QANTAS the Sydney-Centric Airline

[Sunfish]

I must say I've had it in for Qantas for a long time. It goes back to the late 70's early 80's. Thats when I relaised that its Board and strategy is controlled by the NSW labor and Liberal parties, as it is today - like why would anyone in their right mind elect Jamie Packer to the Board of Qantas?

I worked out twhat the scam was way back then - Qantas has been manipulating its schedules to advantage Sydney as a destination for overseas investment for a very long time.

Its been doing this by a very simple method. Melbourne and Brisbane are three hours further away from London and New York than Sydney is. Now thats rubbish geographically. However it is not rubbish when your aircraft stops in Sydney either on the way in or the way out - for three hours where it gets a TFC, cleaned and recrewed whatever.

Qantas justifies this lack of direct flights by saying its what passengers want. The truth is if I've been sitting in a 747 for 20 hours I'd get out at Alice Springs if thats where the aircraft landed.

Now how do I know this? Well it all goes back to my days as a very small cog in the engineering division of an Airline called Ansett. About the time that we were provisioning for the arrival of the B767.

We were spending money big time on uprated and brand new facilities to handle large jets - we used to have 727's. All our LAMES had to get trained up on glass cockpits, fadec FIRM/FRM CF6 -80A and so on and so on.

So anyway, Little Sunfish recieves some letters and enquiries from Two American Airlines (Pan Am and United) and two european airlines (KLM and Lufthansa).

The letters all said the same thing along the lines of "dear Sunfish, now that Ansett is getting wide body aircraft, do you guys think that maybe you would like to invest a little more, and maybe get a wad of cash from us and some spares as well, so that you guys could perform TFC's on 747's in Melbourne? We will pay anything reasonable to avoid having to fly into Sydney where we are at the mercy of Qantas?"

So anyway little Sunfish thinks this is a great idea! We get to make some money on the side and defray the huge investment we have made by getting more utilisation for our equipment. We also get more direct flights into Melbourne and everyone wins except Qantas.

Sunfish does some simple calculations on what is involved and presently troops in to a management meeting with the Director of Engineering, planning managers, engineering manager and so on. Sunfish makes his little presentation and expects a round of applause, smiles adulation and so on. Instead there is stony embarrassed silence and we move on to the next matter.

Perplexed at this, Sunfish reintroduces the subject the following week, as said overseas airlines are really keen about the idea. Again stony silence - next subject.

The following week I try again, and this time I press home the subject - please explain why this isnt a great idea? My boss turns to me and says in front of the assembled meeting "Drop it! Peter Abeles(the managing Director) will have our guts for garters if we disturb Qantas's Sydney monopoly on 747 TFC's.

So Sunfish did a bit of thinking, thats how the scam worked. Every 747 entering or leaving Australia had to get a TFC and defects attended to - the old 24 hour rule. Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, Cathay and Malaysian excluded.

So every aircraft frmo Europe or America HAD to go through Sydney coming in or going out. As far as I know this scam is still in place to this day.

Comments please.

[stiffwing]

Sydney-centric? I beg to differ.
Qantas are to shortly introduce Perth - London flights and in the new year increase their Melb - LA (connecting with the US east coast) to 9 services a week. Of course, you would also be aware of the recently introduced Brisbane - LA direct services.
I don't know where you get your data re melbourne and brisbane being 3 hours further from the UK and US.. The above services give almost exact flying times from all 3 australian east coast ports to their destinations. :confused:

[leemo]

Perth - London? Are you sure stiffwing?

[regitaekilthgiwt]

leemo its via singapore and starts some time in the northern winter, around the 1/11 I think.

[Don Esson]

I don't know what Sunfish has been inhaling but it sure is having a deleterious affect on his thought processes. Succinctly, he doesn;t know what he is talking about.

For more years than I can remember Qantas has been scheduling its international fleet away from home base for weeks at a time. They may turaround in any of the capital cities and of course Cairns but in the cycle planned they didn't (and still don't) operate through Sydney.

Qantas is keen to get its $$$s from all over Australia, not just YSSY. It operates stand-alone services between YMML and EGLL, YMML and KLAX, YBBN and KLAX, YPPH and RJTT to name but a few.

This topic does not warrant any further comment. :uhoh: :uhoh:

[slice]

You can do PER-LHR now with a 50 min flight change in SIN. I don't think having a through flight number is going to make any difference - sounds more like a schedule juggle.

[stiffwing]

No, slice. It is not a schedule jiggle. It is an additional service: Perth-Singapore-London Qf 15. To do what you suggest one would have had to transfer off one flight on to another (Qf 17 to QF 9)

[Keg]

Sunfish's comments sound like a re-hash of the crap that normally comes from Jim Thorn and Australian Aviation. Interesting that Jim wanted QF to go to Buenos Aires for years and QF lost money on it for a couple of years before pulling out- longer than DJ gave SYD-ASP anyway! :E Great idea that one Jim. Interesting that you've never said 'oops' in print! :rolleyes: :suspect:

[MrApproach]

Seems to me that the Sydney centric problem stems from a lack of internal competition. Ansett, a Melbourne based airline, looked like it was getting on the bandwagon but crashed and burned. I read that Emirates was created because the locals in Dubai didn't like the way that Gulf Air was ignoring their city - and look at it now! No-one in Melbourne or Brisbane has the money to try the same in Australia though I'm sure the Qld government were hopeful with Virgin and must be very disappointed that Branson chose Sydney.

The fleet decisions made by QANTAS give away their Sydneycentricity aka business plan. B747's going overseas from Sydney fed by B737's and 767's from the "regional" centres, now giving way to A380's and A330's doing the same thing. No hint of a 777 or 340 to facilitate a market that can't sustain a 747. The only thing that stimulates QANTAS into ignoring that business plan is competition from foreign airlines. This seems to take the following form. At the first whiff of a plan from a competitor, flood the market with enough capacity to ensure that what the competitor saw as a niche market becomes unsustainable for both airlines. (See plan to increase flights on the MEL-LAX route and didn't they end up in court with VB over a similar tactic on the ADL - BNE route?) The competitor then gives up or abandons it's plan and QANTAS then returns to the first business plan or surprise, surprise, if there was money to made perhaps stays on. But let's be fair, what would any of us do, the job is to make money for the shareholders. Mebourne, population 3+million and Brisbane 1+ million need either their own airlines or a change to the bilateral system allowing foreign airlines to set up home there. I wouldn't put my money on either in the near future.