Virgin Blue launch five new routes!!

[HOBAY 3]

EWL,

CBR ex and to Tas is a waste of time

In the press release, DJ are saying that they are getting the connecting pax currently anyway. It is only an E-Jet remember, probably an E-170 so only 70 seats per day. The regular fares on the HBA-CBR are the same as the current connecting fares, so how can you lose money when the people are travelling anyway? Especailly when the non-stop is only 1hr 40min, as opposed to 2:15 flying time on the current connecting flights (1:15 HBA-MEL plus 1:00 MEL-CBR), so an extra 35 mins of fuel burn. Plus two climbs (where most of the fuel is burnt), in addition to two sets of landing fees, taxes etc on the connecting flight, no need to connect baggage, nor to delay aircraft so people can make their connections etc. In short, it is way cheaper for DJ to transport a passenger from HBA-to CBR on the non-stop than it is to connect - but they are charging the same prices and so will make more money; not to mention pilfering passengers off QF and also growing the market.

Then again, I suppose you would think it was great if they instead did a HBA-DPO-CBR and then continued the milk run all they way up the NSW and QLD coasts because then they could sell so many more sectors and it would make so much more money!!!

[Goldfishinabowl]

Don't want to sound like a whinger, but I wish it was Launceston. Hobart's several hours drive from my main Tassie destination when travelling from Canberra.

[43Inches]

Hobay, the equation is not so simple.

Whilst the direct flight may offer cost savings to Virgin they still need to fill the aircraft to take advantage of that cost saving. In the past they have reasoned that they can not fill a 737 so the route has not been active but they must think now they have a good chance of filling the e-jet.

A knock on effect is that effective load factors on the service from HBA-MEL and MEL-CBR will drop as a result of reduced connecting pax. These passengers helped increase load factors and supplemented income on the routes. Definately VB must be hoping to take some QF/J* & tiger pax who would have to connect through Melbourne on possibly cheaper fares.

[Thylacine]

It's the reservations stats that indicate the need and potential viability of a direct service. Taking passengers off two connecting flights frees up more seats to be sold on those sectors and saves handling costs at expensive connecting points. More a case of a glass half full than half empty. The Embraer may be a real cost saver for Virgin Blue especially when loads drop during off peak times on trunk routes, or on flights to tourist destinations subject to vagaries of current economic climate.

[airtags]

not entirely convinced of the economic rationale ........I think propensity ex TSV is a little over rated and the offset yeilds on other Tassie flights might need a few schedule changes.

Might also just be one of those desperate tight times where the line between profit and turnover becomes blurred -

still if it keeps Aussie people in flying jobs then give it a run

AT

[Eastwest Loco]

Get over it HOBAY.

The last thing DPO needs is a LCC. We have a perfectly good, if somewhat more expensive service at the moment with connectivity onto international routes on the same fare basis. I am Victorian by birth, and do no share the Tasmanian "what about me" attitude. We get DJ or JQ here and we stand to lose QF Link.

Tasmania to CBR is a very small part of the port pair mix, so where are you coming from? Are Hobartians all going to make a pilgrimage or is there something I am missing?

You are correct in saying it is one cycle as opposed to 2, but with what? THERE IS NO MARKET!!!

The pollies will continue to fit their schedule in around the limited QF services so they can use their Chairmans Lounge and J class.

Tasmania is lucky to be serviced by air at all as it is in general low yield and always has been.

Stupid decisions like HBA CBR will in the long run weaken the appeal of TAs to the LCCs as the numbers will not be good. Not our fault that their call was bad, but it will be detrimental to the overall market on all routes.

As for HBA DPO CBR, give me a break. I have been engaged in designing schedules and aeroplane utilisation for a lot of years prior to my current occupation.

If you have been involved in schedules planning and aeroplane allocation in a domestic jet operator, then well and good.

If not, then shut the up.

Best all

EWL

[43Inches]

Thylacine, You are assuming of course that there are sufficient direct passengers to maintain load factors. Usually the reason for having connecting routes (hub and spoke) or triangulated flights is to increase the net passenger loads from what was unsustainable to reasonable profit, regardless of the incured extra cycle costs. VB seems to be having a go at hub busting, a catch phrase used in the states ever since the first RJs appeared, with very mixed results. One result is total pasengers numbers increase and all are happy (but where do these extra passengers come from), the other is a drain on hub passengers to a point where all services become marginal. Its nice to think that when a 737 can not be filled that an E-jet will take its place increasing loads, however what does the 737 now do? It will still cost a stack of cash to sit idle.

The fact that a lot of these flights are once a day shows a mixed commitment effort as well, almost a testing the water attitude which would agree with EWLs' view that an unsure marketing/scheduling department is feeling for extra passengers to utilise an oversupply of aircraft.

[Stationair8]

What time of the day is the Camberra to Hobart service running?

Most politicans like to fly out late Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning after spending quality time with the family and the constituents!!

As EWL pointed they are only interested in Qantas, the members lounge and those ever important frequent flyer points.

[Sunstar320]

Anyone else think these services are overpriced from what they should be?? $149 on sale between CBR-TSV seems a little high to me...and this isn't even full price..

Here are the schedules anyway.

Canberra – Hobart

Dep-1045
Arr- 1215

Hobart - Canberra

1245
1425

Canberra – Townsville

0915
1200

Townsville - Canberra

0915
1200

Townsville – Gold Coast

1230
1415

Gold Coast - Townsville

1445
1650
Townsville – Cairns

0630
0725

Cairns - Townsville

0755
0845

Townsville – Rockhampton

1730
1845

Rockhampton - Townsville

1915
2030

[alangirvan]

I would have thought the idea of flights to/from Canberra is to get people to/from meetings. No, not just politicians. The politicians are tiny fraction of the flying market. The flights carry Canberra government people from the Government Departments, and the flights into Canberra carry Business people going to visit those Government Departments.

Flights into or out of Canberra in mid morning will not carry many business people. I would guess that a lot of people from Tasmania going to Canberra will still catch the first flight of the day, through Melbourne, so that they can get into a meeting by 10 am. They will want to leave Canberra about 5pm. Day return Business Travel is about trying to avoid hotel costs, and mid morning flights will not achieve that. The mid morning flights may be good for Canberra people who want a holiday in Tasmania, but will the market fill a daily flight?

Canberra to Townsville might get some traffic if Virgin Blue has done a good job of winning some Government Travel Contracts. Canberra people need somewhere warm to go during winter, but daily?

[HOBAY 3]

Get over it HOBAY.

Sorry that you didn't pick up on the jocular/wind up nature of the second paragraph in my previous post EWL, but looks like I've got a bite!

You and I have been debating the viability of services to Hobart for at least five years on this board with differing opinions. We've had similar debates in the past when DJ launched HBA-BNE, then again when they launched HBA-ADL, and now with HBA-CBR. Given that DJs HBA-BNE and HBA-ADL daily flights are thriving, then I'd have to say that the score is 2-0 to me, although you'll probably beg to differ .

As for the HBA-DPO-CBR, well, a classic wind-up given your frequent harking back to the days of the old F28 HBA-DPO-SYD services! Sooner or later more destinations will be lauched from Hobart (hopefully NZ, OOL, PER), so maybe you can get on the scoreboard then .

[topend3]

Is anyone aware of whether these routes will be using currently unused capacity, or will they be making some cuts on other routes to deploy aircraft to these new ones? Do they have any more E-Jets slated to arrive between now and April 6?

[Eastwest Loco]

Point (and bait) taken HOBAY.

The HBA DPO SYD OOL BNE CNS EW74/75 was a very profitable run due to its timing for the business traffic.

The worst thing was trying to keep the Southbound on time as it was quite often the aeroplane ex NLK that was assigned to EW75 ex SYD. It had to be Customs cleared, dragged from T1 to T2, have the liferafts pulled and the 1CDE seats reintalled, then fight its way out of SYD traffic.

The F27 ex MEL would usually be close to time so the tranships MEL DPO HBA and SYD DPO WNY would come into play.

I will give you HBA ADL and HBA BNE (The LST BNE also attracts a fair slice of traffic from us on both carriers, but DJ wins hands down with schedule) but I have doubts with HBA CBR. May be able to pull one back with that. I have trouble getting my head around the potential yield on the runs though, and would love to be privy to the P & L on these runs.

Some of the Northern shorthauls worry me too. An early morning return with no late day reciprocal or VV. Not the way to retract higher yield business traffic.

Time will tell I guess.

Best regards

EWL

[HOBAY 3]

Is anyone aware of whether these routes will be using currently unused capacity, or will they be making some cuts on other routes to deploy aircraft to these new ones? Do they have any more E-Jets slated to arrive between now and April 6?

Could be either topend. On one hand, the press release says that jets are being re-deployed onto these routes; but on the other hand, the NS09 schedule begins on March 29, where as these services start over a week later on April 6, so that would suggest new aircraft.

Given that it is less than 6 weeks before the NS09 schedule is operational, I am perplexed as to why both DJ and JQ have yet to finalise loading all the flights into their booking engine. JQ especially with the first week of the schedule where despite HBA and MEL being in the same time zone, two of the flights are schedules to take 2:10, the others 1:10, while the return services have two that take just 0:10, the others 1:10!

I have trouble getting my head around the potential yield on the runs though, and would love to be privy to the P & L on these runs.

EWL, one point that I don't understand about yield managment is this. Any time viability of routes is talked about, yield and business travel always comes up. I think that the reality is that significant numbers of high yield fares are only going to be sold on early morning or late evening flights. But doesn't every aircraft in the fleet operate a service somewhere around lunchtime where there are not going to be significant numbers of high yield fares? So unless you are going to have aircraft operating two sector days (!), then your airline model is going to have to cope with making money on lunchtime flights. It is the same for every route in the network.

I don't know exactly what DJ are planning with this new strategy; but if I were doing it, I would change the current CBR-OOL-CBR to operate in the slot they will be doing the CBR-HBA-CBR (better for leisure travellers), then at 19:45 (where the CBR-OOL-CBR currently goes), do a CBR-HBA, overnight the jet in HBA, and go back first thing in the morning. This aircraft could even do say, HBA-CBR-OOL-TSV-OOL-CBR-HBA? I realise there are other issues such as crewing, availability of bays, other aircraft rotations etc that I have not considered as I am not privy to that information. As you say,

Time will tell I guess.

[Southern handler]

I know both airlines (not tiger)get a lot of thru traffic to HBA from CBR that's via MEL at either ends of the day but also via SYD around the middle of the day - I think the big thing here will be the timing not the potential

[Skybus_319]

Is this true? I don't know whether to believe you Skybus_319 given that it is your first post! The flights have disappeared from the booking engine, but so have plenty of others (like some CBR-ADL for example). Given that DJ are still updating their schedules for NS09, I don't think we can say that the flights are gone yet. Well, I hope not anyway; EWL will be ramming humble pie down my throat if they do go

Well, I was booked to fly to Hobart in June, but then got the email about the flight being no longer. So I called them etc.. and they put me via Melbourne in the end, but I got a refund and spent $29 for Tiger to get me there...

Things will get more tough more Virgin if they want to raise fares, and say goodbye to these discount fares. Their competitors will just keep on slashing while Virgin are left to rust.

[fritzandsauce]

Peoples when checking to see if flights exsist, don't use the booking engine, go to the schedule pages they will show the flight there (cos if the flights full or fares are been updated they won't show in the booking engine) but from sumtime April the Sched pages show no direct flights for ADL-HBA

Do DJ operate 737's on the ADL-HBA route? ... To just drop the route without at least trying a smaller a/c or a frequency reduction for the quieter winter months suprises me (presuming winter is quieter)

[apacau]

Hi Titan

Your dummy booking for Tiger will only show those pax who have chosen to pay extra to reserve seats. Most punters on the short flights won't pay the $$ to choose their seat.

I've done MEL-CBR a number of times and the number of reserved seats is often under 10, even if there is 120-150 pax on the flight.

Anecdotally then, 20% of seats allocated on ADL-HBA, will probably equate to a pretty full aircraft!

Would be interested in hearing from someone who actually knows something as to what the TT loads are looking like, though, esp on the new ADL flights.

[Titan Driver]

Thanks apacau.