QF reduces OOL services

[kevrosmith]

The other "Qantas Returns to OOL" threads were closed, so thought I'd give this thread a kick.

Seems the realities of QF returning to OOL are starting to kick in. They are gradually reducing the number of services on certain days of the week. The next few weeks the Tue and Wed evening service has been dropped, and talking with the QP staff this week, they have had a couple Sat services dropped as well. Loads on the evening services OOL-SYD that I often catch are pretty poor, including this week. And to think this is the Qld winter when lots of southerners should be heading to north!

So much for the much trumpeted 3 daily services!

 

[Jousams]

Re: Qantas OOL

I tried giving QF a go as OOL is my main destination. But their limited frequency is a real pain whereas VA has departures at least every 2 hours. I was looking forward to increases, not decreases...

 

[VHOEJ]

Re: Qantas OOL

I tried giving QF a go as OOL is my main destination. But their limited frequency is a real pain whereas VA has departures at least every 2 hours. I was looking forward to increases, not decreases...

Well if they can't fill the existing three services, they are never going to increase them..........all these Gold Coast people whinged when QF cut the service and yet now they aren't filling the services they have brought back.

 

[mickeyc747]

Re: Qantas OOL

Well if they can't fill the existing three services, they are never going to increase them..........all these Gold Coast people whinged when QF cut the service and yet now they aren't filling the services they have brought back.

I have supported them even with the evening flight and having a 2 hour wait in Sydney just to fly to Melbourne.

 

[Barks]

Re: Qantas OOL

I have supported them even with the evening flight and having a 2 hour wait in Sydney just to fly to Melbourne.

Me too, even tho the flight timings aren't the best. Hope they don't cut the route again as I'd hate to have to downgrade to back to JQ.

 

[eastwest101]

Re: Qantas OOL

.... Hope they don't cut the route again as I'd hate to have to downgrade to back to JQ.

You don't have to - there is another airline that flies to OOL called Virgin Australia and if VA didn't make this decision then you would definitely have no choice but Jetstar and Tiger. Qantas abandonned OOL and is now wearing the consequences of that. Its good that you support QF over JQ, but from my point of view Sympathy = 0 for QF on this particular issue.

I do wonder about the fascination with OOL sometimes though. The other day I was in ADL from BNE on a packed E190 - literally not a spare seat around, then a B738 arrived from OOL a little while later - there would have been considerably less people on that OOL-ADL flight and I sometimes wonder about whether VA use the right sized aircraft or not. In this case I am sure it had something to do with positioning of aircraft but seemed a little silly to me.

Judging from the OOL-SYD fares I see advertised - it must be a money pit for QF VA JQ and TT at the moment. Qantas have managed to get themselves into a lose/lose position here - where they look silly if they cut QF services back, after abandoning OOL, and then making a big noise about relaunching OOL services (when they saw that VA could make a living out of OOL) or they may have to cut back JQd which may harm JQi feed and goes against the corporate mantra/narrative of a successful JQ business.

 

[cmon0005]

Re: Qantas OOL

In a way this is partially QF's own doing...

Really they need more flights per day to make it successful, including an early morning flight for business travelers, holiday makers on a day trip and a later in the evening flight around 7:30-8pm again for business travelers and day trippers. During daylight savings the last QF flight to syd is 5:40pm hardly enough time to get a full days work and get to the airport in time for the flight back.

The 2nd issue happened more recently when DST ended on april 6th previously you could book the 17:40 flight to sydney connecting to MEL, when DST ended the flight to SYD from OOL changed to 18:40, which could have connected on to the 22:05 flight. However their booking engine doesn't show this connection for the weekends I was looking at, I raised this via twitter and to Red Roo, who had forwarded it to the scheduling management team the issue seems to never have been fixed.

So for a MEL bound pax you either have to buy 2 separate tickets or fly on JQ, not because of any other reason than they don't seem to want to fix it, there is plenty of connection time between the flights so that shouldn't be an issue!

 

[dk4]

Re: Qantas OOL

...all these Gold Coast people whinged when QF cut the service and yet now they aren't filling the services they have brought back.

ROFL. Of course the people on the Gold Coast won't go back to Qantas, they have made a permanent move to Virgin! Why should they move back? Qantas lost the plot, they lost their customers, they won't come back...simple!


Plus, Virgin give their guests - frequency, multiple destinations and they built an excellent lounge for them.

To add insult to injury, Qantas made Jetstar hand back the OOL lounge, which had been opening all day for all flights, and now opens only before Qantas departures... So many Group customers, who had stayed loyal moving to Jetstar, were then thrown out in the cold with the trumpeted Qantas return, and some of them have now also made the move to Virgin. (Plus at the other end in SYD, JQ's customers lost their lounge at T2 to boot!)

I think that the whole Qantas Group OOL strategy to date, has been a case study in "how to give a free kick to your competitor".

 

[JohnK]

Re: Qantas OOL

I have used Qantas out of OOL a few times even though I am in Brisbane.

The schedule isn't great for last OOL-SYD flight in evening but also the airfare is too expensive compared to Virgin.

 

[Travelqueen]

Re: Qantas OOL

I have supported them even with the evening flight and having a 2 hour wait in Sydney just to fly to Melbourne.

me too.... I'd rather fly to Brisbane than get jetstar to coolangatta

TQ