HOBART - Clearly not a DJ Business Target!

[koonyaflyer]

Hi All

Having maintained my Velocity Gold status since tier inception I am now seriously considering my loyalty given the recent slashing of their direct flights from Sydney to Hobart.

I am a fully self funded business traveller, commuting from Hobart to Sydney or Melbourne on weekly basis. I need to be in Sydney by around 9.00 am on Mondays and generally leave Sydney on a Thursday or Friday night. Until recently this has been well serviced with a direct flight HBA SYD, departing around 7am, arriving at 8.15 into Sydney. Return flights departed around 6pm, arriving home in time for a late dinner!

The only option now is to fly via Melbourne or Canberra, with a departure at around 6am, and earliest arrival at 9.40 (3 hrs 40mins c.f. 1hr 40 approx)!

Coming home - I have a "choice" of a 2.35pm departure (writing off half a day in the office) arriving home at 4.30, or a number of via Melbourne flights arriving in at 9.30pm.

Ticket prices have already blown through the roof - and instead of my normal monthly spend of $1000 on airfares, looks like I could be up to $1500 per month.

In fairness there are still direct flights operating, departing HBA at 12.15pm or 17.00...hardly business travel friendly!

Looks like a QP membership and Jetstar are looking very enticing (well as enticing as J* could ever be!)

Looks like I should make the most of Velocity Gold until its expiry in Jan 2012...because there is no way I will be retaining it with their new "improved" schedules!

 

[markis10]

Ticket prices have already blown through the roof - and instead of my normal monthly spend of $1000 on airfares, looks like I could be up to $1500 per month.

If you are flying weekly thats a pretty low spend all things considered. While it may not suit you to see the changes they are generally made to suit demand, the recent killing of the morning flight ex COFFS by DJ was very unpopular, but no doubt the plane was best used elsewhere.

I generally dont fly JQ, I am not satisfied with their safety and the never ending pressure on wages is contributing to that not improving IMHO, I rate them level with Tiger and not an option for business travel.

 

[medhead]

I do the weekly trip from ADL to SYD on Mondays and thursdays. I'm paying about $900 to $1000 per month on flights. I usually mix my flying between DJ and QF.

A couple of thoughts. Is the price of the connecting flight more than the direct flight? If so is it enough to justify and extra night in Sydney? You know fly back early Friday morning instead of Thursday afternoon. (I realize this is unlikely)

You also should check out this with respect to QF flight prices. I'm finding that the 6am Monday flight is normally $200 with QF compared to the the usual base rededeal of $142 or base DJ fare of $119. At an $80 saving flying Sunday and having an extra hotel night starts to be worthwhile, if I can't get the base price on Monday morning with either airline. That also has the advantage of being at work early on Monday and being able to have an early departure on Thursday.

It's all swings and roundabouts but once you have your pattern it hard to find a new pattern. Well it would be for me. Sorry to hear that you need to change around.

 

[anat0l]

Maybe DJ will reconsider its position once it has a greater consolidation on the mainland.

Fact is that all the major carriers don't give much love to Australia's non-mainland state. Look at QF's schedules - quite appalling, only giving you at most 2 options for direct flights from HBA to SYD, ditto for MEL and nothing else. JQ? Yeah well - your choice. At least DJ will give you a good balance between use of your status, getting some points and with new DJ changes on the way, perhaps a good or better experience overall.

Now all the carriers might have the same rationale here, in that the traffic to Tasmania simply isn't attractive enough (from a profitability) to put more flights on, except during vacations.

If schedule is absolutely important to you then you'll make a choice that way; no status could sway you there. Either that or you will need to consider indirect flight options instead.

As for price, if frugality is important to you then you might not get it by switching to the competition.

 

[drron]

Tasmania is a very small market-total population 507000.Hobart around 200000 all up.Also Tasmania has the lowest population growth of any State or territory,the oldest average age,lowest percentage between 15-64.On top of this tourism is in a downturn.And yes I work~20 weeks a year in Tassie and every time I come more businesses are closed.The population figures are from ABS.
Now compare Hobarts flights with the Sunshine coast-population 323000.From MCY on Mondays JQ have 4 flights to SYD,1 to MEL.DJ have 2 to SYD,1 to MEL.On fridays JQ have an extra flight from MEL.From Hobart you have 5 directs to SYD a day and 10 to MEL.
Also think of the Gold coast-population 515000-no QF at all and a bigger tourist market than Tassie.Or Newcastle where the population of the Lower hunter is~560000.So unfortunately the Tassie market is getting the volume of seats it needs.

 

[bkv]

given the low population i understand the limited flight options, but i will never fly virgin blue ex-Hobart becasue there is no Lounge.

 

[jsd]

On an average weekday you have 5 departures to choose from, the earliest at 9:40 with JQ and the latest also with JQ at 19:35...


The 6:25 DJ1529 service was never really that popular, well let me put it this way, in the morning if you are on QF 1010 or DJ 1313 you can see the pax for DJ 1529 boarding, and they would be fully boarded and ready to go by the time that you started to power out to the taxiway... :-|

The only thing it was ever really good for was connecting to Virgin Atlantic to London or Hong Kong or connecting onto V Australia services to LA, or even Pacific Blue and Poly. Blue flights

 

[koonyaflyer]

As usual lots of interesting and differing points of view, which is one of the good things about this forum. I have to say that my key frustration is not so much the number of direct flights across all brands rather that the timing is not business friendly! Especially when the 6.25 am is always virtually full!

Looks like I will do the late afternoon flight up and spend the extra night in Sydney,which is preferable to a 3.15 am rise to catch the 6am slow boat!

 

[jsd]

It appears that the E170 that operates the now re-timed HBA-CBR-HBA service is now based in HBA overnight in place of the E190 that would have operated the 6:25 DJ1529 service...New times for the CBR service are:

Dep HBA: 6:40
Arr HBA: 21:25

 

[Dee Thom]

It appears that the E170 that operates the now re-timed HBA-CBR-HBA service is now based in HBA overnight in place of the E190 that would have operated the 6:25 DJ1529 service.

The E170's are being phased out over the next 12 months, replaced by the ATR72's, so the E190 will probably make a return, although they could put the ATR on the MEL/HBA route.
East West Airlines used to fly Fokker Friendships - 500 series - SYD/HBA in the 1980's, an enjoyable trip, but not time friendly for business.

Cheers Dee