Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Comparing the 1972 route map with the 2019 one almost all of Europe has gone, the Middle East has gone, no flights to the sub-continent, and been there has been partial replacement by flights to East Asia
I take the points about domestic - but never underestimate just what people will put up with to save $10.............
Internationally Chinese airlines will continue to grow and might bring serious pressure on those Chinese routes.
To my mind Project Sunrise is quite a clever response to their problems - if your main market is UK or US to Australia then by flying direct you are doing something your main opposition (SQ, Qatar, Emirates etc) can't compete on and may never be able to compete on.
Not too sure about the benefits of the vast QF Loyalty scheme - I suspect it puts bums on seats but is diluting the income - especially when those points are used to upgrade to Business or Prem Econ.
Well, for a start there were routes to/from the subcontinent and the ME because the aeroplanes didn’t have the range. Back then in the late 70s a one stop to London was SYD-MEL-PER-BOM-LHR and they were flying half a dozen 747s to Europe every day not always full.
Destinations like BOM and BAH were not for profit reasons but essentially for refuelling en route.
Before suggesting Qantas has shrunk, check out who of their competitors from that era still fly those routes... no KLM, no Lufthansa, no Alitalia, no Olympic, no British Airways to speak of, no Air France and a few more to boot.
Somehow all these route comparisons ignore the lack of other majors who flew the same routes. Geez, when some of those routes were being flown they were by the 707-338C!!!
QF didn’t fly to DFW, LAX, JFK or others back then either.