Qatar to Canberra
 

I wonder if its cheaper for QR to fly the SYD-CBR-SYD legs than park the aircraft in SYD for the 8 hours or so.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-...22-gxglui.html

.. might be cheaper if they could shave some time off a (wait for it) 60 minute CBRSYD sector time ..... I vaguely recall we could do a return trip in about that time.

I'm more interested in the fact that this is some sort of loophole to get extra Sydney services as they are capped at the maximum rights to Major Australian cities, hence adding a tag service to 'regional' Canberra as there are no restrictions.

What next? Doha-Brisbane-Cairns in order to fly to Brisbane.

This could end in tears. I'd be careful booking any of those new flights.

I was led to believe, many years ago, that EK started the SYD-AKL-SYD to avoid the ridiculously high cost of parking a 345 in SYD for 15 hours!

I believe that type of routing is allowed under the current Qatar/Australia air services agreement.

Their back door access to Sydney is via servicing a "Regional Port Destination"... ie Canberra.
Nil restrictions on Regional ports (Cairns / Adelaide / Canberra etc) but East Coast Capital slots are chocka-block (Anyone got the actual peak hour movements lately?).
QR have always been interested in increasing the Sydney or Melbourne runs and this is one way they can do so for Sydney. They already have the "Super- Guppy" going to both ports and want more seats!
White Knight - EK, Yes, for the early morning arrivals, in part due to exorbitant parking tickets in Sydney based on weight but it also gave them direct access to a lot of EnZed fresh produce as well as a slice of the very busy Tasman market and traveling Kiwis. Same with their aircraft out of Melbourne and to a smaller extent BrisVegas. EK tried to buy up a whole lot of very fertile agricultural land around Hamilton for a food-bowl project but the local Maori tribes said no way.
Do a little research to find out what agricultural land QR own in Australia and you'll be surprised.

I suspect it's more likely that Qatar Airways sees potential in the Canberra market, but doesn't want to take the risk of throwing a whole aircraft into the market from a cold standing start.

Also, is it really true that this counts as a regional flight as far as slots/capacity into Sydney is concerned?

Why wouldn't you simply use the oneworld alliance privileges, and have QF bring you your passengers from CBR-SYD?
(Unless chocks, or Warragul are right?)

If you really did plan to establish a service to a city, having your own metal on the ground daily is the only way to do it.

Also, I'm skeptical that it would be so easy to circumvent the rules around capcity into Sydney. But as I have no knowledge of how the rules work I'd be curious to get an authoritative answer.

Is it to be an A350? ...CBR can't take the whale surely?

Nope, it is this easy. I believe Cathay must be using the same system with their BNE-CNS-HKG tags.

Keep in mind this is not about slots at the airport but simply meeting the regs in terms of bilateral air capacity. Qatar gets a certain number of flights a week to SYD/PER/MEL/BNE, it's up to the airline how many flights and cities it actually serves. And just because theoretically the government would permit 4-6 a day exclusively to Sydney, doesn't mean the airline would get slots from the airport operator. Two separate things.

But if you do want more flights to a big city like Sydney or Melbourne and can get the slots, all you have to do is tag on a flight to a smaller city like OOL/CBR/HBA etc. If you can still make the economics stack up, power to you :ok:

It's to be a 777. An A380 could do the hop to Sydney you'd think, Airbus flew the demonstrator into CBR on it's 'world tour' umpteen years ago.

A daily service will be a plus for Canberra. I tried desperately to make the SIN flight ex CBR work for a recent trip to the UK but the 3/4 day a week timing meant I couldn't return direct to CBR on the day I needed so QF via Mel won my business. Prices were not too different.

why would it end in tears ? Qatar Air has access to plenty of interest free money

surely the triangular route DOHA/SYD/CANBERRA/DOHA & vice versa would be much better. Who wants to fly ANYWHERE via the mess that is SYD.

Osama Bid Ladin should be employed to wipe out SYD, it's such a mess. (who says he's dead - U.S. govt )

You sound like a child.

get off this site, if you don't like it.

You have made a good point in your post

If this were a truly Canberra flight, it would make better financial sense to run a triangle type flight, rather than stopping at Sydney twice
Less fuel, landing fees etc
More importantly, a 1 stop Canberra to Doha and a NON STOP Doha to Canberra

But me thinks that it would be hard to sell Doha to Sydney via Canberra for those traveling to and from Sydney (which will make up 90% of the passengers

Conclusion
This is not a flight that is aimed at generating traffic to and from Canberra, more so just an additional service to Sydney

Solution
If there is that much demand from Sydney to Doha, then might I suggest that there is plenty of opportunity for VA or QF to fly the route, as per the bilateral agreement.....

The demand isn't to Doha, it's through Doha, to everywhere else, but mainly Europe. Much easier for the passenger to stay with the same airline for the connection in the ME.

Yup BNEA320 is a child. :hmm:

Sorry, couldn't find a sarcasm icon :D