kick starting international
 

if airlines could advertise lower airfares then surely that would increase bums in seats.
One way of doing this, is to go back to old way of collecting international departure tax which I think is $60 per adult over 11 years (or whatever it's called now), at the airport on day of departure.

We have to get the leisure traveller flying again, especially from NZ to Australia to help our tourism industry, who can then pay taxes.

So for example if a SYD/AKL fare could be advertised for $140 instead of $200, that sounds a lot cheaper, especially for families, when the multiplier effect comes into play.

Sure the $60 would have to be paid at the airport, but, it's then not perceived as part of the airfare ($140 + $60 later seems cheaper than $200 now)

Looking at it another way, if airline maintained the $200 one way fare, they would end up with roughly $60 more revenue multiplied by millions of passengers (minus commissions/credit card fees), which would help the bottom line, keeping people employed.

Remember a quote from a Tiger OZ sales guy, saying Tiger found significantly different demand when fares varied by as little as a dollar or 2, although that could have been the difference between $99 & $100, which is much more than $1 in peoples heads.

So the govt would have to employ a few dozen people to collect the $60 or pay someone else to do it. Big deal. Talking pennies compared with hundreds of billions they are currently throwing around right now.

You cant't do that in Australia it's against the law. Prices are inclusive.

The real solution is to make Australia/NZ a domestic market. Something which Alan Joyce has pushed for in the past

of course you can, if departure tax is no longer part of the airfare.

There's so much money involved. $60 x every single departing pax, that's fed govt needs more than ever now.

Have seen cases of some people not going ahead with flights over very small amounts. Price points are very important, which some airline pricing/RMs don't seem to get.

In people minds $999 is much less than $1000.

$777 is closer to $500 than $1000.

Which is why in a huge % of price advertising, many prices end in 99.

Fanks BNEA320!

Oh wow, Me wish me went to the same skool as you with fis very akurate mafs

it's been tested many times

Because 7 is closer to 5 than 10, the brain thinks 77 is closer to 50 than 100 & so on with 777 etc.

Besides your maths being in another dimension I'm not sure of your argument re the PMC.

Section 53C of the Trade Practices Act prohibits the advertising of items that don't have the full price up front. You can't just add it on later. Is it this you want to change?

Or are you trying to argue that the PMC of $60 shouldn't be there? That's actually a valid argument. IATA determined some years ago that the loss of the PMC was roughly equal to the increase in tourist traffic spend in country. Of course that spend is not in the government coffers so it went unheeded.

It’s not maths it’s psychology



Price points are everything in retail.



Nothing to do with 53C.



If it’s not part of the airfare & govt collects it separately, then more people will fly.



Think about a kiwi family of 6 all over 11 years. That’s AUD$360, they don’t factor in. Sure they have to pay it at OZ departing airport, but the brain does not factor that in.



Until a few years ago, you had to pay a departure tax, by some other name, at Queenstown NZ.

There was a court case years ago that found the government could not compel the airlines to collect Departure Tax/PMC. They do as it provides a smoother journey for the passenger. The court case was around whether the government could charge carriers for any shortfall in the amounts provided. They can't but each carrier has formalised arrangements with the Govt re reconciliation, but the airline cannot be criminally prosecuted for not collecting if they don't want to.

Two things that you may have forgotten

At the moment borders throughout the whole world are shut. Your Prime Minister has said that Australia will be closed until at least December.

The second thing is the likely reluctance of people to travel overseas

Yep, the good news is that you have more than 6 months to figure out a new international pricing structure...

Some people might not factor it in as part of the Airfare, but it'll still be factored in as part of the journey. I don't see it as any different to factoring the costs of the accommodation, car hire etc..

International is stuffed until at least the end of the year aside from a few charter flights and a minimum schedule funded by the government for freight and essential travel. Domestic will start building from June/July but will take perhaps 12 months to get back to a reasonable demand and perhaps 3 years to reach pre-Covid levels.

Maybe talk to the Chinese government as they control most of the Finances in AUS/NZ !

not at all.

For most people paying off some of their trip in smaller increments is not only much easier, but it also seems less.

eg. some wholesalers, get a small deposit off you to start with, then progress payment, then pay for this, then pay for that & don't give you an all up total, as it might scare some people. Some travel packages purposely leave out some things that maybe required, but can be paid locally.

How many people, after a holiday, sit down & work out exactly what they spent in total. Not many.

Think international travel will be operating in some form in a few months & back to some sort of normal within 6 months, but no one actually knows. Emirates want to get things moving fast with corona tests before boarding & masks for everyone, with very little close contact between flight attendants & pax.

The longer this thing goes, the more deaths not caused directly by corona (suicides etc), so all govts need to get the world working again ASAP.

Trans Tasman, once both countries (Australia and NZ) are as Covid free as possible, has to be a starting point for Pacific regional travel. Many have family links across the Tasman, and holiday traffic goes both ways too. Add in the Pacific islands. They will be hammered by the lost tourism revenue, and if both countries can send disease free passengers there it will help them too.

The recurrence in Singapore and the state of the US and Europe suggests LH is a long way off. Maybe get those wide bodies doing once or twice daily to the main centres as a starting point later in the year

Call me a pessimist but I think NZ will get a covid spike when people emerge from lockdown..unless there’s an underlying large group of people having had the virus without symptoms..the evidence would seem to indicate the disease will take a certain % no matter what precautions the government takes

The Fed Govt have stated until the New Year
Likely that is conservative and will be extended a tad, with a possible exception of Aust/NZ travel
Imagine international kicks off again in March 2020 , effectively you have had zero for a year
Unlikely to be a vaccine as the medical guys say , 12 to 18 months "best case" , normal time frame for a vax is five years & vaccine might not be achievable
I was thinking if say QF had 50% of international loads after two years (from outbreak) that would be pretty good going
But in reality this is going from 0 to 50% in twelve months , as you don't even kick off until early say March 2021
That's not going to happen is it ?
Wouldn't it be more like that QF might get to 50% of pre-covid international numbers by 2023 ?

What % of people are going to walk away from international travel for a few years or more ?

320 they(Fed Govt Ministers) have said it is off until next year ? Why do you think it will start in a few months & be back to "normal" in six months . That is before
the starting date or did you mean to say back to normal in six years ?

Think any LH pilots in Australia are going to be stood down for some time

BNEA320,
Any cheap fare offered for overseas travel,will gain little traction, until there is a treatment or a vaccine.
This is because, most if not all travel insurance companies will not provide cover for this pandemic.
Therefore if you did take the cheap fare, went to say the USA, got the virus, probably wouldn’t kill you....but the US medical bill would possibly send you to the cleaners financially!

.
Allow NZ flights to operate from T2 and T3 rather than T1. Allows more flexible operations, less towing and significantly, fewer runway crossings.

At Berlin-Tegel Airport the immigration officers arrive at the gate, passengers are processed, once the last person is through they relocate to another gate (as required).

Boe787 got it right. No covid travel insurance then no International tourism.