British Airways flights to Australia

[notlangley]

Does anyone know how the "Joint Service Agreement" partnership between BA and Qantas is developing?
Are we ultimately heading for no BA planes in Australia and no Qantas planes in UK?
link (http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110816/pdf/420dw81fc4pd2m.pdf)

[notlangley]

This Media Release by Qantas says that in the "short term" they are going to transform the company from a loss-making to a profitable organisation. The means to achieve this include the retirement of older aircraft and "around 1000 jobs will be affected" - presumably some retraining and some compulsory redundancies.
link (http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110816/pdf/420dw03xcfxsrr.pdf)
A word of caution here. In my opinion this Media Release document needs to be handled with care, because it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusions about what is intended by several general sentences.
also link (http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20110816/pdf/420dw1q15pxl58.pdf)

[PAXboy]

I think the 'word of caution' is that the document contains one of the highest levels of old codswallop that I've seen in many a long year! :yuk:

It is chock full of obscurantist verbiage that leaves the reader confused and I only read to the end for amusment. I thought the Australians were supposed to be plain spoken - but someone is trying to justify their job by generating such otiose rubbish. :rolleyes:

[notlangley]

This is a piece of the pictureQantas to retain ownership of slots at Heathrow and lease to British Airways
half way through this document :-__link (http://www.qantas.com.au/infodetail/about/investors/BuildingaStrongerQantasInvestorPresentation.pdf)

[martin102]

but from that document and elsewhere looks like BA gives up flying Bangkok to Sydney

[notlangley]

These quotes are from an article in today’s Telegraph.co.uk.British Airways is ready to throw its hat into the ring in an auction for Lufthansa-owned BMI, the second biggest operator at Heathrow airport . Willie Walsh, chief executive of International Airlines Group (IAG), the holding company for BA and Iberia of Spain, has made no secret of his interest in BMI, not as an airline but for its valuable take off and landing slots at overcrowded Heathrow.BMI has 11pc of the airport's capacity – valued at £770m three years ago – while BA controls 42pc and Iberia 2pc.BA and its parent are expected to face competition from ambitious Middle East airlines seeking a bigger presence at Heathrow.
link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/8756145/BA-ready-to-bid-for-BMI-to-expand-at-Heathrow.html)

[PAXboy]

How I like to be reminded that highly valuable entities (EGLL slots) that were owned by the taxpayer were given to private companies. If they sell them on - we do not get a slice of the money.

[QueenBuzzzzz]

BA (and indeed all European Airlines) haven't flown to Australia for a while. It's all codeshare out of Asia. The change is that QF won't be continuing to LHR from BKK and HKG... BA is leasing those routes.

Qantas will continue their full service via SIN from SYD and MEL

[Skipness One Echo]

BA (and indeed all European Airlines) haven't flown to Australia for a while. It's all codeshare out of Asia. The change is that QF won't be continuing to LHR from BKK and HKG... BA is leasing those routes.

BA will still have service to Australia on their own aircraft with one stop via Singapore once this change is made.

BA is leasing those routes.
The routes are not being leased, Qantas is pulling off HKG-LHR and BKK-LHR entirely.

[ExXB]

BA (and indeed all European Airlines) haven't flown to Australia for a while. It's all codeshare out of Asia. The change is that QF won't be continuing to LHR from BKK and HKG... BA is leasing those routes.

Qantas will continue their full service via SIN from SYD and MEL

There are actually three European airlines that fly their own metal to Australia. BA, Virgin Atlantic and Air Austral (Paris - Reunion - Sydney) (Reunion is a French Department).

Ones that have dropped out include ... UTA, Alitalia, Lauda (Austrian), Lufthansa, JAT (Yugoslav Airlines), Air France, Aeroflot, Airtours, AOM and Olympic.

[WHBM]

All those dropouts make one point - it is just not worthwhile any longer doing flights which are not just simple out and back from base. Australia is too far to do this, fares achieved do tend to taper off with distance while costs rise significantly once you have to stop and recrew on the way. BA and Qantas meeting end-to-end in South-East Asia (all codeshared and possibly with all aircraft just branded OneWorld) really is the efficient way to go.

[PAXboy]

That is the problem. I have no wish to change planes at the half way point. Just leave me to doze until it's time to put the seat back up and set off for the next half. My preference will go to the carrier who can take me straight through.

[Ancient Observer]

Ah,but Paxboy, you forget. You and I are merely SLF who get in the way of the people in Aviation who are trying to do their jobs. Whilst some folk in Aviation notice their customers, and might even be nice to them, those that run things see the whole industry as jobs and bonus payments for themselves.
BA proved this in Asia - a fast growing market - when they started taking out the BA staff and replacing them with Q staff and contractors.

[ZFT]

Not quite. Qantas sacked most of their Bangkok based staff last year.

[Peter47]

I believe that BA will still have a daily through 744 (compared with a 772 now) stopping at SIN. As both their through flights to SYD, the only Australian destination served, leave within a few minutes of each other it will not make much difference to their offering. Presumably the ideas is that BA will still pick up traffic that is looking for a through flight. If a pax wants to stopover at BKK (or HKG) it does not matter if two airlines are involved.

QF will operate two daily through flights also via SIN with A380s. I am not certain of the origin in Oz, I would guess SYD & MEL.

The two airlines will be reducing their capacity on the Kangaroo route. For BA this is not great (a loss of a daily BKK - SYD flight offset by 3 x weekly additional LHR - HKG frequencies. 3 additional flights a week to GIG will soak up the freed resources. For QF it is a much more significant reduction of up to 14 weekly frequencies into LHR and they are talking of retiring four 747s.

Presumably the sixth freedom carriers such as EK wil pick up the traffic lost by BA & QF.

If you want to fly to a smaller city such as BNE, PER or ADL you will have to change at SIN, but then you already have to do so.