Median domestic air fares are rising

[harvyk]

So is there any real justification for the fare increases or are they just being mean?

The domestic war between the airlines was hurting them (but great for us), so when the war ceased there also ceased to be a reason to keep the airfares low.

 

[Jleno]

This year, since I'm not chasing status, I'm booking much more JQ than QF. Fares are usually $59 BNE-SYD and $89 BNE-MEL (club JQ non-peak travel).

I wonder where the balance is - ie at what fare price will they start making less money as a result of passengers opting not to pay these prices (and doing other travel or alternative means of transport).

How have your found the JQ product? I've generally avoided them before but at $170/$152 (if you're lucky), I think it's time for me to consider them.

 

[dajop]

The Age seem to think that the government is allowing spending on public service travel to blow out, without perhaps looking at what is happening with domestic fares ..

 

[harvyk]

The Age seem to think that the government is allowing spending on public service travel to blow out, without perhaps looking at what is happening with domestic fares ..

Without getting too political, the public service is pretty much every ones favorite whipping boy. People complain when they don't do the job they are tasked with, but people are not willing to pay the public service to do that job.
If they could get the APS down to costing $100 a year to run all of the APS, there would be people whom would still complain and say that costs are too high, and ask why we can't do it for $50.

 

[Melburnian1]

So is there any real justification for the fare increases or are they just being mean?

It's more to do with how effectively we have a duopoly. Both have decided it's best to (depending on the route) reduce capacity (two examples would be MEL and SYD across to PER), increase capacity but at less than the market is growing, soaking up some empty seats (a strategy they'd probably both like on lucrative golden triangle routes like MEL - SYD) or keep the number of seats stagnant. This in theory allows both to raise fares (although as JohnK is correctly implying, above a certain price that could mean some discretionary passengers simply don't travel and the number of empty seats trends upwards.)

At times, the duopoly manages to increase the number of seats perhaps a little unexpectedly (for instance if I'm not mistaken TT recently commenced MEL - CBR - MEL) but generally capacity seems to be fairly tightly controlled.

harvyk would not be the only individual doing what he outlines as a possible response.

Slowly the number of tourists from mainland China seems to be coming back (in other words, previous increases each month have become lower) so whether that continues is a $64 million question. If that source starts to decline, it will have quite some adverse effect on both airline groups as one sees these tourist groups on offpeak flights in the golden triangle, and presumably any flight on other routes such as CNS - AYQ and BNE - CNS to name two.

It's hard to see Australia ever having three major airline groups competing again as every time this has occurred in the last 30 years, the result if I'm not mistaken has been amalgamation or one of the three folding. Compass Mk I, Mk II, Impulse Airlines, EastWest, Ansett Australia, Air Australia (Strategic Airlines)...

 

[dajop]

Without getting too political, the public service is pretty much every ones favorite whipping boy. People complain when they don't do the job they are tasked with, but people are not willing to pay the public service to do that job.
If they could get the APS down to costing $100 a year to run all of the APS, there would be people whom would still complain and say that costs are too high, and ask why we can't do it for $50.

Yes agree totally. And people also see a cut of 10,000 "public service jobs" meaning that there are 10,000 less people working for the government so travel costs should be cut accordingly. In reality, some of the activity would be transferred to consultants who when working on government business would book there travel via government channels.

 

[CaptJCool]

So is there any real justification for the fare increases or are they just being mean?

I would expect it's nothing about mean. More about offering PAX options they prefer and getting them to pay for those extras which once were free so Yea, take a listen into this YouTube on this page..... Routehappy