Qantas Going Going...
Low-cost carriers are eating Qantas’s lunch, taking 19.5% of the international traffic into and out of Australia and—for the first time—equaling the national airline’s market share.
The figures released by the Australian government and published in The Australian show that while Jetstar, a QF subsidiary, accounted for 8.1% it failed to stop the group’s overall market share from slipping from 28% to 27.7%.
According to The Australian, QF itself lost 5% of the market share over the past two years as it battles not only LCCs but airlines from the Middle East.
To address the threat from full-service carriers such as Emirates, a special team headed by QF Group Executive-Customer and Marketing Lesley Grant will investigate ways of improving the performance of the international business in areas such as lounges, menus and check-ins.
In Australia, QF has drawn criticism for a number of years for lagging in cabin innovations such as IFE and a premium economy product.
However, QF’s plans for rejuvenating its offering, upgrading the fleet and opening new point-to-point routes have been dealt severe blows by delivery delays of the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787. If the 787 had been on time, the Qantas Group would be taking delivery of its 29th this month. If its first 787 is delivered in late 2012, it comes when QF expected to be taking its 50th Dreamliner.