Qantas To The Middle East.Why Not?

[mach2male]

Dixon often used to complain about the Middle Eastern Airlines and their unfair "advantage".But thats all he did.Complain.
Why Qantas hasnt looked at starting a service to LHR via the Middle East is a mystery.
Some considerations would be:(a) which aircraft(b)landing charges(c)possible loads.
If Emirates and Etihad see merits here why not Qantas?
Qantas flies to less destinations and its unit costs are therefore spread over a smaller network.
Isnt it about time to grow again?

[7378FE]

No suitable aircraft, except A380 which is too big.

What about the 777-300ER? , oh i forgot that is old technology. :hmm:

[SkyScanner]

No suitable aircraft, except A380 which is too big

How do you figure that?

[argusmoon]

Dont worry the genius' at qantas would have done the numbers and found the establishment of the route impractical.Just like pulling out of SFO and not buying the tripplers.
Damn clever these guys

[ZQN]

Simple answer - The QF product just doesn't cut it against the likes of EK.

[Tankengine]

OR : there is no market to the Middle east?:confused:
I sure as s^%& never want to go there!:eek:
EK and EY LIVE there so of course they link Australia and Europe via the ME.
We are at "the end of the line" and use Singapore to complex all Aussie cities.
To do the same from say Dubai we would need to fly CNS, DRW, BNE, SYD, ADL, MEL, PER to Dubai - not going to happen!:ugh:
I would prefer BKK myself but SIN is it for now!
It means little to 95% of people where their fuel/crew stop is.:zzz:

[qantel]

Totally agree with all of you.. QF missed the boat years ago. Point to point from Australia to ME is pointless. Even to hub onto europe wouldn't work.. It's an over saturated market!

I think QF needs to concentrate on China. Create a new hub through PVG or PEK to europe. Still so much room for added capacity out of China through some of the worlds largest cities.

Come on QF time to start becoming an innovative leader in aviation instead of letting your little sister take the lime light every time.

:ugh:

[Eastwest Loco]

The Emirates are a huge yield route, over and above the Pacific - BUT - too late she cried.

EK EY and QR have the run by the nuts.

QF are already codesharing on Etihad and are pretty good on pricing and generally cheaper on EY's own product as American are also often cheaper on trans Pacific rat flights.

If QF ran the route on a startup with the logical 3 month lead time, they would need to deploy 2 or 3 744s to the service to make it work.

The logical thing would be an extension into Europe from there.

Initially you would be lucky to grab 10% point to point traffic into and out of the ME and most would be longhaul Aus to UK/Europe through traffic - not where the dollars are. In the current climate it is a revenue black hole tilting at windmills with blades much larger than the Great White Rat can handle.

Six months of predatory discounting which would not be even touchable by the ACCC would put paid to the valiant endeavour and would also reduce yield on other routes into Europe as seats at a lower cost become available due to the extras on the via ME services.

No win for QF, and well left indeed.

Best all

EWL

[prunezeuss]

Qantas will use its low cost offshoot Jetstar to pioneer routes out of Vietnam to Europe.

[skybed]

that Qf will go to the Me from the middle of 2010. that was flagged by JH in the ABC interview. As I was told the other day AJ reckons there will be 20 A380 and 5 747ER(reconfigured) by 2015. All the growth will be done by Agent Orange.:ugh:

[Ka.Boom]

By JH do you mean John Howard?
Which ABC interview was this mentioned?

[skybed]

ago by james hogan:ok:

[Eastwest Loco]

Well it will not be foreign passengers using the services if they send JQ into one of the highest disposable income passenger catchments in the world.

The Middle East would be Jetstars Western Front.

Sorry JQ people but you just do not fit the demographic.

Maybe the service would survive with a vast majority of through traffic,but that is a big call too.

Best all

EWL

[PPRuNeUser0198]

Why Qantas hasnt looked at starting a service to LHR via the Middle East is a mystery.

This question is very easy to answer; Qantas cannot obtain daily rights from a Middle East destination to London. In-order to make the route viable, Qantas requires daily services. In the same way Qantas exited Paris; the inability to be granted daily services.

This is why Qantas has partnered up with Etihad. You will find Qantas may look at services to the Middle East down the track, however the intention is to go all the way to London and this is just not possible at this time.

These are the facts.

[blackguard]

Well somebody didnt do their homework when signing off on that bi lateral agreement.No wonder scrotum face was agrieved

[Quokka]

Sorry JQ people but you just do not fit the demographic.


Oh so true... underneath that black abaya is the latest haute couture... and none of it is cheap. When the white thawb comes off, it's replaced with the latest and most fashionable jeans, shirts and shoes... with the obligatory Raymond Weil, Louis Monet or just a plain Rolex or Breitling. They drive Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes... and sit in the biggest, softest couch in the cafe bragging about their latest status symbol aquisition... or their recent, expensive, trip to somewhere that affluent, high social status Westerners choose to vacation.

Do you think they are going to buy a seat on Jetstar?

[Captain Dart]

...or on QANTAS?

[divingduck]

Jetstar would do better to attempt to break the subcontinental unskilled worker market into the ME.
they probably would be the only ones that would put up with the service.

[RedTBar]

...or on QANTAS?
You obviously have forgotten Captain Dart but Qantas was flying through the Middle East long before Jetstar was even thought of...

[ferris]

What, exactly, did Dixon do over the last few years to defend QF and "it's turf"? Does Qf even carry as many people out of oz now as the ME carriers? I can't see how, when you count EK, etihad, and the ever expanding Qatar. Sure, Qf cannot compete with the on-carriage to the large networks beyond the ME, but what was done to try and carry the pax at least to the ME hubs? An early alliance with EK would've been genius, but why wasn't some forward thinking employed by the extremely highly paid Qf managers to stem the onslaught (an early ETD or QR agreement?) Qf carries them to the ME hub, then the partner from there thru the extensive network beyond.

Too much SY-LHR dinosaur thinking? Where does it leave Qf? Looking like a real one trick (orange) pony, now.

[Three Wire]

Back in the 90's, when Ek first started MEL-SIN-DXB, they codeshared with QF. Unfortunately when it came to renew the agreement, there was a slight disagreement, and QF was rebuffed.
History since then speaks for itself.

[parabellum]

I would have thought QF would be able to get back into Bahrain without much trouble, now that GF is just a Bahrain owned airline?

I was very surprised when QF pulled out of Athens, presumably very little premium traffic? Same with Rome?

[Keg]

The Athens decision years ago has to do with the bi-lateral agreement with the Greek government. The way I understood it was that the Greek government set the fares as well as the number of seats and thus Olympic would always be cheaper than QF. That could be urban myth but Athens has barely rated a mention in QF talk since the mid '90s for various reasons. As you say, a high rate of VFR traffic (and thus low yield) probably played a large part also.

[timmi812]

I work with QF myself and have heard that they will be starting a 747 service to bah (bahrain) then a shuttle service to auh (abu dhabi). this will compete with the likes of Qatar which start flying to syd in nov. Also no other carriers fly to aus from bahrain.

[skybed]

out of bahrain to abu dabi on a 747. now thats a good rumour:E:D:D

[Metro man]

Plenty of passengers of Middle Eastern origin in the western suburbs of Sydney. Trouble is many of them hate Australia and all it stands for.
They'd probably travel on ANYOTHER Airlines before QF.

[ditch handle]

Tell him he's dreaming.

[Taildragger67]

Skybed,

If they could fill a shuttle service's hold with freight, it might work; EK run around the Gulf with wide-bodies because (as they've said) they'll happily run a 777 with no pax if they can fill the hold.

EK make $$$ because they are at a hub point - their original plan was to be the main carrier between Europe (especially the UK) and the subcontinent. They knew that Air India and PIA would never be able to offer (and fill) direct services between lots of their cities and lots of places in Europe - but if you hub in Dubai, then Robert's your mother's brother.

Their business model has expanded as aircraft ranges have increased. But don't forget, there's a reason they've earmarked most of their planned A380s not to have first class. And that reason is that we'll never see those airframes further from Dubai than the subcontinent.

So... all this talk about Qantas going to the ME is looking at one route this side of Dubai, and one route out the other. Which probably won't yield enough.

Would it perhaps not be better to play them a bit at their own game and use Dubai as an alliance hub - that is, QF and CX fly in on one side, and meet Iberia, BA and Finnair services on the other side, through to more than just Madrid, London and Helsinki - use the EU freedoms to operate between Dubai and ports outside their home countries. So if I want to go from Sydney to say Stockholm using oneworld, rather than go through Singapore and either Helsinki or London, I could run QF to Dubai and change to a Finnair.

I could do just that now with Emirates.

Or, get a Gulf carrier into OW and use them to do all the European city runs.

But this won't happen...

[Explicitus]

I'm just pleased to see some actual rumours in this thread. I love a good rumour!

How about Melbourne - Broome - Athens while we're at it? A bit of work to improve the facilities at Broome, but no need to make an intermediate stop in some other country. (OK, I apologise for my rumour quality, maybe someone can think up some better rumours?)

;-)

[skybed]

your argument makes sense. Qf management would never come up with those ideas.:ok:

[alangirvan]

If a stop in the Middle East is just somewhere for passengers to buy a postcard, why not Dubai, or there is good old Bahrain, which worked quite well for many years for Qantas. In fact which ever airport gives a good deal for fuel and handling charges.

My experience as a passenger, when I get out at Singapore, HK or KL (I have not done BKK) is that very few of my fellow passengers are getting out. They hang around the terminal and go straight to London, UK. They may buy souvenirs.

Bahrain or Abu Dhabi do have an advantage that Qantas just might sell a few local seats from there to London, and some of those seats might be in the First Class part of the plane, so nice bit of pocket money for Qantas.

[Wod]

I've been staying out of this but.....

The gulf carriers, Etihad, Qatar, Emirates, have a substantial market into Europe.

Australian Governments of all persuasions, cheerfully give away traffic rights to foreign carriers to promote tourism. They certainly don't protect Australian, or Kiwi carriers.

So, with modern, long range aircraft a gulf carrier can offer one-stop service to a myriad European destinations. Think IST, ATH, ROM, MAD, PAR, MAN, DUB...the list goes on. Very attractive to some Australians.

QF and Virgin (whether Atlantic or not), can only make sense of hubs based on SIN, KUL,BKK,HKG, where you can feed people in from all Australian ports, most of whom get off at the hub port, but enough go on to LHR or FRA to make the hub effective.

QF don't do Middle East because it makes no economic sense.

But codeshare with Etihad does make sense.

[PPRuNeUser0198]

As I said previously, Qantas will go to the Middle East only if they can continue on to London and these services are daily.

This has also been quoted by Alan at the company roadshows.

[Transition Layer]

Qantas To The Middle East.Why Not?

Because that would involved expansion, something that only occurs in the Qantas Group in the form of a Star and an orange belly.

[HAMO]

EK/QF Codeshare

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the 90's, when Ek first started MEL-SIN-DXB, they codeshared with QF. Unfortunately when it came to renew the agreement, there was a slight disagreement, and QF was rebuffed.
History since then speaks for itself.

Not quite ... EK approached QF to do a code-share, but QF basically laughed in their face, dismissing them as some small fry carrier from the sandpit. Look who is laughing now !!

[ferris]

Qantas will go to the Middle East only if they can continue on to London and these services are daily. What sort of dinosaur thinking is that? Just a total head-in-the-sand attitude to the changing business environment they operate in!! God help us if this is the best that multi-million dollar salaries generates.

[Tankengine]

What sort of dinosaur thinking is it to only fly a route people want and to do it daily for convenience and efficiently?:ugh:

More dinosaur to fly a route not many wish for, occasionally so even less use it?:ok:

[ferris]

More dinosaur to fly a route not many wish for, Not many? EK alone are 3 times daily out of the major oz cities, and they are chockers. They then hub out of Dubai direct to anywhere you want to go- Paris, Istanbul, or even Tehran. That, is better than a daily flight to LHR, then on from there. The Dixon era was nothing more than stagnation. It was profitable for a few years while the company was basically dismantled, but it was being set up for the buy-out. Now where is Qf? Staring at an orange future, and ever-decreasing market share. It is almost a niche carrier already. I swear some people never see what is going on in the world beyond the SY domestic terminal. Anytime I read on this board what a great strategy Dixon employed, I'm incredulous.

Oz is at the 'end of the line". QF is not in a position to hub. At least it could carry the pax to the hub (and direct to the destinations it can reach from oz, of course {which appears to be the orange bit of the game}). It may have a future doing that. But sticking to the SY- LHR thinking? Can't see a big future in that.

[Tankengine]

My point exactly!
We are not a hub, therefore we need to fly people to where they wish to go!
That is not the ME!!! We hub in Singapore, rightly or wrongly! I agree we should go to more destinations in Europe but how many EK Australian and European customers actually want to go to the ME?
We have a large Lebanese community in Australia and should probably fly there, but perhaps not Dubai.

[halas]

Who says it will be QF hubbing through the Middle East?

On another thread Joyce is sprouting about Rome, Milan and Athens for Jetstar.

My money is on the later.

halas

[Taildragger67]

Ferris,

What sort of dinosaur thinking is that? Just a total head-in-the-sand attitude to the changing business environment they operate in!! God help us if this is the best that multi-million dollar salaries generates.

mate welcome to observing c.21 airline management... :ugh:

Halas,

Agreed that Jetstar will probably be sent up on various European routes - that's been part of the plan for a while I think. However, unless there is a maaaaassive expansion in the number of L/H airframes, the sort of coverage and convenience the punter can get with the existing M.E carriers cannot happen. Hence I suspect it won't be so much a 'hubbing' exercise anywhere, as much as point-to-point via a tech stop situation.

1. Jetstar is a low/no-service carrier. Not being narky; that's just the model. So just as Aer Lingus had to leave oneworld when it lowered its service standard model, so no full-service carrier will link to it via a hub. Hence it will be on its own on those runs (other than the parent code-sharing on it).

2. So unless it buys many airframes, it's not going to be able to cover all the European ports we've been discussing here with any sort of regularity. So again, unattractive for anyone else to work with.