Qantas to lay out roadmap for restart of international flights

[Global Aviator]

Unless they do something about quarantine for crew, life as an international crew member is going to be pretty crap for some time yet. 7 days home quarantine will mean crew exist pretty much permanently in quarantine. Even if it got down to 3 days, it’s still a huge burden every time you do a trip. What if you test positive overseas, are crew exempt from inbound test?

Yep very well said, as we know it’s a dynamic situation with many countries requiring different levels of stupid. Being international crew in the chief stupid countries makes life very hard. It must be a weird feeling down route as your heading to the hotel for in room quarantine while crew from xyz head to the room then out for dinner.

It simply must get better over time, the sooner the better. Jo public has no idea really of the sacrifices pilots are living, maybe people in the tourism field realise but general Jo no idea.

I have many mates that have done multiple 14 days, be it in a hotel, home or a mix, absolute respect. Yes they still have a job but the mental toll must be excruciating.

Lets just hope with QF pushing hard that the Aus gov follow suit and allow life to get back to a semblance of normal. I can’t see how anyone could begrudge QF for trying.

[Potsie Weber]

Yep very well said, as we know it’s a dynamic situation with many countries requiring different levels of stupid. Being international crew in the chief stupid countries makes life very hard. It must be a weird feeling down route as your heading to the hotel for in room quarantine while crew from xyz head to the room then out for dinner.

It simply must get better over time, the sooner the better. Jo public has no idea really of the sacrifices pilots are living, maybe people in the tourism field realise but general Jo no idea.

I have many mates that have done multiple 14 days, be it in a hotel, home or a mix, absolute respect. Yes they still have a job but the mental toll must be excruciating.

Lets just hope with QF pushing hard that the Aus gov follow suit and allow life to get back to a semblance of normal. I can’t see how anyone could begrudge QF for trying.

The other issue that has not been addressed are close contacts. With international flights resuming a much more normal cabin service than the strict protocols of the current repatriation flights, you would expect crew numbers testing positive will increase.

NSW is going to 7 days isolation for close contacts who are fully vaxxed, but that still means many crew are likely to be sent to isolation from being a close contact from an infected crew member. Even domestically, the crew from the virgin positive crew member case are all being classed as close contacts. I can foresee a huge number of crew being required to isolate from being a close contact, both international and domestic, as we open up more.

[ExtraShot]

there's more touristy things to do in the Territory than in or around Perth and they could get some significant benefits of it in the long term.

righty oh, but I’d pretty confidently say - nope. Nothing wrong with the territory but in total I’d comfortably argue there is not more touristy things to do, and the benefits that a Darwin hub bring to the service (that not a lot of people use for an actual stopover) are limited once WA comes to its senses and opens up.

You seem to have an unhealthy hatred of the West… I dislike McGowan with a passion, but wishing for a base closure and the resulting upheaval for hundreds of Staff seems a little cruel.

Not to mention the stupidity of bypassing a market of 2 million plus potential passengers of which 170000 are UK expats… yeah that’d be a brilliant strategy.

[Crash8]

I'd almost give up my firstborn for QF to keep this going permanently and shove it in McGowans face. When you pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too, and this is solely a result of his inflexible border policy. Nothing more.

The NT Government could really do well out of this if they play their cards right IMHO, there's more touristy things to do in the Territory than in or around Perth and they could get some significant benefits of it in the long term.

It’s a good possibility that DRW will continue to feature in the kangaroo route with the 380 until the 350 arrives. It will be great for the NT, no doubt.
AJ will be keen to get Perth London back up as the loads were always strong with the locals contributing significantly. I can see both PER & DRW operating to London next year.

[Xeptu]

Funny most of the rest of the western world has already learned to live with it. Middle East, Europe, North America from what I have seen first hand. All opening up. My inbox is getting hit regularly with OEM invitations to face to face conferences, trade shows etc. for early 2022. Asia still has a way to go.
Besides mask wearing, and some limitations on taxi numbers in some places (the new normal) you wouldn't know there was a pandemic on in many parts of the world over the last few months. Now is a perfect time to travel! Get the jab, and go. And if wearing a mask is too much for you on an aircraft go an buy a bag of cement.

Anywhere around Europe is a domestic flight to us, not even a Sydney to Perth sector, won't be doing no 30 hours in the flight levels wearing a mask, "EVER"

[compressor stall]

Anywhere around Europe is a domestic flight to us, not even a Sydney to Perth sector, won't be doing no 30 hours in the flight levels wearing a mask, "EVER"

And that’s your right. Have fun on Rotto.

[Xeptu]

And that’s your right. Have fun on Rotto.

Rotto lol! why would you bother, the rest of the country will do just fine along with the other 5 mil Aussie travellers. They have all bought caravans.

Your travelling market by Air is China and they aren't opening up anytime soon, if ever again, even if they did their not coming to Australia, in case you haven't noticed we are on the nose in China.
The next biggest obstacle is the Cruising Industry and Bali, until that's restored there won't be a lot of domestic air travel and even less international air travel.
I wouldn't be counting on the Australian traveller alone to restore the airlines, we are just a piss in a bucket.

[compressor stall]

Always the patriot sandgroper. Sure it used to be cheaper to go to Bali than Rotto, but those ~30 flights a week meant 2/5 of 5/8 of what's 300km beyond Leonora for the rest of the country, they look a lot further afield. And how will you get back into WA with your winnebago when it's the last place trying to be COVID free? It would be good travelling through Longreach again though - a lot less crowded as the grey nomads who've bought the Jayco and the 200 series are selling them and heading to cruise the Danube.

And last time I looked most of the China tourist traffic came in on Chinese carriers - in a lovely closed loop zero sum tourism system. The absence of those flights - and draconian Chinese quarantine - might in fact push Aussies who had gone that way for the cheaper fares to Europe onto QF / EK / SIN. Can't be a bad thing?

Demand is there for travel. I was on a 380 a couple of months back, chockers downstairs in economy, quarantine had just been abandoned for returning residents so there was a surge of families outbound to see rellies they hadn't seen for 2 years. I'd never seen so many kids on a fight. Business upstairs a bit under half.

Your last sentence is the only cogent bit.

[dr dre]

You seem to have an unhealthy hatred of the West… I dislike McGowan with a passion, but wishing for a base closure and the resulting upheaval for hundreds of Staff seems a little cruel.

Not to mention the stupidity of bypassing a market of 2 million plus potential passengers of which 170000 are UK expats… yeah that’d be a brilliant strategy.

Despite KRaviator’s desires the QF PER 787 base isn’t closing, this was communicated to staff, the plan is to restart PER-LHR in April, and thats because of the actually over 200,000 UK expats in Perth (more total than Sydney or Melbourne) and being QF’s most profitable international route pre pandemic. They probably want more services on the route.

The NT is currently in last place (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-02/charting-australias-covid-vaccine-rollout/13197518) in the projected 80% date by almost 4 weeks, and I don’t think pax will be allowed to disembark and roam around the NT on a layover until well after that date.

And WA seems to acknowledge a reopening is coming, the Health minister this week indicated a reopening date (I assume to NSW and Vic) would be “later this year” (https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7454859/wa-vaccine-dodgers-to-face-consequences/), not mid 2022 as some had suggested

[doublemamba]

Oh how exciting! I could ****!. Just think soon we will be allowed to pay double for what we always did before. As long as we have passed all the extra tests and are carrying all the extra required 'papers' to prove we are of good social credit status. We must follow the new normal according to our great goobermint in Cant'bra!

[Xeptu]

Always the patriot sandgroper. Your last sentence is the only cogent bit.

For a start I am not based in WA these days, but am well connected to its political circles. Secondly the last sentence is all that matters in Australia.

[Xeptu]

Wrong, just plain wrong.

Two of the busiest air routes in the world are found in Australia. (https://www.traveller.com.au/worlds-busiest-airline-flight-routes-melbournesydney-now-worlds-second-busiest-h0e7ha)

As you would expect in such small aircraft, over the longest routes in the world.

[CaptCloudbuster]

Always got an answer to everything X, haven’t you. :rolleyes:

[MickG0105]

As you would expect in such small aircraft, over the longest routes in the world.
"Busiest" is measured in passenger numbers not flights, so aircraft size is immaterial. As to "the longest routes in the world" we're taking about SYD-MEL and SYD-BNE; of the top 20 they rank 16th and 17th for route length.

[B772]

QF need further flying and hopefully profits urgently to stem the current losses and a negative return on equity (-335%). Debt to equity ratio is now 1323.6% and with negative cash flow debt is not well covered. Short term assets of $3.4B do not cover the short term liabilities of $7.6B. Ouch.

[MickG0105]

... Short term assets of $3.4B do not cover the short term liabilities of $7.6B.
That roughly 2-ish : 1 current liabilities to current assets ratio is nothing new for QF; it has bounced around 2 : 1 for the past five or six years. It does take on a different shade with the current cash flow issues.

[LapSap]

"Busiest" is measured in passenger numbers not flights, so aircraft size is immaterial. As to "the longest routes in the world" we're taking about SYD-MEL and SYD-BNE; of the top 20 they rank 16th and 17th for route length.

Well that's not the definition OAG are using- they use number of flights.

[MickG0105]

Well that's not the definition OAG are using- they use number of flights.
No, OAG don't use flights; they use seats.

Methodology
The busiest air routes are defined as those with the largest volume of scheduled airline seats in the current calendar month.
Source (https://www.oag.com/busiest-routes-right-now)

It takes about a second of reasoning to conclude that using flights would provide utterly meaningless comparative data.

[Bad Adventures]

2 A380’s back by April for SYD/LAX

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/qantas-fast-tracks-flights-to-singapore-fiji-bangkok-jo-burg?fbclid=IwAR0hT02kAE2xoZliINThEL79yJVj9N10OvZa21skHcWc0i tP0ZB8XruoDTw

[thisishardtochoose]

QF Starting bringing back SYD-DEL flights from 6th December with the A330

[wobblymammall]

What’s happening with flight prices for this international restart. $7500 return for two people too LA in December and January are really going to hinder the want to get out and travel

[C441]

What’s happening with flight prices for this international restart. $7500 return for two people too LA in December and January are really going to hinder the want to get out and travel
A quick look online suggests a direct SYD - LAX return from mid December ranges from $2500-3000 per person depending on the airline. Not unreasonable in the circumstances I would have thought.