Virgin Australia flights to Doha

[I love to travel]

Anyone know why they have stopped VA 15 being daily?

 

[henrus]

Anyone know why they have stopped VA 15 being daily?

Lower loads during Feb/March. Will resume daily from 21 March.

 

[PERLHR]

Lower loads during Feb/March. Will resume daily from 21 March.

Reduce the price ...higher loads? Just a thought....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Our flight was packed to Sydney. it’s clearly VA in theory only. There’s not even co-branding on the menus anymore.

And out of interest, that QR DOH-MEL-CBR flight… it’s one where they tagged on CBR to get more flights? When they call the flight there’s absolutely no mention of CBR… only MEL

Any pretence that VA is involved, or that the QR tag flights are serving additional 2nd tier cities is long gone!

 

[Saab34]

Any pretence that VA is involved, or that the QR tag flights are serving additional 2nd tier cities is long gone!

Well that was always the intention I guess. They got what they wanted. Now the trick is to see how long they can run this arrangement. Ideally, forever and ever.

 

[HS-TQE]

Well that was always the intention I guess. They got what they wanted. Now the trick is to see how long they can run this arrangement. Ideally, forever and ever.

I don't see the QR/VA wet-lease arrangement being renewed by the IASC.

There is a reason why the IASC pretty much forced VA to commence a "secondment" program for 'selected' flight deck crews + FAs to train on QR's long haul aircraft to get this wet-lease arrangement approved, provided VA actually spend the money to investigate whether to actually re-commence long haul on their own aircraft within the 5 year timeframe.

 

[jase05]

I don't see the QR/VA wet-lease arrangement being renewed by the IASC.

There is a reason why the IASC pretty much forced VA to commence a "secondment" program for 'selected' flight deck crews + FAs to train on QR's long haul aircraft to get this wet-lease arrangement approved, provided VA actually spend the money to investigate whether to actually re-commence long haul on their own aircraft within the 5 year timeframe.

Maybe the government could just give QR the slots they want and the whole charade can end

 

[Saab34]

Well that would be an option. Virgin could come out and say they have concluded that they cannot take these flights on in house as they will be loss making, can’t get aircraft, scale is too small etc etc, please grant QR extra bilaterals.

 

[HS-TQE]

Well that would be an option. Virgin could come out and say they have concluded that they cannot take these flights on in house as they will be loss making, can’t get aircraft, scale is too small etc etc, please grant QR extra bilaterals.

It would be more of Qatar the country rather than the airline but good point.

Qatar and Australia exactly isn't the best of friends either.

They could easily probe Qatar on if "you couldn't make it work with your Virgin investment, how it could work in-house with you guys" and/or "what can your country (Qatar) do for us in Australia to make us grant you the extra aviation bilaterals?"

 

[SCM]

They could easily probe Qatar on if "you couldn't make it work with your Virgin investment, how it could work in-house with you guys" and/or "what can your country (Qatar) do for us in Australia to make us grant you the extra aviation bilaterals?"

Stupidest cough ever, they can carry Australians to Europe and other parts of the world obviously...

Australian government insistent on doubling down on making our geographical isolation a disadvantage for people and business, stupidity at it's finest.

 

[siri]

Yeah Hainan is a great airline, one of (if not the) best in China. The problem is that it's got a really patchy international network departing from seemingly random citities and almost never daily so you'd usually need to reposition via a domestic flight between where you arrive into china and where your flight to Europe departs and overnight connections as well because the fligts were mainly for OD traffic so not banked like SQ/QR operate their hubs.

For example HU only operates 3 times a week from Sydney and Melbourne to Haikou, then the onward flight to London is a tag flight with a stop over in Changsha so you'd end up making 2 stops and may require a visa depending on your passport. On the return you might need to fly via Hangzhou with an overnight stop on JD (a HNA group hybird subsidiary) that flies twice a week into Sydney.

It's just very complicated and they don't seem to advertise these fares at all locally in Australia - you can't book them directly on their website nor most typical travel agent in Australia (some big OTA have quite sophisticaed engine so is able to piece together the right flight for you) or you'd need to deal with agents in China that knows the system in depth.

Of course you can book Hainan air directly on their web site.. I did that in last December going to Dubai and service is great. Syd to Dubai they did check in all baggages but Dubai to Sydney we have to checkout at Haikou and check in again there which took about one hr to do that with all security checks. Haikou airport is big and nice at 2 am landing for transit their lounge was open which was magic.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Some cuts to capacity on PER/ADL/BNE

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.
VA Cuts Doha flights on Qatar

 

[IainF]

Some cuts to capacity on PER/ADL/BNE

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.
VA Cuts Doha flights on Qatar

I am flying tBNE-MAN every 8 weeks and let me tell you... J is solidly booked one every flight outbound & inbound and its $11-15k a pop.
Unsure about Y loads but when I go for a walk there isn't a lot of spare seats.
There certainly isn't a large number of awards seats available either.
I wonder if the net cost to QR is the reason.
I quite like the timing of the afternoon flights. I can work in the morning at home, roll up at 1pm to BNE, board at 2:30 and land in MAN at 7:00am.
Sure beats the late night Emirates flights.

 

[Harrison_133]

Some cuts to capacity on PER/ADL/BNE

The BNE & PER frequency reductions are only for a one month period when demand is typically lower. The ADL reductions coincide with runway closures in Doha due to works.

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.
VA Cuts Doha flights on Qatar

But what does QR want/need?

 

[ben95]

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.

If that means a 10:90 split on the VA code vs QR code I think that’s reasonable. As the IPO prospectus suggested these wet lease operations are not expected to have material impact to VA’s balance sheet so I take it as that VA’s getting a commission from QR on ticket it sales plus some money from leasing out its bilateral rights but the cost and risk to operate the wet lease is carried mostly by QR.

 

[oz_mark]

I don't see the QR/VA wet-lease arrangement being renewed by the IASC.

There is a reason why the IASC pretty much forced VA to commence a "secondment" program for 'selected' flight deck crews + FAs to train on QR's long haul aircraft to get this wet-lease arrangement approved, provided VA actually spend the money to investigate whether to actually re-commence long haul on their own aircraft within the 5 year timeframe.

I thought it was more to do with the ACCC than the IASC.

 

[Stealthflyer]

Some cuts to capacity on PER/ADL/BNE

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.
VA Cuts Doha flights on Qatar

It’s so impossible to book that I wonder if they don’t want people to book. In order to see existing seating so that I could request seats through VA, I tried to do a dummy booking on the VA website of an existing trip I have booked through QR, which has the MEL-DOH legs listed as “on behalf of VA”. The flights didn’t come up on the VA website. In fact, it came up with no flights available for that entire month. When I spoke to the VA call centre staff, they said the plane was still pretty empty, so who knows what’s going on with their booking platform. I would have preferred to book via VA, but they only had flex available for those flights when I was initially comparing prices, so I went with the discount economy ones available via QR. Ultimately, I felt it was a bit safer too, just in case VA changes its mind about partners again.

 

[SCM]

Some cuts to capacity on PER/ADL/BNE

Article says that VA is getting 10% of the bookings on the QR codeshares. Would imagine they want/ need much higher numbers than that.
VA Cuts Doha flights on Qatar

I'm surprised its any % since it's literally over a thousand dollars more expensive than booking directly with Qatar.

If they were smart they would give the seats away as reward tickets, I bet they would get sold out pretty quickly.

Can't believe how much VA is bungling this partnership with Qatar.

 

[I love to travel]

Thankfully VA 15 out of Brisbane is not on the list although there have been a few reductions over previous weeks as highlighted above