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]

 

[jase05]

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

It did bother me once but we have a decent enough selection of quality airlines here now that are head and shoulders above QF so it makes the decision to avoid them pretty easy. If we do need to fly QFi we can just head to MEL for the routes we need. We try to avoid SYD and have no desire to go via PER either

 

[Quickstatus]

We try to avoid SYD

Yes, definitely avoid the SYD DOM-INT transfers wherever possible

but we have a decent enough selection of quality airlines here now that are head and shoulders above QF

Good (non QF) international point to point or point to hub connections out of ADL

Would Project Sunrise change the way you travel ex ADL?

 

[AuSammy]

Will be interesting to see if the upcoming extensions/modifications to SYD and MEL airports for effects on passenger preferences / dynamics and thus Sunrise origins. (MEL getting a guernsey earlier than currently forecast).

SYD is always going to be scheduling constrained even after some LCC movement to WSI.

 

[Scarlett]

Definitely mods!

Now, Project Sunrise should certainly be flying all over the world nonstop from Darwin. It’s our best and hottest capital!


Qantas makes only hard-nosed financial decisions to benefit the equity of its board its shareholders, everything else is speculative drivel or wishful thinking.

 

[AuSammy]

Definitely mods!

Now, Project Sunrise should certainly be flying all over the world nonstop from Darwin. It’s our best and hottest capital!


Qantas makes only hard-nosed financial decisions to benefit the equity of its board its shareholders, everything else is speculative drivel or wishful thinking.

But what lounges would be available for a statused passenger bubbly crawl ?

 

[Scarlett]

But what lounges would be available for a statused passenger bubbly crawl ?

Who needs a lounge: time the flights for after a Thursday evening Mindil Beach curry and smoothie crawl.

No curfew at DRW to mess with the LHR end timings either!

 

[jase05]

Would Project Sunrise change the way you travel ex ADL

Nope. Not interested in Sunrise at all.
From ADL I can one stop pretty much anywhere in the world via QR or EK and have a stopover in the ME which we love and get QSuites or other decent sears the whole way.
Sunrise I still have to take a domestic narrow body to PER/SYD/MEL then fly to whichever port in Europe and then get a rubbish Euro J seat after a rubbish transit in LHR/CDG etc

The US one might interest me but the European sunrise is a hard no

 

[justinbrett]

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.

This is the sunrise thread, and the discussion is about why SYD gets PS flights and not MEL.

Simply put - tourists are coming to look at that "hype of Harbour / Opera House / Bridge". Business travellers are coming for many corporate HQs in SYD, particularly financial.

We're not discussing which city has the aesthetic you find desirable, which is indeed subjective. I used "attractive" in the literal sense, that SYD objectively attracts more people.

 

[SYD]

I used "attractive" in the literal sense, that SYD objectively attracts more people.

Twice as many!

ABS data shows that SYD grew 3% while MEL dropped 3% in the April report.

It also showed that outbound tourism ex NSW grew 7% but MEL flatlined.

 

[supersonic]

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.

By you logic flights to JNB should dep MEL as from SYD they do often overfly MEL

 

[supersonic]

They will be flying MEL-PER-LHR as the QF9/10.

They stopped the MEL-PER segments last year. Now it's dom to PER which is rubbish when it is possible to fly int all the way from MEL

Twice as many!

ABS data shows that SYD grew 3% while MEL dropped 3% in the April report.

It also showed that outbound tourism ex NSW grew 7% but MEL flatlined.

Not surprising when there are more seats to SYD than MEL. Also lots of pax then transfer to dom flights which is not a good welcome to Australia.

 

[supersonic]

Nope. Not interested in Sunrise at all.
From ADL I can one stop pretty much anywhere in the world via QR or EK and have a stopover in the ME which we love and get QSuites or other decent sears the whole way.
Sunrise I still have to take a domestic narrow body to PER/SYD/MEL then fly to whichever port in Europe and then get a rubbish Euro J seat after a rubbish transit in LHR/CDG etc

The US one might interest me but the European sunrise is a hard no

I'm not interested on PS now either. When it was to be ex MEL, very interested but no way will I be paying a premium airfare to have a substandard dom sector at each end. (this is also the reason I never looked at QF9/10 not it does not start/end in MEL).
Many years ago I flew BA when they offererd free upgrade one way so well-priced airfare J to LHR and F to SYD. Great longhaul experience (predated Alex Cruz). The whole experience was ruined by the nasty transfer experience in SYD. I've not flown BA ex-AU since.
That will change from 2027 when I can fly ex-MEL.