Qantas Project Sunrise goes ahead, 12 new A350-1000s ordered

[AuSammy]

The problem for MEL is its geographic location. North American flights practically overfly SYD before crossing the Pacific. European flights are longer compared to launching from PER or DRW. Even as a domestic hub, other than Tasmania, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

The other problem with MEL is they see themselves as an equal to SYD, mostly due to creative statistical areas leading to “largest city in Australia” claims - but the catchment area of SYD within a 3 hour drive, including CBR, NTL WOL, the geographic centre of East coast cities including BNE, ADL and MEL, and being by far the most attractive city for tourists and business - it’s completely sensible for QF to focus on SYD. And better to hub out of SYD than to split services between the two.

It’s completely normal for foreign carriers to serve more cities than local carriers - BA almost exclusively fly longhaul out of London, AA from its hubs, it’s the same just about everywhere.

You are drawing a long bow about the most “attractive” city etc.

However the logic of where to place the hub with a frame constrained fleet based on other criteria is sound.

Maybe when QFg has less pressure in lack of numbers of frames available to service cities and schedules then some things may change, but lets not hold our breaths.

 

[justinbrett]

You are drawing a long bow about the most “attractive” city etc.

However the logic of where to place the hub with a frame constrained fleet based on other criteria is sound.

Maybe when QFg has less pressure in lack of numbers of frames available to service cities and schedules then some things may change, but lets not hold our breaths.

Are you saying you don’t agree that Sydney attracts the overwhelming majority of international tourists and business travellers compared to Melbourne?

 

[AuSammy]

Are you saying you don’t agree that Sydney attracts the overwhelming majority of international tourists and business travellers compared to Melbourne?

Marketing and consequential recognition/ impression creating demand etc don’t always match reality.

 

[justinbrett]

Marketing and consequential recognition/ impression creating demand etc don’t always match reality.

That's a yes?

There's hard data to prove it: I thought this was just established fact that didn't need citation.

Sydney Vs Melbourne infographic - McCrindle

Melbourne has just been named the world’s most liveable city for the fourth year in a row, but what is it about this city that make’s living there so

mccrindle.com.au

It's an older reference but I doubt things have changed much:
Some cities see a higher proportion of business travelers amongst their international visitors. As shown in Figure 4.13, there were an estimated 400,000 international business travellers to Sydney in 2012–13 compared with other capital cities like Melbourne (276,000) and Brisbane (133,000).

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/migrated/infrastructure/pab/soac/files/2015_SoAC_Chapter_4.pdf

 

[Quickstatus]

SYD is a hub for geographical, historical , population and financial reasons.

MEL and BNE a bit less
PER barely makes the hub metric except for maybe geographical. Population makes it potentially a viable point to point airport - LHR, JNB

ADL not so much...in fact not much at all.

 

[Melburnian1]

The other problem with MEL is they see themselves as an equal to SYD, mostly due to creative statistical areas leading to “largest city in Australia” claims

It's not 'creative' - it's as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics defining urban areas.

As I said, Melbourne hasn't yet overtaken Sydney in population - but it will within a few short years.

 

[AuSammy]

I was subtly alluding to the fact that ”attractive” is a very subjective term and varies greatly depending on context.

After living in and even only visiting for a few days many would be prepared to acknowledge MEL is a more attractive city for a numbers of reasons once you get past the hype of Harbour / Opera House / Bridge in travel marketing.

 

[JessicaTam]

[mod hat]
The thread is digressing from its core topic.

Back to the Project Sunrise discussion, please.
[/mod hat]