Originally Posted by
V-Jet
It's put its revenue into share buybacks and Jetstar. Qantas has managed its costs appallingly badly. Even if what you suggest actually is the case (and anyone with any idea of what is going on inside QF knows that to be patent rubbish) just imagine how well Qf SHOULD have been doing if money was not thrown away on Jetstar and share buybacks but instead spent on a fleet of 777's. Fuel is the biggest expense and fuel is the one thing that has the QF fleet absolutely hamstrung.
You cannot compare a 380 burning 13,000kgs of fuel per hour and carrying 480 odd pax with a 777 burning 4,500kgs per hour carrying 400 pax. Those extra 80 pax are consuming 8,500kgs per HOUR every hour the jets are in the air. To put that another way, every flight QF takes to LAX they are selling an extra 80 odd seats but burning 120,000kgs of jet fuel extra to just about all their major competitors. London it's 240,000kgs. One way.
Unless Qantas has the capital to fix this self induced problem, it is in serious trouble. Joyce might take solace in the fact he can make money domestically with a quasi monopoly and blame International for giving him a big fuel bill, but HE has created and exacerbated that problem by throwing money away on rubbish self enrichment programmes and not ordering a single jet. There is absolutely no getting around it.
Also - almost unique to Qantas is the enormous housing price growth in the major capital cities. That has now stopped, but for the last ten years anyone has been able to borrow on the value of their home and spend on travel. It is not an insignificant factor.
V-Jet, if you're trying to argue that QF should have bought the 77W instead of the A380 back in 2000, then sure, I agree with you. But that's ancient history. You seem to be arguing that QF should have bought factory-new 777s in the last couple of years. That would be a bad decision. The 787, A350 and 777X have (or will have) vastly superior economics to 77Ws. QF would be locking in poor operating economics for the next 15-20 years. That's probably why most of QF's competitors have ordered new-generation planes to replace their 77Ws as they retire. Qantas itself is replacing its 747s with 787s. It's also progressively moving the A380s from long-haul to regional flying, where it is far more cost-competitive. It's also planning to order A350 or 777Xs this year.
You're trying to compare QF's 480-seat, premium A380 configuration with a high-density, 400-seat 77W configuration, and as donpizmeov has pointed out, your fuel burn numbers for the 77W are off by a country mile. I've also seen lower burn numbers for A380s. Once you add in lower crew costs and yield premium, the A380 can equal or better the 77W. (Leeham has a decent analysis, if you want to see some numbers:
https://leehamnews.com/2018/12/06/is...n-a-777-300er/). The risk with the A380 has always been whether you can fill it, not its CASM numbers, and QF does a reasonably good job of filling its A380s.
Yes, QF is more exposed to the Australian economy than international airlines. But, QF targets premium customers and corporates, who tend to be less affected by issues like the housing market (short of a major recession). Also, it is the international airlines who tend to add and subtract capacity into Australia based on our market conditions, so there is something of an automatic stabiliser in the market.