Qantas’ 787s [range discussion]

[Forg]

Finland (it's the place I'd quite like to be)

Sorry ... segue ... but I felt this needed acknowledgement.

 

[dk4]

I think flying a direct route over China is virtually impossible, due to commercial airspace restrictions in their country.

Plus, given the situation with Russia at the moment, I doubt an Australian airline would want to launch a service which relies on access to their airspace either. (Noting US carriers have recently started diverting around Russia, on their flights to East Asia, some aircraft now making a time consuming technical stop en-route to refuel.)

 

[Basalt]

Personally, I'd prefer to see Perth-Munich or Perth-Dusseldorf than Perth-Paris or Perth-Frankfurt or Perth-Helsinki. Munich and Dusseldorf airports are both modernised, easy to use and centrally located in EU. Fits the bill in my book

Though what I really want is MEL-HKG-somewhere central in EU on an A380

 

[kitkatff]

Fly QR; Still via the Gulf, but OneWorld, onward flights to Europe, and much better than QF and EK in J.

yeah but the earn for status is ridiculous, you get almost less for the return trip on QR than for one way on a QF codeshare with EK. As mentioned I don't yet have the luxury of lifetime gold to fall back on

Yes. The deal was extended for 5yrs

Thanks for the advice, looks like at least for personal trips I may still use EK as the one stop option. That said JAL from Tokyo also seems like an option, they do have flights to some cities in Europe outside London and I gather their Eco and premium eco products are quite nice (I know their J is good already )

 

[michaele]

It’s a real shame the earn on partners is so terrible. Really ruins the flexibility of the partnership if you’re maximising your status.

Out of interest, what are the pros for QF of SIN over HKG? Slots? Avoiding the CX base?

 

[Himeno]

Out of interest, what are the pros for QF of SIN over HKG? Slots? Avoiding the CX base?

Australian carriers have more 5th freedom rights out of Singapore then Hong Kong.

 

[dajop]

Out of interest, what are the pros for QF of SIN over HKG? Slots? Avoiding the CX base?

In addition to fifth freedom rights, also can feed passengers onto the 3K network out of SIN.

 

[docjames]

SIN-HEL earns 120SC on AY in J vs 180SC in J for SIN-LHR on QF (I class). Although there will be SC earn onward from HEL.

 

[cwd]

SIN-HEL earns 120SC on AY in J vs 180SC in J for SIN-LHR on QF (I class). Although there will be SC earn onward from HEL.

In fact HEL-LHR will earn 60SC, so the total ends up the same (albeit with one extra stop). This is more a happy coincidence than anything else, however..

 

[RichardMEL]

Had Air Berlin not gone under flying say SYD-FRA (or DUS) would have made more sense as Germany is a strong destination market with lots of connecting options, but QF has no strong partner outside of BA@LHR on top of the significant AU-LHR O&D traffic as it is.

This is where EK comes in, that going via the ME to say MUC is going to be, in general, a reasonable option over LHR and QF can funnel so much connecting traffic through DXB (well 99% of it now is going to be connecting)

The real thing is that right now if you're in ADL/SYD/MEL/CBR/BNE(etc) you're still one stop away from European cities (inc LHR) so if it's SIN/DXB/HKG/HEL/FRA or PER it isn't going to matter a lot to most people (except those who wish to avoid the ME for any number of reasons, or even some who wish to avoid various Asian gateways like SIN for similar reasons).

and while PER-LHR/CDG is pretty nice, it still involves a transit and a stop for most pax (big win if you're going to/from PER obviously).. but this is not what the majority of QF's pax want (because they're not in PER) so really whatever gateway one wants to use it's sstill another stop or connection fo pax.

Hopefully the 777X or A350ULR variants to comewill open up options like SYD/MEL/BN-LHR and then other options, but even then you'd still probably only see LHR happen as other destinations outside of possibly CDG and FRA are either going to have too low demand or yield (eg: Rome, Athens, etc).. even the 787 needs a viable payload to make it worthwhile.

 

[Himeno]

This is where EK comes in, that going via the ME to say MUC is going to be, in general, a reasonable option over LHR and QF can funnel so much connecting traffic through DXB (well 99% of it now is going to be connecting)

I would have preferred for QF to make the deal with QR instead of EK and stay within oneworld, but EK is the bigger ME airline... :/

 

[dajop]

probably only see LHR happen as other destinations outside of possibly CDG and FRA are either going to have too low demand or yield (eg: Rome, Athens, etc).. even the 787 needs a viable payload to make it worthwhile.

Yes, I have to laugh the media reports that talk about QF looking at PER-FCO! If the yields were good enough CX and SQ would both serve it daily, not 4 x week ! And any talk of ATH direct services is a bigger joke, would make infinitely more sense to serve SYD-ORD, IAH, SEA, DEN, PHX, BOM, DEL, CAN, ICN or TPE, or even use the 787's on HBA-SIN before looking at PER-ATH, despite the cultural links.

 

[SeatBackForward]

I think flying a direct route over China is virtually impossible, due to commercial airspace restrictions in their country.

Plus, given the situation with Russia at the moment, I doubt an Australian airline would want to launch a service which relies on access to their airspace either. (Noting US carriers have recently started diverting around Russia, on their flights to East Asia, some aircraft now making a time consuming technical stop en-route to refuel.)

WellI was on QF2 this week, and they took a route very similar to this (Obviously didn't stop in Moscow but I entered it as waypoint):

Which I suspect was due to winds ?

 

[davidj]

so really whatever gateway one wants to use it's sstill another stop or connection fo pax.

And when BNE goes live with non-stop to your favourite EU destinations, pax still won't be happy because it means connecting from MEL/SYD/CBR etc to BNE.

The romance shown in this thread for some destinations is amusing.

QFA will obviously base their new non-stop service on numbers, and at the moment LHR is demanding most of the traffic, with a significant amount of pax stopping there with no further connections, and the other using it as a transit point, being the most significant OW hub in EU, it makes commercial sense.

FRA makes second place after LHR in terms of service routes, however it being a Star Alliance hub pretty much rules this out, unless QFA partner with a local carrier.

Without signing up any new partners, and utilising the OW network, MAD or HEL makes sense. MAD would be better for end traffic, but harder technically due to range. Probably better to stay with LHR because of this.

DME would work perfectly (for range and OW network), but assume this has less appetite than HEL. There would be a few more Russians visiting AUS if this was implemented, so could collect some bums on the way. Probably too far from central EU to be considered.

PER-LHR 9,014 miles
vs.
BNE-DME 8,750 miles
BNE-HEL 9,132 miles
MEL-FCO 9,955 miles
BNE-FRA 10,005 miles
BNE-LHR 10,280 miles
MEL-MAD 10,781 miles

 

[dajop]

FRA makes second place after LHR in terms of service routes, however it being a Star Alliance hub pretty much rules this out.

It's not a star alliance hub, it's a Lufthansa hub. If QF were to bring non-stop services to FRA to the table, it could alter things, and it's not unprecedented for such ventures across alliance boundaries: Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa Group sign co-operation agreement

Commercially the supposedly global alliances seem to be mainly about US .... transatlantic and transpacific, and less concerned with elsewhere in the world.

 

[dajop]

Which I suspect was due to winds ?

Have done SQ SIN-LHR a number of times over the last 7-8 years and that is a very common routing, usually just to the south of Moscow. Not terribly different to circle route (SIN-SVO-LHR is only 46 miles longer than SIN-LHR).

 

[RichardMEL]

I would have preferred for QF to make the deal with QR instead of EK and stay within oneworld, but EK is the bigger ME airline... :/

It did puzzle me at the time given QR was already a OW member and would have given QF a pretty big footprint and connecting opportunities(but not as big as EK at DXB).

My thoughts on why this didn't happen include the fact that QR's CEO Akbar Al Baker is notoriously hard nosed and probably would have rebuffed any QF overtures of this nature.. while QR has agreements with non OW carriers it's all about QR(even more than EK is about them) . The other thought I have is that back in 2012 or around when QF/EK first came to light (and they were obviously working on it for some time before announcement) the new DOH had not opened and there may well have been concerns about space and the like at the old terminals vs the recently opened DXB T3(I think it is?) giving more space there both for QF services(which were only 4x departures a day of course) and connecting ops via increased EK services.

I'm willing to be the main issue is that QR did not want to p;lay ball.

It's not a star alliance hub, it's a Lufthansa hub. If QF were to bring non-stop services to FRA to the table, it could alter things, and it's not unprecedented for such ventures across alliance boundaries: Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa Group sign co-operation agreement

Commercially the supposedly global alliances seem to be mainly about US .... transatlantic and transpacific, and less concerned with elsewhere in the world.

I think route dependent agreements like this (and NZ/CX have one on AKL-HKG too I belueve) exist but are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things (and remember when QF coded on AF for SIN-CDG?)

the main fact is that FRA is a fortress, more or less, for LH and has huge Star feed in and out of there with no really other big player that QF could leverage for feed to secondary cities from FRA (such as into eastern/sourthern and northern europe). This is why the demise of AirBerlin makes it even harder because there may have been potential in Germany via them, but that's gone (and they never hubbed at FRA anyway)

Sadly most of continental europe is out for QF in terms of oneworld partners or even likely connecting partners bar IB at MAD/BCN and BA@LHR. And sorry Spain, but you don't have the yields that FRA would give, and it's a bit too south (as in flying something like MAD-ARN would be similar to going LHR-ARN but with lower yields). Consider the other likely big Europe hubs that might make sense - Paris and AMS are ruled by AF/KL and Northern Europe (eg: HEL/OSL etc) are a bit far removed, and again have the lack of O&D demand, so you end up focusing on LHR for UK to/from traffic and connections on BA, plus pushing other pax through DXB on EK where those connections make sense (and probably lower yielding for QF, but EK can support with capacity.. eg ATH, Italy, etc)

now QF might try something a bit different like a tie up wtth one of the europe LCC's (a la Westjet in Canada or even JetStar in Asia) but it probably still wouldn't be popular with QF pax connecting to say Wizz or whatever.

IMHO

 

[UP4014]

A quick note on topic which I didn't see when scanning the thread, the Perth to London 787 runs with 10 seats empty to increase the range.

So with 10 people plus bags reduces the payload by about 1 tonne I would think.

 

[TomVexille]

It did puzzle me at the time given QR was already a OW member and would have given QF a pretty big footprint and connecting opportunities(but not as big as EK at DXB).

My thoughts on why this didn't happen include the fact that QR's CEO Akbar Al Baker is notoriously hard nosed and probably would have rebuffed any QF overtures of this nature.. while QR has agreements with non OW carriers it's all about QR(even more than EK is about them) . The other thought I have is that back in 2012 or around when QF/EK first came to light (and they were obviously working on it for some time before announcement) the new DOH had not opened and there may well have been concerns about space and the like at the old terminals vs the recently opened DXB T3(I think it is?) giving more space there both for QF services(which were only 4x departures a day of course) and connecting ops via increased EK services.

I'm willing to be the main issue is that QR did not want to p;lay ball.

I do agree that QR probably wouldn't have played ball, but they didn't join OW until 30 October 2013. The initial announcement of their intention to join came after QF and EK announced their partnership. And IIRC QR were sponsored by BA who may have felt that QF had burned them with the EK tie up.

 

[dajop]

the main fact is that FRA is a fortress, more or less, for LH and has huge Star feed in and out of there with no really other big player that QF could leverage for feed to secondary cities from FRA

My point was, it is not unprecedented to do cross-alliance deals, so QF could do a deal with LH, and get feed from each other and codeshare on the non-stop route. One suspects though a PER-FRA route offers not a lot to LH compared to taking traffic to Asia on LH (or LX) metal and then routing on to SQ, QF, TG or CX to Australia. From FRA to SYD/MEL it's still two hops and from elsewhere three stops. But this might change if SYD/FRA were to become a reality, it might have a stronger appeal.

now QF might try something a bit different like a tie up wtth one of the europe LCC's (a la Westjet in Canada or even JetStar in Asia) but it probably still wouldn't be popular with QF pax connecting to say Wizz or whatever.

Only logical "out of the box" tie up like this would be EasyJet @ CDG (or LGW ) , can't think of too many others.