Qantas Forgets ADL as usual

[Fleuelec]

Hi All, My first post so please be kind.

Recently booked my wife on her first award flight for a quick trip to the US late Feb 2020. We travel OS for holidays and work etc in J so was looking for an award to continue that comfort especially as it is a short trip duration. Was delighted to find the ADL - BNE - SFO (still subject to final approval) had plenty of J availability. As this flight is not daily we picked dates of travel to specifically benefit from this service and the date she needed to be in the US. As usual in Adelaide we are constantly overlooked, I discovered that there is no afternoon flights into Brisbane on Tuesday afternoons (which is one of the 3 days available for BNE-SFO), leaving my wife to sit in Brisbane airport for several hours or take a flight through Melbourne which still ads about 3 hours to the journey, which we did.
I know your thinking this is an award flight with availability what am I complaining about, I should be grateful?? I realise it is only minor but as Qantas is looking to expand flights out of Brisbane with the introduction of the 787 and Chicago etc you would think they look at the connecting options for states that do not have a direct service. It is much like the canceled SYD-ADL-SIN a few years ago which I used once a month, it was our only short travel option when time is important for business.
Yes Adelaide is much smaller in population and further from the US than the east coast, but we also pay much more for our international flights as we have a connecting leg, so its not as if Qantas are doing us a favor and providing that leg for free. Just wondering if any other members feel we are overlooked by Qantas in Adelaide and or if I am being unreasonable?

 

[Bundy Bear]

Hi Did you check the segments as individual ADL-BNE and BNE-SFO; it is likely that the through part wasn't available; I find if the option is available as 2 flights then you could try and ring them as ask to see if they will ticket a through ticket on the flights you wanted.

 

[Melburnian1]

BNE is further from ADL than from MEL (especially) or SYD, so the first two are the natural connecting points.

And let's face it, Adelaide is the smallest mainland capital city of any state (excluding territories), has had minimal population growth, seen major subsidised sectors like car manufacturing disappear and despite my appreciation of its wonderful architectural heritage including churches and pleasant tourism offerings including great wineries and peninsulas is not overly on the radar of international visitors. Especially not when considered against Sydney, the Gold Coast or increasingly Melbourne and even Tasmania.

 

[Fleuelec]

Hi Did you check the segments as individual ADL-BNE and BNE-SFO; it is likely that the through part wasn't available; I find if the option is available as 2 flights then you could try and ring them as ask to see if they will ticket a through ticket on the flights you wanted.

Yes I did check this prior, it appears that Tuesday afternoon flights do not exist in all searches for the next 12 moths.

 

[opusman]

John Safran said it best; "Never live in Adelaide, it's a hole".

 

[jase05]

John Safran said it best; "Never live in Adelaide, it's a hole".

Plenty of my Sydney friends say similar but then always whinge that we are always on holidays whilst they can’t afford it. Adelaide isn’t for everyone but it’s been good to me and allows us to live a very comfortable life. Happy for all you other folks to enjoy your overpriced, overcrowded cities

 

[odysseus]

As usual in Adelaide we are constantly overlooked, I discovered that there is no afternoon flights into Brisbane on Tuesday afternoons (which is one of the 3 days available for BNE-SFO),

It appears that is your key concern.

However, from an operational perspective, there would have to be enough volume to justify a flight from ADL to BNE on a Tuesday afternoon.

As the new international service is a smaller plane to begin with, and serves people from multiple origins including Brisbane, and the ADL-BNE route itself doesn't have a lot of traffic and is an off-peak route i.e. people returning to home Brisbane on a quieter weekday, there would not be so much demand for it. Moreover, as you mention there is a service a few hours earlier QF would view that as sufficiently covering demand.

Even for Sydney, outbound flights from Adelaide in the afternoon are fewer; it's just not a big destination from other cities as mentioned.

 

[Forg]

major subsidised sectors like car manufacturing.

Segue ... government made waaaaay more in tax per car (ie. over what they make when a car is imported & sold instead) than they ever put in, but I guess that’s not relevant to the topic.

 

[Matt_01]

@Fleuelec I completely agree with your position and frustration. We live in ADL for family reasons and we travel a bit, years back we gave up on international travel from ADL, these days most of our international is xSYD or xMEL and we just budget in a nights accomodation at the Rydges (SYD) or Park Royal (MEL). For us, the additional night accomodation cost out weighs the risk of missing flights, spending time in the F lounge, not having to go through security twice, the ADL fish bowl etc. I have a pessimistic outlook on the money that is being pored into the ADL airport expansion and what will come of it.