Qantas canceling MEL/SYD/BNE - KTA direct flights?

Hi guys,

Interesting rumour going around town here at the moment that Qantas is canceling the 4 weekly direct flights between MEL (1), SYD (1), BNE (2) and Karratha.

Got a few of these bookings coming up over Xmas etc and was wondering if anyone ie. Red Roo can confirm as I called service desk and they said they couldn't confirm or deny but company's have been told it's temporary but travel agents told it's permanent??? Nothing in QF website to confirm either

So who knows but will certainly effect a few people if true!!

 

Very strange, people booked between 1st July and 1st October have had emails and changes to itin's but after that it seems to be bookable and no changes so who knows whats going on!

 

So the rumour goes Qantas has cancelled all 4 east coast services from July 1 and Also Adelaide-Kal flights have been canned. 9 weeks PER-KTA-PER flights canned and a massive reduction of 737 services!

Disappointing, the company's must have pulled out of booking blocks of seats. Thats what kept it going.....can only hope this Anketell port goes ahead, only chance of getting them back.

Will be interesting to see if Port Hedland keeps theirs

Quite funny though as it's not booming but it's still steady up here but I guess unless the new port goes ahead there just isn't the demand for the FIFO flights and Virgin is operating 4 PER-KTA flights a day some days too but their flight went out with 6 people on a 737 the other day so will see how long that lasts!

Can only hope Virgin comes in and even does one flight to the east coast a week, a total PITA having to go via Perth some times.

 

Yep they haven't even had the common courtesy to advise me my xmas eve flight to Brisane is now cancelled via email/txt at least.

I booked Red E Deals so hopefully they will give me a full refund rather than a credit as only booked the flight last week and now its cancelled. Qantas is starting to really crap me off, constant flight time changes I've had a flight moved 5 times between KTA and PER before and the number of flights they have cancelled is unreal.

But be interesting to see if they fully refund me or not........i'm not hopeful! Certianly not doing 10hrs of travel on xmas eve in cattle class haha will use points to book J for me and the Mrs before the ASA's go!

 

Yeah national FIFO was a bit of a nail in the coffin and i know from our area there was only a few guys who took advantage but be interesting to see what happens as guys to Cairns and Regional areas apparently can't make connecting flights from BNE now. The MEL/SYD flights used to be full in the height of construction but they would have been costing Qantas money in the end but the Wednesday Brissy flight was always chockers, speaking to the FIFO guys there was barely ever seats left so who knows.

Rio has slowly started putting quite a few people back on Qantas lately, from what we were told it was to even out the business between the 2 airlines as there is now some minimal price difference between the flights compared to what their was. When I was flying to Perth weekly I know our fares that were being booked were $900 each way, that was a couple of years ago but thats just pure price gouging.

I rang Qantas yesterday and had an excellent agent who knew about the cancellation but it's still showing in the system as operating so they can rebook me but can't refund me until it's officially announced by Qantas and removed from the system, but it's still pretty piss poor finding out on Facebook/Qantas Source/ABC all prior to anything official from Qantas.

Virgin has really upped their game too, they may even try and make a case for at least 1 over East flight a week even 1 to Brisbane would give them an upper hand. Karratha Airport redevlopment starts in June and I know the shire/council has been trying to woo Virgin into a Phuket/Bali flight so be interesting to see what happens there. Compared to when Virgin started here their flight times are much better and service is 100000x better. Just the frequency thats a let down.

It's funny though people whinge and moan about the FIFO workers but ultimately they are the ones that give us the flights albeit at ludicrous prices. Quite often it can be $798 to fly to Perth ONE WAY some days, Tuesday and Wednesdays will be through the roof again no doubt as more people fly via Perth again. Lucky for competition we have Virgin and Alliance to offer cheap seats!

It's funny a few years ago Qantas was even going to offer a tag on flight from Exmouth - Perth-Learmonth-Karratha-Learmonth-Perth but it's never come to fruition.