I would rather have AN back and the quality of service and friendliness that existed then than what we have today.

The rise of the LCC is hardly a uniquely Australian thing. While we can never know how things would have unfolded, Ansett themselves would likely have had to responded in some way to rise of such competition. Indeed, there is some argument that Ansett's inability to compete in such a competitive environment was partially responsible for its downfall.

I guess what I am saying, is even if Ansett were still around, I doubt that the levels of service you would get from them would be the same today as they were then.

 

[dajop]

The rise of the LCC is hardly a uniquely Australian thing.

Yes, and I think (except for Tiger) the LCCs we do have are reasonably good if you compare them to LCCs in other developed countries (Ryanair anyone?). And QF domestic flights are still very good, whereas in many parts of the world a domestic flight in economy on one of the traditionally "full service" carriers has become very LCC'ised. Look at most of the US carriers (LCC or not), you are lucky to get the opportunity to purchase a meal on them - let alone get one for free - even if you are flying in F (I think the rule on many carriers is , meals available - for purchase in Y or free in F - on flights longer than 2 hours at meal times only). And most carriers in the US (except for the LCC ) charge for luggage as well for non elites. So we aren't doing too bad.

As for the move to low fares, it has opened up the ability for people who could never, or rarely afford to fly to actually experience it. I think that's a good thing, so what that the meal service has declined? If you want to pay 1985 economy prices (in real terms, accounting for inflation), you probably can fly in business class today and still get 1985 service. I didn't take my first flight until I was 17, simply because it was way too expensive for a family of 6 to afford to fly, I am sure that would be different today.

 

[jehane]

One thing that surely hasn't changed about flying in the last 10 years is that people still complain about everything!

Fares and route availability have certainly come a long way. I grew up in Perth but was heavily involved in sports, so flew quite a lot as a teenager. One event in Mackay in the early 90s meant 3 flights (PER-SYD, SYD-BNE, BNE-Mackay) at a cost of over $1000. I shudder to think of the cost in real terms today. There was no such thing as a direct PER-BNE flight in those days. It wasn't much better in the late 90s going to Townsville.

In 2000 I moved to Darwin. Only Ansett offered direct flights DRW-PER. QF started them in 2001, a few months before Ansett collapsed. When DJ first started operating to those locations, they offered fares between DRW-PER - but you had to go DRW-BNE-SYD-ADL-PER!!

I vaguely recall the advent of FF programs, and was a member of both QF and Ansett. In the early days, status achieved lasted for 3 years - a lot of flying with QF one year netted me silver status and I had that for 3 years even though my flying declined to hardly anything. I also still have a QF cabin bag they gave out to people with sufficient status credits or points - I forget which. It was so long ago it has a documents compartment rather than laptop compartment, and certainly no wheels!

And that's the other thing that has changed significantly in the years I've been travelling - luggage. The days of having to actually carry anything are gone. Now even cabin baggage has wheels!

 

[anat0l]

One thing that surely hasn't changed about flying in the last 10 years is that people still complain about everything!

One thing I guess I'd like to hear is how has complaining (or what is being complained about) changed over the last 10 years.

10 years ago I still barely travelled within Australia, only really overseas.

 

[markis10]

Sadly there are no RPTs out of Latrobe Valley or West Sale these days.

I wonder if that has something to do with the lack of support for regional Australia when it comes to the Victorian Government, NSW and QLD subsidize their regional operations but I dont believe Victoria does.

 

[dajop]

I wonder if that has something to do with the lack of support for regional Australia when it comes to the Victorian Government, NSW and QLD subsidize their regional operations but I dont believe Victoria does.

I think you would find the NSW & QLD govts don't support interstate regional operations - such as Latrobe Valley to SYD or CBR - just intrastate operations (to/from BNE/TSV/CNS and to/from SYD). Even in NSW/QLD certainly can't think of any support for regional destinations within 2 hrs (Traralgon) or 3 hrs (Sale) drive or train ride from the capital. Of course I stand to be corrected!

Come to think if it probably only places in Victoria that aren't within 300km of one of the five (non seasonal) commercial airports serving the state (MEL, AVV, MQL, MGB & ABX) are east of Bairnsdale.

 

[Justinf]

I remember going on a footy trip to Adelaide, I think around 1995 or thereabouts. There were at least 20 of us, all booked on different flight times and two diff carries (Qantas and Ansett).
On the way back to Melbourne, I wanted to head back a little earlier, so I swapped my ticket (yes, printed out tkts) with another bloke. I was booked on Ansett at 3pm or something like that and he was booked on QF at 2pm. Did it no questions asked. Just exchanged tickets, jumped on the plane easy peasy.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I remember going on a footy trip to Adelaide, I think around 1995 or thereabouts. There were at least 20 of us, all booked on different flight times and two diff carries (Qantas and Ansett).
On the way back to Melbourne, I wanted to head back a little earlier, so I swapped my ticket (yes, printed out tkts) with another bloke. I was booked on Ansett at 3pm or something like that and he was booked on QF at 2pm. Did it no questions asked. Just exchanged tickets, jumped on the plane easy peasy.

.....and nothing much has changed with people readily travelling on other people's etickets courtesy of OLCI & especially with carry on luggage only.

The only thing that would stop that is a TSA type check at the security screening points where pax name on boarding pass would need to match name on photographic ID.

 

[straitman]

.....and nothing much has changed with people readily travelling on other people's etickets courtesy of OLCI & especially with carry on luggage only.

The only thing that would stop that is a TSA type check at the security screening points where pax name on boarding pass would need to match name on photographic ID.

.... and is there much chance of that when QF and others do not even check ID at bag drop on most occasions :?:

 

[anat0l]

.... and is there much chance of that when QF and others do not even check ID at bag drop on most occasions :?:

There is a discussion about this on the FT NZ board, where there is even less contact required from kerb to gate to plane in NZ domestic than on QF domestic.

 

[toowongman]

- The food has changed. I remember one of those crazy QF OOL<>SYD returns for $169 in '96. The breakfast down was huge - cereal, eggs, sausages, roll, the works. Hot dinner coming back.
- IMO people dressed a lot better in the past.
- You could go and have a chat with the flight crew. On a brand new Impulse 717 I was in row 1, poking my head over to look in the flight deck. Captain said come on in - he was so proud of 'his' new aircraft.

20 years on...
- Three-class cabins on Australian 727s
- East West and those BAe-146s. From memory they used to shuttle up and down the east coast all day (late 1990?), then fly home to Tamworth on a Friday night - we sent my mother from OOL-Tamworth that way once, had the cabin to herself. It was a sad day in Tamworth when EW closed up shop.
- Freezing bumpy near-death experiences flying with Oxley airlines out of Armidale.

Memories...

 

[Justchecking]

Today we pay ridiculously low fares and feel hard done by if we can't get the cheapest level of fare. We have become obsessed with cheapness in many spheres of life, not just aviation, and we are no happier. There has been no progress because of cheapness, just unhealthy obsessions with wanting more. I would rather have AN back and the quality of service and friendliness that existed then than what we have today.

I couldn't agree more. Its the incessant business drive to out-cheap each other which has given us self-serve everything. There's no experience to be had, just stuff, real cheap. It's why our pegs break the 2nd time we use them. Why our cars need to be repurchased and traded in every 5 years instead of a once in a lifetime purchase. My nanna drove her 1970's VW Golf until the day she died last year. It's also why were are constantly irritated by everything. We bought something cheap, it broke then we discover there was never any warranty and now we have to buy more cheap stuff.

Cheap is the most expensive way to live and the least satisfying.

Cheap doesn't make things efficient, it makes things impersonal and unaccountable. Cheap drives endless fine print and company policies that basically say "if you spend your money with us you can kiss any kind of recompense and accountability goodbye. We'll take your money and if our system works good on the day you're in luck. If not please leave a message on our voicemail and we'll duly delete it within 24hrs."

Life has improved in some respects but we've lost a lot too. Flying in the AN days was a treat, something I did only a couple of times and year and got to the airport extra early so I could savour the whole experience. Being served 100mls of overbrewed coffee in a melamine cup and eating a tiny hot breakfast off melamine plates was something I looked forward to. Where did the melamine go to? And the real cutlery for that matter.

 

[ANstar]

If DJ hadnt started up, another carrier would have. It was only a matter of time - We were paying a lot for airfares and needed more competition in the market place.

As for travel 10 years ago being better? To be honest I dont notice that much difference. I find the service on JQ/DJ/QF to be pretty good compared to global standards.

As for international QF and VA are now offering far superior products that what AN was offering.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

How's this for a blast from the past.....a TAA commercial from 1975 to be exact:

YouTube - TAA 1975 "Up Up and away with TAA, the friendly, friendly way".

Then 1983 and the introduction of TAA's Business Class on the A300's:

YouTube - TAA - Introduces Business Class

Now into the 21st Century and the age of the LCC giving things that were never meant to fly the opportunity to. Must've been a long flight for the bloke seated by the window:

YouTube - Sanity Fail

Another bit of nostaglia...who remembers disembarking from the rear stairs (ie underneath the tail) of a B727 on the tarmac?

 

[straitman]

How's this for a blast from the past.....

Another bit of nostaglia...who remembers disembarking from the rear stairs (ie underneath the tail) of a B727 on the tarmac?

I have to admit to that one.

 

[harvyk]

Now into the 21st Century and the age of the LCC giving things that were never meant to fly the opportunity to. Must've been a long flight for the bloke seated by the window:

I'd say... I'd be going for frequent walks down the isle looking for any sign of a vacant seat if I were him.