Qantas set to make record profit from Frequent Flyer unit

[futaris]

Qantas on cloud nine with Frequent Flyer | The Australian
Qantas set to make record profit from Frequent Flyer unit | News.com.au

QANTAS expects its Frequent Flyer unit to make a record profit this year and chief executive Alan Joyce is optimistic the airline will soon be able to raise fares on international routes.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

Raise fares on routes?!? Aren't they already one of the most expensive airlines already?

 

[MelUser]

Surely by raising fares they mean getting rid of the current very cheap sale fares in economy class?

Economy (S) and (H) fares are still priced the same they were 3 years ago

DONEs are still the same price they were.

A return J flight to US still costs $14000.

 

[coyote25]

Raise fares on routes?!? Aren't they already one of the most expensive airlines already?

With standard fares yes you are right but the sale fares in the last 12 months have taken then under some LCCs at times with some great offers for example the Syd-LAX $1,000 fares

Eventually the lowest fares must go up as the entire industry is still losing billions. Obviously QF is one of the rare exceptions making profits and the FF program, or frequent spender program, is one of the main reasons now they want the actual airfares to start adding to these profits.

 

[samh004]

At least the FF unit is making more than JQ. Not looking forward to higher prices.

Frequent Flyer has been growing strongly, gaining a million new members from a deal with Woolworths and last month falling just 250,000 short of a targeted 7 million members by June.

I assume they meant January, not June. I wonder how long it’ll take them to add another digit to the FF# and hit 10 million members.

 

[Flying Fox]

Dear Qantas

You're welcome!

Regards

 

[anat0l]

I wonder how long it’ll take them to add another digit to the FF# and hit 10 million members.

At that point, I'll be a "double-O"

I can't imagine how QF will look in the next few years. I'm hoping that it's not going to be a shambles of an airline that it used to be. Bad enough that QF doesn't make any airline awards lists any more; you'd be lucky if they ended up in the top 20 airlines in the world.

 

[MelUser]

The Frequent Flyer Arm is making so much money that Qantas have taken on a bunch of contract staff to work out things like:

where these points end up?

if and when are they used?

what more they can offer in exchange for the points?

If the points continue to accumulate and people can't spend them then eventually the whole thing will collapse as people will leave.

This is one reason they introduced the ANYTIME awards to encourage people to use their awards.

Of course, they could be more like other one world airlines and release lots of award seats (in every class of travel) - eg BA or have an open slather system where upgrading is encouraged and every premium seat if unsold is filled with an upgradee eg AA.

 

[Standby]

The Frequent Flyer Arm is making so much money that Qantas have taken on a bunch of contract staff to work out things like:

where these points end up?

if and when are they used?

what more they can offer in exchange for the points?

If the points continue to accumulate and people can't spend them then eventually the whole thing will collapse as people will leave.

This is one reason they introduced the ANYTIME awards to encourage people to use their awards.

Of course, they could be more like other one world airlines and release lots of award seats (in every class of travel) - eg BA or have an open slather system where upgrading is encouraged and every premium seat if unsold is filled with an upgradee eg AA.

And BA and AA have made such huges profits out of these business practises recently. Perhaps somewhere between the open slather and the tight as approach is better but as a small shareholder I'm happy for QF to maintain the conservative upgradability line...then again i'm lucky my company buys J for me so its no big deal

 

[Smackbum]

Yes - we are so lucky that Qantas rewards our loyalty by making it nigh-on impossible to get award seats at peak times. Pity about my family being stranded in Hong Kong next January, but I suppose I will just have to stay up past midnight every day until they decide to throw some crumbs my way.

Plenty of anyseat awards available which will please all the business owners who launder millions of points through QFF, but I currently have Sophies Choice about which kid I will bring home.

So the move to 18-month points expiry is probably the only thing that will save me as it might sequester a few billion points each year. Then maybe they will actually release some classic awards when it suits their passengers for a change.