qf002 wrote:

SeaEagle8 wrote:

Wow. That’s a huge hit. Not surprised about IAH but to reduce SYD-LAX to only 3 weekly seems really low. Very uncompetitive against QF, DL, VA, AA.

Yes, very surprised that they would cut so deeply. Not sure SYD is a market where you can get away with huge seasonal fluctuations like this but I’m sure they know what they are doing.

Also interesting that this comes after a huge marketing push by UA in Sydney over the last 6 months. Good that they tried but clearly didn’t work.

I wouldn't say that it didn't work per se, United will still have more capacity to Australia next year than they do now, but with yields as depressed as they are now taking 1< line of 787 flying and sending that to Europe during the northern summer will definitely make them more money.

Recall the discussion about AA wanting to launch seasonal 787 flights to Australia if the JBA was approved in the northern winter which is peak season to Australia but TATL traffic is way down. United is just doing the same IMHO. With fares at historic lows the opportunity cost of not redeploying that capacity in northern summer has become too great, but in northern winter Australia traffic increases and Europe yields go through the floor.

RyanairGuru wrote:

qf002 wrote:

SeaEagle8 wrote:

Wow. That’s a huge hit. Not surprised about IAH but to reduce SYD-LAX to only 3 weekly seems really low. Very uncompetitive against QF, DL, VA, AA.

Yes, very surprised that they would cut so deeply. Not sure SYD is a market where you can get away with huge seasonal fluctuations like this but I’m sure they know what they are doing.

Also interesting that this comes after a huge marketing push by UA in Sydney over the last 6 months. Good that they tried but clearly didn’t work.

I wouldn't say that it didn't work per se, United will still have more capacity to Australia next year than they do now, but with yields as depressed as they are now taking 1< line of 787 flying and sending that to Europe during the northern summer will definitely make them more money.

Recall the discussion about AA wanting to launch seasonal 787 flights to Australia if the JBA was approved in the northern winter which is peak season to Australia but TATL traffic is way down. United is just doing the same IMHO. With fares at historic lows the opportunity cost of not redeploying that capacity in northern summer has become too great, but in northern winter Australia traffic increases and Europe yields go through the floor.

Not surprised they are cutting back, as they seem to have been over optimistic.

The SYD-LAX cut back is surprising to me. That's been the main South Pacific route for nearly 70 years (for UA and PA beforehand), considering they (and PA) had a duopoly with QF for most of that time, it's poor they can't defend market share effectively considering they're so established. Difficult to seem them surviving on that route with such low frequency.

Having said that their strategy seems to be boosting SFO with new routes/ greater frequency and not LAX, so maybe not surprising after all.

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

qf2220 wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

I always believe, if you have a choice between conspiracy and stuff-up, take the stuff-up every time!. The reason was probably because no one in Ops sorted out the busses or by time they thought of it, there were none left.

tullamarine wrote:

qf2220 wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

I always believe, if you have a choice between conspiracy and stuff-up, take the stuff-up every time!. The reason was probably because no one in Ops sorted out the busses or by time they thought of it, there were none left.

Pretty harsh considering you probably don’t have a clue what the Ops Controlers need to deal with during a thunderstorm disruption. You have aircraft holding, connecting passengers to consider, connecting tech and cabin crew, slots, off tarmac stoppages, baggage, catering, cabin cleaning, plus aircraft are out of base and sequence which has a knock on effect to the next service aircraft is scheduled to operate. The last thing Ops need is to deal with is arranging busses to transfer passengers from remote stands because of the “inconvenience” it causes passengers having to wait 10-15 mins for an available Bay.

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I doubt the decision would have anything to do with paying SACL considering QF operate their own transport service utilised to transfer passengers T1 to T3 & vice versa so they could’ve redeployed the buses to transfer passengers from remote stands. I’d say waiting for a stand to save all the headache of busing passengers is a sensible approach too. Ain’t as though the passengers are connecting to any flight at 22:30.

EK413

qf2220 wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

I think everyone was struggling resourcing wise - do QF who only normally bus at international have any stairs to being across to domestic? Bussing requires extra groundstaff, QF had a lot of missed international connections and they would have been busy looking after this. Not to mention the training required for bus ops, pax guidance units. There is also no bus bays in the QF terminal except for the single drop off point for transfer bus. This is also a QF bus, I’d say as it’s a QF termainl QF and SACL don’t have any agreement in place for bussing. I just don’t think QF are set up for bussing in SYD at domestic, not something that can be put in place quickly.

I was onboard and I had held off for two hours and there was a JQ aircraft across the taxiway waiting for the same period. All in all, considering the storm I was happy with how things were handled.

qf2220 wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

Are they any/many remote stands at T3?

JQ have the benefit to using T2, so can use the ZL/FP stands, and the buses with those stands to take you to the ZL/FP arrival gate (and straight into the arrivals hall). Remote stand disembarking at T2 with an A320/B737 is a very slow process though - offloading 180-186 passengers + crew with buses that are designed to handle planes holding around 40-50 people takes it's time. It happened to me on a JQ flight once - while the cabin crew were outstanding and were disembarking people as quickly as possible (and the captain kept us in the loop), it was slow enough for those waiting for me in the terminal to ask what was going on. With JQ, it also means a forward exit only, which would blow out their turnaround time even more.

If there are remote stands/buses available for T3, I'm assuming Qantas felt it would be more efficient to wait for a gate than to arrange a remote stand and buses.

SeaEagle8 wrote:

qf789 wrote:

Welcome to Australian Aviation Thread February 2019. Please continue to add your comments below

Summary of January's Thread

QF to start SYD-NAN flights
QF to add fourth weekly SYD-NOU
QF SYD-DPS to see A330 year round
QF to increase SYD-CGK
QF to go daily year round on SYD-MNL
SYD-HNL will remain 744 for the time being

Just wanted to highlight that QF still seems content to focus on SYD.

I know this has been discussed but logistically I'm questioning the remaining 787 deliveries and where they are going to go. I just cannot see how they won't touch SYD at all. With the remaining 744s set to leave the company in the next year or two how will they maintain the current 744 routes let alone expand.

And I see SYD-YVR is being made Canadian Winter seasonal only now. No flights in July or August this year.

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

don't understand QF going back to SYD/NAN at all (4 days a week with 738s). This will mean, VA daily, JQ 4 times a week (all 738s/320s) & FJ up to 3 times a day. In peak season 2 out of 3 of the FJ services will be A330s, 5 days a week & 737maxs rest of days, with 1st one at 0615, which means arrive NAN around 1200, so full afternoon if staying for example at Denaru. The same A330 that departs at 0615, leaves NAN at 1900 night before & overnight at SYD

JimWhite wrote:

SeaEagle8 wrote:

qf789 wrote:

Welcome to Australian Aviation Thread February 2019. Please continue to add your comments below

Summary of January's Thread

QF to start SYD-NAN flights
QF to add fourth weekly SYD-NOU
QF SYD-DPS to see A330 year round
QF to increase SYD-CGK
QF to go daily year round on SYD-MNL
SYD-HNL will remain 744 for the time being

Just wanted to highlight that QF still seems content to focus on SYD.

I know this has been discussed but logistically I'm questioning the remaining 787 deliveries and where they are going to go. I just cannot see how they won't touch SYD at all. With the remaining 744s set to leave the company in the next year or two how will they maintain the current 744 routes let alone expand.

And I see SYD-YVR is being made Canadian Winter seasonal only now. No flights in July or August this year.

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

Load factor not high enough to share once you factor all other Star Alliance members in partnership with AC

When did VA “pull out” of ROK?
I’ve been focusing on keeping Qantas status, and I’ve only flown VA a few times this year and always had the alliance fokkers (always on VA1245).
However switching back to VA since I much prefer their product on the route and it seems all VA flights are operated by Alliance now. Which sucks, the business class cabin and IFE were the main reasons I flew VA on that route.

JimWhite wrote:

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

Same reason why QF has a monopoly on DFW nonstops. It’s all about the hub, QF would be solely reliant on local demand on MEL/BNE-YVR which changes the equation dramatically.

dredgy wrote:

When did VA “pull out” of ROK?
I’ve been focusing on keeping Qantas status, and I’ve only flown VA a few times this year and always had the alliance fokkers (always on VA1245).
However switching back to VA since I much prefer their product on the route and it seems all VA flights are operated by Alliance now. Which sucks, the business class cabin and IFE were the main reasons I flew VA on that route.

ROK really seems to struggle maintaining services. Doing some mock bookings it looks like Qantas are back to sending Dash 8's only, while I suspect changes in Virgin's ATR operations don't see them up there anymore. Guess they heard that my mum was going to cut down on flights.

More seriously, I suspect that a mining downturn has impacted on services and it's not a super wealthy city either.

qf002 wrote:

JimWhite wrote:

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

Same reason why QF has a monopoly on DFW nonstops. It’s all about the hub, QF would be solely reliant on local demand on MEL/BNE-YVR which changes the equation dramatically.

Don't forget QF does have a deal with WestJet which would help with some oncarriage out of YVR.

qf002 wrote:

JimWhite wrote:

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

Same reason why QF has a monopoly on DFW nonstops. It’s all about the hub, QF would be solely reliant on local demand on MEL/BNE-YVR which changes the equation dramatically.

Though SYD, MEL and BNE are all QF hubs, so I'm not sure that is the reason. IMO i think it is available aircraft, and YVR is on the list for possible new North American routes once more 789s join the fleet. QF have been learning what the seasonal demand on the 744s is like and might use that to build a schedule.

qf2220 wrote:

qf002 wrote:

JimWhite wrote:

why is AC got a virtual monopoly on all YVR nonstops (from BNE & MEL & most of SYD/YVR services) ? Surely QF could make some money on these routes ?

Same reason why QF has a monopoly on DFW nonstops. It’s all about the hub, QF would be solely reliant on local demand on MEL/BNE-YVR which changes the equation dramatically.

Though SYD, MEL and BNE are all QF hubs, so I'm not sure that is the reason. IMO i think it is available aircraft, and YVR is on the list for possible new North American routes once more 789s join the fleet. QF have been learning what the seasonal demand on the 744s is like and might use that to build a schedule.

fares to YVR are always much higher than SFO & LAX, even with NZ & the extra distance is only around 400kms I think, cf. LAX.

EK413 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

qf2220 wrote:

I have no knowledge but some other options include the potential that there were no busses available as all the regular airline users (ie JQ/VA et al) were using them, perhaps being 2230 on a Friday night getting drivers at shortish notice may not have been possible (especially drivers who were not on call back in as they'd had a Friday drink or two), perhaps QF was wanting to maintain the premium branding by not using busses and only using aerobridges (though its a big tradeoff to make between that and timely arrival into SYD). Just some other options.

I always believe, if you have a choice between conspiracy and stuff-up, take the stuff-up every time!. The reason was probably because no one in Ops sorted out the busses or by time they thought of it, there were none left.

Pretty harsh considering you probably don’t have a clue what the Ops Controlers need to deal with during a thunderstorm disruption. You have aircraft holding, connecting passengers to consider, connecting tech and cabin crew, slots, off tarmac stoppages, baggage, catering, cabin cleaning, plus aircraft are out of base and sequence which has a knock on effect to the next service aircraft is scheduled to operate. The last thing Ops need is to deal with is arranging busses to transfer passengers from remote stands because of the “inconvenience” it causes passengers having to wait 10-15 mins for an available Bay.

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I doubt the decision would have anything to do with paying SACL considering QF operate their own transport service utilised to transfer passengers T1 to T3 & vice versa so they could’ve redeployed the buses to transfer passengers from remote stands. I’d say waiting for a stand to save all the headache of busing passengers is a sensible approach too. Ain’t as though the passengers are connecting to any flight at 22:30.

EK413

And yet, had this been VA, could you have imagined the reaction?

smi006 claimed these situations are where QF really wins ("hands down") against their competitors. Generally I agree that QF's recovery operation is excellent. But the amount of time mentioned here is quite extraordinary and doesn'tsound like hands down win to me, armchair ccritique noted.

Is it because QF doesn't have mobile stairs as part of its BAU, whereas JQ, VA and TT do? I wonder how they coped. No reports other than a few delays from colleagues heading home on VA MEL-SYD flights.

allrite wrote:

ROK really seems to struggle maintaining services. Doing some mock bookings it looks like Qantas are back to sending Dash 8's only, while I suspect changes in Virgin's ATR operations don't see them up there anymore.
.

Qantas has always only really sent Dash 8s. They bring in 717s every now and then but they don’t stick around for long. They used to put them on at weird times though - usually the late night positioning flight. I once flew that for 3 days in a row and was the only person on the plane each time.

Guess they heard that my mum was going to cut down on flights.
More seriously, I suspect that a mining downturn has impacted on services and it's not a super wealthy city either

Well it crossed my mind that me not flying on Virgin for a few months had an impact on their operation, as I usually fly the route every day and my preference was Virgins 737s first (and Virgin ATRs last). I don’t like the Alliance fokkers very much, they’re quite ragged.

It’s an interesting route as every plane I’ve been on out of Rocky during the day - Jetstar, Qantas, Virgin, Tiger - has load factor of close to 100%, and it was still like that when prices peaked last year at nearly $200 a ticket one way. Qantas does seem to do (anecdotally) better despite long having worse service, longer flights (no jets) and higher cost.
Heck, even Jetgo packed the OOL flight most days (I believe it was their only “profitable” route). Yet no low cost service at the moment, no flights to Sydney (admittedly a tougher route), no service to Gold Coast (lots of demand betweeen Yeppoon and GC) and equipment constantly being shuffled. Now Virgin doesn’t even have their own brand operating. I guess I will never understand.

dredgy wrote:

allrite wrote:

ROK really seems to struggle maintaining services. Doing some mock bookings it looks like Qantas are back to sending Dash 8's only, while I suspect changes in Virgin's ATR operations don't see them up there anymore.
.

Qantas has always only really sent Dash 8s. They bring in 717s every now and then but they don’t stick around for long. They used to put them on at weird times though - usually the late night positioning flight. I once flew that for 3 days in a row and was the only person on the plane each time.

Guess they heard that my mum was going to cut down on flights.
More seriously, I suspect that a mining downturn has impacted on services and it's not a super wealthy city either

Well it crossed my mind that me not flying on Virgin for a few months had an impact on their operation, as I usually fly the route every day and my preference was Virgins 737s first (and Virgin ATRs last). I don’t like the Alliance fokkers very much, they’re quite ragged.

It’s an interesting route as every plane I’ve been on out of Rocky during the day - Jetstar, Qantas, Virgin, Tiger - has load factor of close to 100%, and it was still like that when prices peaked last year at nearly $200 a ticket one way. Qantas does seem to do (anecdotally) better despite long having worse service, longer flights (no jets) and higher cost.
Heck, even Jetgo packed the OOL flight most days (I believe it was their only “profitable” route). Yet no low cost service at the moment, no flights to Sydney (admittedly a tougher route), no service to Gold Coast (lots of demand betweeen Yeppoon and GC) and equipment constantly being shuffled. Now Virgin doesn’t even have their own brand operating. I guess I will never understand.

Last Friday flew CNS - BNE - NTL. It seems that VA have Alliance doing 1 flight a day between BNE - NTL. and that was my flight. Enjoyed it immensely. Can get exit row without paying, crew were great and catering was at least as good as VA.

If you're worried about J on a short flight then Alliance probably doesn't work.

Qantas says it is unable to attend parliamentary enquiry regarding high costs of regional services

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busine ... b6cab7678a

Cebu Pacific is studying the prospect of routes to the likes of CNS and PER using A321neo aircraft

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/ceb ... australia/

A Qantas 737 was evacuated using slides after it diverted to CNS while flying POM-BNE yesterday due to an engine issue

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/qan ... vacuation/

Effective 1 March Alaska Airlines will codeshare on QF services being

LAX-MEL/BNE
SFO-SYD/MEL
HNL-SYD

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... arch-2019/

Below are listed (in bold) the proposed flights CX/QF plan to codeshare on between Australia and Hong Kong



https://twitter.com/winglets747/status/ ... 58272?s=21

VN to use 787-9 instead of A359 on SGN-MEL from 1 July to 26 October

https://twitter.com/airlineroute/status ... 84871?s=21

Qantas and Finnair have applied for codeshare partnership between Australia and New Zealand, includes JQ flights as well

https://twitter.com/airlineroute/status ... 93761?s=21

qf2220 wrote:

Though SYD, MEL and BNE are all QF hubs, so I'm not sure that is the reason. IMO i think it is available aircraft, and YVR is on the list for possible new North American routes once more 789s join the fleet. QF have been learning what the seasonal demand on the 744s is like and might use that to build a schedule.

One hub to three spokes vs three hubs to one spoke, not comparable at all.

I have no issue with SYD-YVR, it makes perfect sense. But I don’t see QF doing MEL/BNE-YVR anytime soon, lots of other routes that they would open before getting to those.

qf789 wrote:

Qantas and Finnair have applied for codeshare partnership between Australia and New Zealand, includes JQ flights as well

https://twitter.com/airlineroute/status ... 93761?s=21

Good. It would be nice if you could easily book Finnair to Australia via Japan (KIX, NRT) as well. Just did that trip on two separate bookings (see trip report) and it was fantastic.

qf789 wrote:

Qantas says it is unable to attend parliamentary enquiry regarding high costs of regional services

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busine ... b6cab7678a

Classic Tino power play

qf789 wrote:

Qantas says it is unable to attend parliamentary enquiry regarding high costs of regional services

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busine ... b6cab7678a

Behind paywall... could you give the jist of why they can't attend? Seems pretty weak to not even show. Then again, given the political circus in Canberra... hmmm.

aerokiwi wrote:

EK413 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

I always believe, if you have a choice between conspiracy and stuff-up, take the stuff-up every time!. The reason was probably because no one in Ops sorted out the busses or by time they thought of it, there were none left.

Pretty harsh considering you probably don’t have a clue what the Ops Controlers need to deal with during a thunderstorm disruption. You have aircraft holding, connecting passengers to consider, connecting tech and cabin crew, slots, off tarmac stoppages, baggage, catering, cabin cleaning, plus aircraft are out of base and sequence which has a knock on effect to the next service aircraft is scheduled to operate. The last thing Ops need is to deal with is arranging busses to transfer passengers from remote stands because of the “inconvenience” it causes passengers having to wait 10-15 mins for an available Bay.

RyanairGuru wrote:

I had a question about the general chaos caused by the storms in Sydney on Friday night. At about 22:30 Qantas had something like 8 domestic arrivals that had landed but were waiting for gates to become available. I noticed that Jetstar unloaded some flights on remote stands and bused the passengers to the terminal, which seems like a very sensible approach to take. Is there any particular reason why Qantas wouldn't do this? The only reason I could think of was not wanting to pay SACL for busses, but I do hope there is a better reason!

I doubt the decision would have anything to do with paying SACL considering QF operate their own transport service utilised to transfer passengers T1 to T3 & vice versa so they could’ve redeployed the buses to transfer passengers from remote stands. I’d say waiting for a stand to save all the headache of busing passengers is a sensible approach too. Ain’t as though the passengers are connecting to any flight at 22:30.

EK413

And yet, had this been VA, could you have imagined the reaction?

smi006 claimed these situations are where QF really wins ("hands down") against their competitors. Generally I agree that QF's recovery operation is excellent. But the amount of time mentioned here is quite extraordinary and doesn'tsound like hands down win to me, armchair ccritique noted.

Is it because QF doesn't have mobile stairs as part of its BAU, whereas JQ, VA and TT do? I wonder how they coped. No reports other than a few delays from colleagues heading home on VA MEL-SYD flights.

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD. All the bays at T3 are via aerobridges. They do however utilise stairs during short turn around flights where aircraft are boarded via rear of the aircraft. The only other bays which I imagine feasible would’ve been bays 83, 84 & 85 by the pond but in saying that at 22:30 these bays are occupied with Toll & QF B737 freighters.

EK413

aerokiwi wrote:

qf789 wrote:

Qantas says it is unable to attend parliamentary enquiry regarding high costs of regional services

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busine ... b6cab7678a

Behind paywall... could you give the jist of why they can't attend? Seems pretty weak to not even show. Then again, given the political circus in Canberra... hmmm.

Here is some more of the article, it does specifically say why they aren't attending though if this were about another issue, lets say how much airport charges are they would be there at a drop of a pin. Its not a good look for QF considering how vocal they have been about airport charges

Virgin Australia and charter operator Alliance are to face a public grilling as MPs seek answers on why prices on regional routes are often more expensive than international airfares. But, for the second time, Qantas says it is unable to attend the hearing.
The inquiry was launched by the Senate committee for rural and regional affairs and transport in November 2017, with public hearings held last year in several regional centres. Until now, no airlines have appeared before the committee.
Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan, who instigated the inquiry, said Friday’s hearing in Brisbane would focus on pricing schedules for air routes and why there were differences in the ­pricing system when services ­appeared almost identical.
Commercial organisations could be compelled to attend public hearings but Senator O’Sullivan said “first we try to exhaust diplomacy”.
“They do have an obligation (to appear). It’s a very tortured path if an organisation says it doesn’t want to appear or is not co-operating,” he said.
“There hasn’t been an inkling of that in this circumstance. The last time and this time, Qantas has had genuine reasons.”
A Qantas spokesman said the airline would appear before the hearing at another date.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busine ... b6cab7678a

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD.

Yes they do, gates 1A, 1B and 1C which bus out to bays 64-70 in the jet base. Those bays are only big enough for DH8s but there is busing infrastructure in place if they could find somewhere to park a larger aircraft.

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD. All the bays at T3 are via aerobridges. They do however utilise stairs during short turn around flights where aircraft are boarded via rear of the aircraft. The only other bays which I imagine feasible would’ve been bays 83, 84 & 85 by the pond but in saying that at 22:30 these bays are occupied with Toll & QF B737 freighters.

EK413

Internationally, I disembarked from my last two Qantas A330 flights (SIN, KIX) on a remote stand near the freight terminal and bussed it back to the terminal. But I'm not sure Qantas has much control over that.

Has Australia-China reached its peak?
CA is dropping SYD-PVG, MEL-PVG and BNE-PEK. CA is increasing SYD-PEK to daily year round though.
But looking at some of the other Chinese carriers over the next months there appears to be some sneaky small cuts. Minor but I can't remember the last time CZ was anything less than double daily SYD-CAN. In March for example there is only one flight on Tuesdays. MU to PVG similar reductions.

SeaEagle8 wrote:

Has Australia-China reached its peak?
CA is dropping SYD-PVG, MEL-PVG and BNE-PEK. CA is increasing SYD-PEK to daily year round though.
But looking at some of the other Chinese carriers over the next months there appears to be some sneaky small cuts. Minor but I can't remember the last time CZ was anything less than double daily SYD-CAN. In March for example there is only one flight on Tuesdays. MU to PVG similar reductions.

Subsidised flights and the relationship between the two countries are not helping. Those recent movements and political saga between the two countries are putting a bad reputation in China and chase people away. Also remember CN3 all lose millions on Australian routes it's only a matter of how much (interestingly CA had the smallest loss)

Michael

qf002 wrote:

qf2220 wrote:

Though SYD, MEL and BNE are all QF hubs, so I'm not sure that is the reason. IMO i think it is available aircraft, and YVR is on the list for possible new North American routes once more 789s join the fleet. QF have been learning what the seasonal demand on the 744s is like and might use that to build a schedule.

One hub to three spokes vs three hubs to one spoke, not comparable at all.

I have no issue with SYD-YVR, it makes perfect sense. But I don’t see QF doing MEL/BNE-YVR anytime soon, lots of other routes that they would open before getting to those.

I wasn't comparing, but was saying that SYD/BNE/MEL are hubs for QF, which the original comment seemed to downplay.

I agree, SYD is the one that will make most sense, BNE and MEL are unlikely (unless they do some sort of tag option which might not be optimal from a pax perspective but might be from an aircraft positioning one). And with smaller aircraft to fill it might make sense to have them spread out on the network (as compared to larger aircraft). But also agree, there are other fish to fry before that one.

Several go-arounds this afternoon at CBR with very high winds currently. The aircraft are hardly visible in the air due to the dust haze. Contrast to this morning, the sky was so clear blue and calm, both would have made outstanding photo opportunities.

qf002 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD.

Yes they do, gates 1A, 1B and 1C which bus out to bays 64-70 in the jet base. Those bays are only big enough for DH8s but there is busing infrastructure in place if they could find somewhere to park a larger aircraft.

I perhaps should’ve been specific. There are bus bays but not utilised by QF mainline. The bus bays are utilised by QFlink Dash 8’s which originally operated from T2.

allrite wrote:

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD. All the bays at T3 are via aerobridges. They do however utilise stairs during short turn around flights where aircraft are boarded via rear of the aircraft. The only other bays which I imagine feasible would’ve been bays 83, 84 & 85 by the pond but in saying that at 22:30 these bays are occupied with Toll & QF B737 freighters.

EK413

Internationally, I disembarked from my last two Qantas A330 flights (SIN, KIX) on a remote stand near the freight terminal and bussed it back to the terminal. But I'm not sure Qantas has much control over that.

It’s common these days to have international services arrive and depart from the freight bays and stands 83,84,&85 by the pond. This is out of QFs control as we all know SYD has reached its capacity and continues to push the existing infrastructure to the limit.

EK413

EK413 wrote:

qf002 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD.

Yes they do, gates 1A, 1B and 1C which bus out to bays 64-70 in the jet base. Those bays are only big enough for DH8s but there is busing infrastructure in place if they could find somewhere to park a larger aircraft.

I perhaps should’ve been specific. There are bus bays but not utilised by QF mainline. The bus bays are utilised by QFlink Dash 8’s which originally operated from T2.

allrite wrote:

EK413 wrote:

QF don’t operate from remote stands in SYD. All the bays at T3 are via aerobridges. They do however utilise stairs during short turn around flights where aircraft are boarded via rear of the aircraft. The only other bays which I imagine feasible would’ve been bays 83, 84 & 85 by the pond but in saying that at 22:30 these bays are occupied with Toll & QF B737 freighters.

EK413

Internationally, I disembarked from my last two Qantas A330 flights (SIN, KIX) on a remote stand near the freight terminal and bussed it back to the terminal. But I'm not sure Qantas has much control over that.

It’s common these days to have international services arrive and depart from the freight bays and stands 83,84,&85 by the pond. This is out of QFs control as we all know SYD has reached its capacity and continues to push the existing infrastructure to the limit.

EK413

When I flew QF63 to JNB last June they boarded at a remote stand using stairs... caused a 65 minute delay because they didn't even have any elevators prepared for passengers with special needs. It was an absolute mess.

ben175 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

qf002 wrote:

Yes they do, gates 1A, 1B and 1C which bus out to bays 64-70 in the jet base. Those bays are only big enough for DH8s but there is busing infrastructure in place if they could find somewhere to park a larger aircraft.

I perhaps should’ve been specific. There are bus bays but not utilised by QF mainline. The bus bays are utilised by QFlink Dash 8’s which originally operated from T2.

allrite wrote:

Internationally, I disembarked from my last two Qantas A330 flights (SIN, KIX) on a remote stand near the freight terminal and bussed it back to the terminal. But I'm not sure Qantas has much control over that.

It’s common these days to have international services arrive and depart from the freight bays and stands 83,84,&85 by the pond. This is out of QFs control as we all know SYD has reached its capacity and continues to push the existing infrastructure to the limit.

EK413

When I flew QF63 to JNB last June they boarded at a remote stand using stairs... caused a 65 minute delay because they didn't even have any elevators prepared for passengers with special needs. It was an absolute mess.

Guarantee a contributing factor would be the tow off’s & tow on’s which add to the turnaround times with cleaners, caterers not having access to aircraft. The infrastructure simply can’t handle the demand especially during the morning peak. SYD have specifically built bus terminals to handle the remote stand arrival & departures as a band aid (my opinion).

EK413

EK413 wrote:

ben175 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

I perhaps should’ve been specific. There are bus bays but not utilised by QF mainline. The bus bays are utilised by QFlink Dash 8’s which originally operated from T2.



It’s common these days to have international services arrive and depart from the freight bays and stands 83,84,&85 by the pond. This is out of QFs control as we all know SYD has reached its capacity and continues to push the existing infrastructure to the limit.

EK413

When I flew QF63 to JNB last June they boarded at a remote stand using stairs... caused a 65 minute delay because they didn't even have any elevators prepared for passengers with special needs. It was an absolute mess.

Guarantee a contributing factor would be the tow off’s & tow on’s which add to the turnaround times with cleaners, caterers not having access to aircraft. The infrastructure simply can’t handle the demand especially during the morning peak. SYD have specifically built bus terminals to handle the remote stand arrival & departures as a band aid (my opinion).

EK413

MEL is also at this point now too, with several flights going from remote/freight bays during the morning peak time. Unsure of what the bus area is like, but I would presume it would be a similar setup to what SYD have.

EK413 wrote:

ben175 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

I perhaps should’ve been specific. There are bus bays but not utilised by QF mainline. The bus bays are utilised by QFlink Dash 8’s which originally operated from T2.



It’s common these days to have international services arrive and depart from the freight bays and stands 83,84,&85 by the pond. This is out of QFs control as we all know SYD has reached its capacity and continues to push the existing infrastructure to the limit.

EK413

When I flew QF63 to JNB last June they boarded at a remote stand using stairs... caused a 65 minute delay because they didn't even have any elevators prepared for passengers with special needs. It was an absolute mess.

Guarantee a contributing factor would be the tow off’s & tow on’s which add to the turnaround times with cleaners, caterers not having access to aircraft. The infrastructure simply can’t handle the demand especially during the morning peak. SYD have specifically built bus terminals to handle the remote stand arrival & departures as a band aid (my opinion).

EK413

To a certain degree yes, catering trucks can only attend an aircraft while it is parked, same with any other service vehicle, boarding could still commence providing front galley's have been catered for, have seen caterer's on board stocking rear galley while passengers have been boarding before

In relation to cleaners the same applies with vehicles, however the aircraft could be cleaned while being towed. If we are talking either a hot turn or turnaround assist, it can be done

eamondzhang wrote:

SeaEagle8 wrote:

Has Australia-China reached its peak?
CA is dropping SYD-PVG, MEL-PVG and BNE-PEK. CA is increasing SYD-PEK to daily year round though.
But looking at some of the other Chinese carriers over the next months there appears to be some sneaky small cuts. Minor but I can't remember the last time CZ was anything less than double daily SYD-CAN. In March for example there is only one flight on Tuesdays. MU to PVG similar reductions.

Subsidised flights and the relationship between the two countries are not helping. Those recent movements and political saga between the two countries are putting a bad reputation in China and chase people away. Also remember CN3 all lose millions on Australian routes it's only a matter of how much (interestingly CA had the smallest loss)

Michael

Yes. Those factors now in play and perhaps too much capacity too and more competition for on-carriage as more routes have opened up. With 8 Chinese carriers flying to China from secondary cities to SYD (and 8 to MEL too) also works against the CN3. CZ and MU also reducing MEL and BNE. CZ only 5 weekly and MU only 3 weekly to BNE in March? That seems really low with CA pulling out and the only other route is Hainan to Shenzhen from there. Is that normal?

VA has reported to the ATSB that an aircraft approaching BNE on Saturday had a close call with a drone

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/vir ... ave-drone/

Qantas says India if forecasted to be Asia's second largest market from/to Australia by 2027

https://blueswandaily.com/qantas-india- ... a-by-2027/

Can we see QF returning to India at some point?

In addition to yesterday's announcement Qantas has applied to the IASC for AY to codeshare on JQ services to Japan

https://blueswandaily.com/jetstar-airwa ... -mar-2019/

Effective 1 July EY will change from double daily A388 to SYD to 1 daily A388 and 1 daily 77W on a permanent basis

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... e-changes/