Why are there no QF flights to SIN after 5.00pm

[browski]

IIRC there are no daily Qantas flights from anywhere in Oz to Singapore that depart after 5.00pm - none from anywhere! Not Syd, Mel, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Bne or Cairns!
If you search this yourselves you will find that the ONLY flights that depart after 5.00pm anywhere in the country is from Syd - only on a Thursday - Ha!
There is an Australian Airlines flight from Cairns also at 6.40pm - also only on a Thurs.

Here is an example of the inflexibility of the Qantas scheduling

Look at the Codeshared Qantas flight from Syd to Bahrain - via Singapore.
The flight leaves Singapore for Bahrain about 5.45am but the latest flight into Singapore (from anywhere in Oz) is about 10.30pm. Now here is where the real Qantas gauging comes in. Qantas Code share this route with Gulf Air - but Qantas only Code Share the Sin-Bahrain, Bahrain-Athens, Bahrain-Dubai and Bahrain-Beirut routes. You guessed it; Qantas do not codeshare the Syd-Sin flight even though Gulf Air also fly daily from Syd-Sin and it departs at........(drum roll) 9.45pm and arrives Sin 4.15 am. This means that you have to fly up earlier the previous day on a Qantas flight and then overnight in Singapore if you want to book it as a QF number

Is there not at least 1 daily flight to Sin from anywhere in the country that could be filled by passengers after 5.00pm?

 

[NM]

QF31 departs SYD at 4:55pm and arrives into SIN at 10:45pm. So any departure after 5pm is going to arrive into SIN after 11pm. I would suggest there is little demand for people arriving into SIN at that tome of the night.

Then for an arrival into SIN at what most people would consider a reasonable hour (say 6am), you would have to be departing the east coast of Australia around midnight, so that can't happen from SYD. And I suggest there is not sufficient demand for such services from BNE or MEL where midnight departures are permitted.

So departures after 5pm result in undesirable arrival time into SIN for anyone other than a transit passenger to early morning SIN departures. And departures after 11pm are unattractive to many passengers.

So I think its just supply and demand. QF have found over the years that daytime flights north to Asia work best and overnight return flights southbound from Asia work best for the majority of customers.

 

[browski]

What about not visiting SIN itself but just connecting to other flights departing SIN between the hours of 2.00am and 5.00pm.

 

[NM]

What about not visiting SIN itself but just connecting to other flights departing SIN between the hours of 2.00am and 5.00pm.

I suggest there is not sufficient demand for QF to operate such a flight schedule.

This is a good opportunity to make use of the SIN Transit Hotel.

 

[N860CR]

Up until a few months ago QF31 departed SYD at 10:15pm and arrived in SIN at 4:05am. I was booked on this flight back in April before they changed the departure time to 4:55pm (arriving SIN at 10:45pm). The night departure was good for me as it meant I was able to have a full day at work before going to the airport.

I'm guessing not many people had the same view though. Interestingly, QF/BA have 4 (I think) flights SYD-SIN departing within an hour of each other (or 2 hours... can't remember exactly but it seemed interesting when I looked at it). Of course, that means the QF economy checkin line is beyond huge. With all the flights to SIN, BKK and LHR leaving at about the same time I had to line up for almost 90 minutes.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

SQ has a lot of flights leaving between 2330 and 0100, so I would also like a later departure from NZ (286 arrives 2040) which also means more than half a day's work is possible before flying out.

 

[dajop]

And I suggest there is not sufficient demand for such services from BNE or MEL where midnight departures are permitted.

I suspect there would be sufficient demand if they could connect to elsewhere - but they don't and couldn't (unless they do some rejigging of Jetstar Asia, or deliver pax to straight to a competitor). From MEL at SQ, MH & TG all fly to SE Asia just after midnight and seem to have enough demand, but I guess this based on passage connecting thru to elsewhere in Asia, or Europe.

Browski, QF isn't the answer to everything, and it not difficult to take business elsewhere. If SQ comes into play, from MEL you can depart for SIN at 00:50, 10:10 & 15:30 - a good spread (with EK's flight at 19:20 also). There is also a good spread of times from BNE. I guess though, if you want to connect to a midnight service from SYD, it is not as easy as it would be if QF operated a late night service from BNE/MEL. Where I work, QF is our preferred carrier , but the business tolerates people flying to Asia on SQ simply because of flexibility & connexion it offers in its timetable.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

EK has a late flight to SIN from BNE.

 

[JohnK]

IIRC there are no daily Qantas flights from anywhere in Oz to Singapore that depart after 5.00pm - none from anywhere! Not Syd, Mel, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Bne or Cairns!

I know everyone mentions SQ, EK and MH for options but I think it would be a great if OneWorld did this. Oh, they did do it you say. QF31 used to arrive in SIN ~4:00am which was pretty good for early morning or lunchtime departures out of SIN. Now no choice other than to look for late night connection or overnight in SIN. I don't travel often enough so I don't really want to start spreading long distance flights to non OneWorld carriers.

 

[dajop]

but I think it would be a great if OneWorld did this. Oh, they did do it you say. QF31 used to arrive in SIN ~4:00am which was pretty good for early morning or lunchtime departures out of SIN. Now no choice other than to look for late night connection or overnight in SIN.

QF 29 MEL-HKG dep 11pm/ arr 6am. Good for early morning or lunch time departures out of HKG to many parts of Asia (and QF29 goes onto Europe). Obviously no good for connections out of SIN, but SIN not really good for one world connections anyway.

 

[JohnK]

QF 29 MEL-HKG dep 11pm/ arr 6am. Good for early morning or lunch time departures out of HKG to many parts of Asia (and QF29 goes onto Europe). Obviously no good for connections out of SIN, but SIN not really good for one world connections anyway.

You are right there HKG is a better place for OneWorld connections but I was heading in the direction of how cheap the QF SIN-Australia-SIN flights are compared to fares ex Australia. I know most of my travel patterns overseas in advance so next trip I position myself in SIN with QF FF points and then keep purchasing return airfares back to SYD with the return flight SYD-SIN being the beginning of the next trip.

 

[Dave Noble]

Look at the Codeshared Qantas flight from Syd to Bahrain - via Singapore.
The flight leaves Singapore for Bahrain about 5.45am but the latest flight into Singapore (from anywhere in Oz) is about 10.30pm

Some of us would call this a plus. Can take a daytime flight to SIN , then sleep in the transit hotel and then be up bright eyed and bushy tailed for a daytime flight onwards

Dave

 

[NM]

I know everyone mentions SQ, EK and MH for options but I think it would be a great if OneWorld did this. Oh, they did do it you say. QF31 used to arrive in SIN ~4:00am which was pretty good for early morning or lunchtime departures out of SIN. Now no choice other than to look for late night connection or overnight in SIN. I don't travel often enough so I don't really want to start spreading long distance flights to non OneWorld carriers.

How many OneWorld connections are there to be made at SIN in the wee hours of the morning? There may be plenty of *A connections (operated by SQ and other *A members) and connections to other non-alligned airlines.

Personally, I would prefer to take a daytime flight to SIN and sleep in a hotel (the airport transit hotel is good for early morning departures) and then take the daytime flight the following day.

 

[browski]

Some of us would call this a plus. Can take a daytime flight to SIN , then sleep in the transit hotel and then be up bright eyed and bushy tailed for a daytime flight onwards

Dave

Dave, I too prefer to travel through the daytime hours and sleep in hotels at night. I agree it can be a plus. But it is only an accidental plus. My company also tries to spin obvious errors by searching hard for a dubious upside and then calling it an enhancement.

 

[browski]

How many OneWorld connections are there to be made at SIN in the wee hours of the morning?

Gee NM, it is not just the wee hours of the morning. As shown in my earlier post, if flying Qantas it is impossible to connect with any flights before 5.00PM (I think it is actually 6.00PM!), not just the wee hours.

 

[browski]

Browski, QF isn't the answer to everything, and it not difficult to take business elsewhere. If SQ comes into play, from MEL you can depart for SIN at 00:50, 10:10 & 15:30 - a good spread (with EK's flight at 19:20 also). There is also a good spread of times from BNE. I guess though, if you want to connect to a midnight service from SYD, it is not as easy as it would be if QF operated a late night service from BNE/MEL.

I hear you brother (sister?) - I'm already on that SQ bandwagon, can't praise them highly enough for their flight volumes and spread of departure timings. But as we all know, it is best to have as few FF programs as possible if trying to coughulate a large volume of points quickly and its hard not to have QFF if domestile in Oz.

 

[Dave Noble]

Gee NM, it is not just the wee hours of the morning. As shown in my earlier post, if flying Qantas it is impossible to connect with any flights before 5.00PM (I think it is actually 6.00PM!), not just the wee hours.

how many partner flights are there at 05:00 ex SIN?

Dave

 

[browski]

how many partner flights are there at 05:00 ex SIN?

Dave

Dave, we might have some confusion here - I am talking about connecting to flights up to 5 or 6 pm in the afternoon; not just at 05:00am. That's a gap of around 17 hours.

For me personally I would like to fly non-partners also from SIN that OW does not fly to. But to honour your question try these. Just for starters, Qantas cannot connect to any of these flights. By connect, I mean having to wait more than 6 hours.

CX710 SIN 08:05 HKG 12:00
CX736 SIN 10:15 HKG 14:10
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX712 SIN 13:30 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX716 SIN 18:40 HKG 22:25

CX712 SIN 13:30 BKK 14:55

Jet Airways
9W15 SIN 0915 Chennai 1055
9W15 SIN 0915 Chennai 1055

Gulf Air
Departs (SIN) 5:25 Bahrain (BAH) 8:25

 

[Dave Noble]

Dave, we might have some confusion here - I am talking about connecting to flights up to 5 or 6 pm in the afternoon; not just at 05:00am. That's a gap of around 17 hours.

I was going on the original thing of "why are there no flights after 5pm" ... for afternoon flights, a more relevent question would be "why no early flights"

On the mentioned options to HKG, why would they be so concerned about making connections there easy given that both they and CX operate non-stops from Sydney and Melbourne there. For the BKK option, both QF and BA operate there, so again no real reason for them to be interested in trying to make it an easy connection in SIN

Of the remaining 2 flights, one of them originates in Oz anyway and I suspect that most people going straight from Oz to BAH would be inclined to take the GF flight all the way

That only leaves one 1 partner flight with no simple workaround to Chennai

For competitor flights, I can't see why QF would be interested in making it easy to connect to

Dave

 

[NM]

CX710 SIN 08:05 HKG 12:00
CX736 SIN 10:15 HKG 14:10
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX714 SIN 11:05 HKG 14:55
CX712 SIN 13:30 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX734 SIN 16:05 HKG 19:55
CX716 SIN 18:40 HKG 22:25

CX712 SIN 13:30 BKK 14:55

if HKG or BKK are your final destination, why would you want to transit via SIN? Surely you would take a direct flight to HKG or you have the option to transit SYD to get to BKK without the connection problem in SIN.

Jet Airways
9W15 SIN 0915 Chennai 1055
9W15 SIN 0915 Chennai 1055

Gulf Air
Departs (SIN) 5:25 Bahrain (BAH) 8:25

Technicaly these are not OneWorld flights, but may well be of interest to some QF FF members. But they hardly make SIN a OneWorld hub. Most OneWorld flights to/from SIN are timed to make reasonable connections in the evening as a hub for connections between Europe and Australia. If its a OneWorld hub you want in Asia then best to use HKG where you have a reasonable choice of daytime and overnight flights to/from Australia with both QF and CX.

If you want to use SIN as a hub to other Asia ports, then best to use SQ as your carrier.