QF Intl Schedule Changes (Rumours)

[MyerFlyer]

Hi all,

Now most of us know about the "proposed" plan to run the A332s on AKL-LAX-JFK-LAX-AKL from mid year.

Here are a few others I have heard recently:

*SYD-JNB-SYD to increase from 6x weekly to daily from mid year.

*SYD-HNL-SYD B763s to be replaced by A332s.

*The current daily SYD-NRT-SYD A333 services to be replaced with B744s from June.

*The spare A333s from the replaced NRT services will be deployed to replace the last remaining Intl B763s on the SYD/BNE-MNL and PER-NRT services also from June.

Anyone know/heard more.....

[Bootstrap1]

It is about time they took 767s off the international routes. If I had paid full fare for a ticket and had to endure 9 hours down the back of one of them I would be dirty,
I know they are reliable and all but enough is enough when QF international is supposed to be a premium product.

[stubby jumbo]

The current daily SYD-NRT-SYD A333 services to be replaced with B744s from June.


Now who was the Marketing genius who dreamed this one up. The QF approach to Japan has been an abomination for the past 15 years. First it was the Old "classic"-742's aircraft, flying to a mish mash of ports , then the 747-300,then pull out of most ports, then JQ...........finally new equipment -A330.:D......... No-lets change it back to the "less modern" 744.:confused:

No wonder pax are totally confused with the Qantas Group brand/presence in Japan-are they really serious???? or is it a question of maintaining those precious slots we keep hearing about in NRT ! ??

[mohikan]

At the moment the airbus service is regrettably very popular with the customers out of Tokyo reportedly. This situation has to change if the overall objective of getting Qantas out of Japan is to be achieved.

Previous attempts to run this service down so JQ can have a clear run at Japan have so far failed.

In this light pulling a superior cabin product off the route makes sense. No doubt the oldest and most run down of the B744's will service the destination. And as a bonus, when the load factors are not there to justify a -400 level of available seats, management can trot out the old chestnut about Syd-Nrt being a significant loss maker which Jetstar will have to go and save.

[RedTBar]

stubby,you forgot to mention Jetstar mark I.
In other words AO and before any ex AO crew start going on about it being well liked by the Japanese,you only have to ask one question.
Why did they get rid of AO if they were so good?

How many times were we told about Japanese culture and how appearances were everything.Then not only do they use aircraft that should have been sitting in a desert but then they put on a LCC to close the deal.
Even then that wasn't cheap enough so they came up with AO mark II which we all know as Jetstar.

No wonder the Japanese still prefer to go to Hawaii.

[boocs]

A QF 330 buddy of mine mentioned temporary LAX basings (for 330 crews). Any comments on this?
b.

[stubby jumbo]

Thanks for the correction T-Bar re: AO.

How quickly one forgets ! I still remember Dixon sprouting on at a Roadshow about AO not impacting on QF services.:{

Like me -you probably did that Zenergy Japanese program-Hell, at one time it was like...."everything Japanese is good-making 35% of our profit".

Under Menadue it was........Lets give them Asahi beer, Japanese choice of meals, Miso soup flasks ( I've still got mine for fishing trips!) Japanese Newspapers, Japanese base, Heaps of speakers, codehares with JAL, Inflight Sky Shopping-you name it -we pelted it at them. Then......... pffffft !

Now with JAL on its Knees begging for a bailout and 15,000 JAL employees about to go-just makes you wonder what the fcku happened.

[packrat]

Three things happened:
1. QF sent inferior product to Japan which kept breaking down
2.The Japanese economy tanked
3.Australia has become a "T-shirt destination...visit,buy the T-shirt... go home..no reason to return

[DEFCON4]

Rumour:
The QF 63 will begin flying out of MEL around June
The A380 will fly to JoBurg for the Soccer World Cup

[OhSpareMe]

The A380 will fly to JoBurg for the Rugby World Cup :confused:

....which is in NZ.

Perhaps you mean the Soccer - sorry Football - world cup?

[Pegasus747]

cant imagine why they would send an A380 to JNB just for the soccer.... the logistics would be a night mare i would imagine

[DEFCON4]

I Goofed.
How silly to confuse Rugby with Soccer

[Wod]

I have no idea whether the A380 JNB rumour is true or false, but since you would want additional Westbound seats ahead of the Cup, why not fire up a flagship flight, allow crew rest, and fly it home empty?

Too many whingers here.

[Beer Baron]

cant imagine why they would send an A380 to JNB just for the soccer.... the logistics would be a night mare i would imagine

Well as Air France will be flying daily to JNB in their 380's from March there should be some degree of support and familiarity availible at the airport.

I'll keep my fingers crossed anyways.

[MrApproach]

Sounds like a reshuffle to get over the non-delivery of B787's and a pathetic attempt to react against V Australia's plans. All the flights are ex-SYD so that heavily congested postage stamp will continue to suffer from Qantas hubbing while the rest of Australia slowly gets sick of going via SY and being pushed onto the inferior JQ product. HO hum more of the same from Coward Street.

[Bootstrap1]

They wont fly the 380 to JNB. They painted up OJS in the socceroo/world cup livery for this reason.

[Going Boeing]

Sounds like a reshuffle to get over the non-delivery of B787's and a pathetic attempt to react against V Australia's plans.

MrApproach, you should chill and relax a little. Yeah the B787's haven't been delivered so QF management have to make do with what they've got. Apart from the AKL-LAX-JFK operation, the proposed changes will give passengers an improved product over the existing services and that's where management priorities should be.

Most people would agree with you that the hubbing through SYD is excessive and detrimental to pax not disembarking in Sydney. Perhaps, instead of having all their eggs in one basket, Qantas should establish another hub in BNE to give more flexibility to pax going on to other destinations. Geographically, Brisbane is the obvious choice as the alternative hub but it wouldn't please DJ management.

[turtlehead]

Can anyone confirm this rumour...?

Maybe the Townsville refueller can comment:ok:

[Pegasus747]

dont think that V Australia will be flying to JNB any time soon apparently there are some ETOPS issues.

And the Cabin Crew cannot be planned in excess of 18 hours under the "minimum award" now in place. Will be interesting to see where this goes....

[neville_nobody]

dont think that V Australia will be flying to JNB any time soon apparently there are some ETOPS issues.

They would have looked at this before CASA approves the route.....surely.

[RedTBar]

They would have looked at this before CASA approves the route.....surely.
Surely :hmm:

[Pegasus747]

oh i am sure they can get the CASA ETOPS approval... the routing however would put them over the max hours for the CC apparently

[Capt Fathom]

What is ETOPS?

[RedTBar]

(1)dont think that V Australia will be flying to JNB any time soon apparently there are some ETOPS issues.
(2)oh i am sure they can get the CASA ETOPS approval.
Huh:ooh:

[cart_elevator]

On my flight back to SYD the day before yesterday, had a sales bloke onboard who said the A330 had just been 'oficially' approved for the LAX-JFK-LAX sectors, couldnt say when it will start though, or who would be crewing it (from a cabin crew perspective). He said the approval only came in the day before.

Can we do such a long day with no horizontal crew rest? (again from a cabin crew point of view - I know the techies have their own 'day-spa' on the A330 :})

[Pegasus747]

it certainly wont be a shuttle .... if the A330 is being used and i say "if" it is being used then the company will slip the cabin crew and the tech crew in NYC

[Ka.Boom]

The OBMs will be QAL and the rest of the crew will AKL Based.
The tech crew and QAL OBMs will slip in NYC.
The AKL based crew will complete the shuttle.

[Taildragger67]

OK it's domestic, but this from the latest QF Frequent Flyer bulletin (http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/program/news/2010/jan/airline-news?alt_cam=au:ff:edm:FFMonthlyNewsletter1001:Australia:Qan tasNews:NewsTop:TextLink#jump4):

Qantas Increases Domestic Flight Capacity

The end of 2009 welcomed an exciting increase in Qantas domestic flight capacity, just in time for the summer holiday period. We are now celebrating the addition of 19 return services across selected domestic routes as well as a number of brand new Boeing 767 aircraft, which are replacing the smaller Boeing 737 aircraft. We will add more than 340,000 domestic seats in 2010.
"brand new Boeing 767 aircraft"?

[ditch handle]

The OBMs will be QAL and the rest of the crew will AKL Based.
The tech crew and QAL OBMs will slip in NYC.
The AKL based crew will complete the shuttle.

Could "management" be so stupid ?

[packrat]

A rhetorical question
The answer is obvious....they are that stupid

[Pegasus747]

i think that you will find that there will be "no" shuttle. And most premature to suggest that it will be AKL based crew.

I know that if i were management it would probably be the most "efficient" way to crew the flight but not if you wanted to have any level of ......no i am not going to go there.

Just be patient, i am sure that it will be a combination of crew as it has always been and not just AKL based as has been suggested.

[lowerlobe]

You have to remember that this is merely supposition and might just be yet another rumour.

I'm sure the airline has the best wishes of crew at heart...:oh:

However,if it is true you have to put yourself in their shoes for a moment...

I know that for a rational normal pragmatic person that is difficult but when you think of some of their past ideas it makes sense....to them at any rate.

Firstly,they managed to get a dispensation for cabin crew to operate the shuttle.Now they are going to have to come up with an answer for the people upstairs so convincing that they can keep their jobs...even though the aircraft given to them to do the job is rumoured to make the TOD far in excess of the current average...

So to do the job they simply put people in there that don't have hour limitations that apply to QAL crew....if this is true fatigue is obviously not a concern of theirs...

Secondly,this continues a proud tradition of divide and conquer....

If the rumour is true and they are basing tech crew in LA for a month this creates some friction simply because they are not doing this with cabin crew but then if the other rumour is also true they crew the aircraft with a mixture of QAL crew and AKL crew and create even more friction...

The AKL crew see the QAL crew getting off in JFK and working less hours and getting more pay...

What's that song again...."There's a fraction too much friction..."..

Forget I still call Australia home this could be the new theme and it's from a Kiwi band to add insult to injury ....:E

[Wingspar]

Lobey..

If the rumour is true and they are basing tech crew in LA for a month this creates some friction simply because they are not doing this with cabin crew

Surely you can't be serious?

Patterns differ greatly between TC and CC. I bet they do use AKL CC and that makes sense seeing the a/c runs through the place. At the same time I bet they don't use AUS CC to run SY-AKL-LAX-JFK-LAX-AKL-SY as the pattern would be too long. Hence the reason they'll probably put the techies up in LAX for a month!

[lowerlobe]

Wingspar...

No, I'm not suggesting that the company would do this just to pi$$ the cabin crew off but it does fit in with their liking to divide and conquer so think about the scheduling for a minute...

If they are going to have different crew complements (ie A330,380 and 747)in LA then why not base an A-330 cabin crew there as well...Both Tech crew and QAL crew are based in Sydney so if they do use QAL crew on the JFK trips and they are basing the SYD tech crew in LAX for a month then why not the cabin crew as well....

I could be wrong but as far as I know there are no AKL based crew who are OBM's....So if that's the case they will have to be Aus based as the tech crew are...

As I said this is all supposition at the moment so we will have to wait until this is actually happening to make suggestions.

So lets see what happens,I was just trying to lighten up the thread a bit.

and don't call me surely...:E

[Wingspar]

Very good :ok:

[packrat]

The current circumstances with JAL may provide some route opportunities for Qantas.
Unfortunately Jet Star will be the likely benefactor.Changes at Haneda Airport will also likely benefit Jet Star.
The proposed jumbo service to Japan may not materialize