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

Ben has written a very good piece about this Qatar flight

:ok:

What would the duties be? 1 crew DOH-SYD, another SYD-CBR-SYD, and another SYD-DOH?

Good question. 5hr turnaround in Canberra. 845 arr 1345 out.

Seems like alot of effort and expense to run such a small flight then overnight, so taking the small turnarounds into account at Sydney I'll assume they will go right through (Cabin Crew only?)

I have no idea how the crewing system works but would they have a smaller domestic crew to do SYD-CBR-SYD ?

No chance of the ME3 basing crew outside of their respective sandpits.

Al Baker and Unions are not two and two that's for sure. Never happen.

PoppaJo has hit it on the head.

QR have limited slots 'originating from and terminating in' SYD. This new Canberra flight originates from and terminates in CBR. They have the right to pick up passengers in the 'fuel' stop in SYD both ways. Therefore they now have a new SYD slot, without breaching their cap.

Smart move, it has nothing to do with CBR traffic at all. Just publicity in CBR, and a brand new SYD slot by default.

I assume they have little expectations of any major CBR traffic.

QFcrew,

Sorry to rain on your parade but slots have nothing at all to do with traffic rights. If you don't have airport slots, it's just not possible to exercise those traffic rights.

That's right Ken, as I alluded to on page1 here and IBE8720 stated above but it seems people don't have their ears turned on or just don't want to understand what they're being told here from those in the know.

P.s. That article of Ben's referred to here above is a joke. The A350 with Qatar is a duck and you won't see one of their's out in Aust until they launch the WXB1000. Their current models (900's) are burning 2+tonnes more per hour than their B773's while carrying much less. The WXB1000 hopes to be comparable. Let's see what improvements in the engines they make.

Mate they have been flying the A350 to Adelaide for over a year now.

Yeh I realised that after I pressed submit but had to race off to work. Should have stated Canberra. Sorry about forgetting Adelaide, easy to do sometimes I guess, unless we're talking AFL :)

Having mentioned that, these guys are happy with them :
http://www.orientaviation.com/articl...s-praises-a350

Utter bollocks.

Completely un true. No way would a 350 be burning 2+tonne more per hour. An A350 will very quickly be cruising FL370/390/410 throughout the flight and even at max cruise thrust the fuel flow peaks ~3.7t per side. Standard fuel flow in the cruise after a few hours is around 2.7-2.8t per side

Bollocks? Maybe. I don't know as I don't fly those. Just first hand info from a Qatari skipper that I took at face value. I shouldn't have taken it as gospel.
It's not comparing like models really, is it? A350-9 vs B777-3ER ~ 65tonne difference. Many variants of the RR Trent WXB engine & I believe they utilise the 84000lb model. Maybe someone actually there (QR) can elaborate on what I was told?
Anyway, back on topic, good luck on the new Canberra run, which is good for Sydney punters with more seats available, especially during holiday/peak periods. Also good for Canberra with another International global network connection. Private owners may have to put in more airbridges, the way they're going :ok:
Happy Landings.

OK? But what aircraft won't have a fuel problem if they fly faster than planned? The 350 is efficient at M.85 so curious how fast QR were flying them

The bit that I took exception to was the suggestion that current A359s are burning "2+ tonnes more per hour" than the B773. If that were true, the airlines that operate them would be kicking and screaming. We've got 17 of them in service to date and although there have been a few issues, fuel burn isn't one of them.

After analysing all the data from the last few years of operation, Airbus now reckons the aircraft is more efficient at higher cruise speeds than M0.85. We're being told that the typical cruise speed is being bumped up to M0.86-ish as a result.

Ok, but was he kicking and screaming about fuel consumption? He has certainly made a lot of noise about delivery delays and cabin quality control issues, as have other airlines, but there are no media reports about performance issues.

We have had no issues with the aircraft not meeting its performance specs. Indeed, as I said above, the aircraft's speed schedule is set to be modified because the aircraft is more efficient at a slightly higher speed than it has been operating to date.

Consider some figures from a couple of today's long haul flights to the same destination, one operated by a B777-300ER and the other by an A350-900. The revenue payload carried by the aircraft on these flights was almost the same. The B777 only carried about 500kg more payload, but it burnt almost 19 tonnes more fuel than the A359.

Was that to Kuwait?

halas

Err, no. Long haul from Asia to Europe.

If it aint boeing
Its a boeing circle jerk

Complete bollocks. As someone currently flying the 350, and employed by a major operator of the 777ER; the 350 cruises at M0.85 (LRC ~ CI60), & blocks ~ 6T/hr. By comparison, the 777ER gets along at M0.83 & blocks ~ 8.0T/hr. The 777ER will carry a higher payload on a 12hr sector, but beyond about 14 hours, the 350-900 carries a higher payload than the 777 due much lower fuel burn & 30T lighter basic weight. No idea (yet) about the 350-1000.

VS