Bookings are now opened up for most QF international flights from 1 July.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...from-july-2021

Obviously, subject to change but things are looking up.

July 1 not even half the nation will have the jab. I was thinking more Q4 of this year.

He did say last year, October of this year and if he is a still largely grounded the cash has run out. I assume major equity raising on the cards because I don’t think we will be seeing much movement until late year.

There were 32000 tests in victoria on sunday,i would have thought that was at least a fair if not good number.
Of course the hotel quarantine was crap in june but what was done to fix it has worked & yes us the public paid the price.
We can go on & on criticising govt decisions but in reality overall we are doing pretty well when you look at the numbers coming out of some european countries with population similar to ours.
Its not great that the borders were closed so quickly but when the outbreak in nsw started the vic govt advised people not to go to sydney.
There are many now jumping up & down saying it took too long to close the border so really how do you win.
I really dont care whether the premiers are lib or lab & i have always thought Gladys has done a very good job & although many wont agree i believe Dan has done pretty well down here apart from his monumental f up with quarantine.

Yes Dan is doing well 800 dead on his watch, turning ppl away for testing due insufficient staffing seems this guy does not learn from the past.

Yes NSW stuffed up early on Ruby princess I'm sure everyone remembers, they learn from that at least.

So AJ, is he on a fishing expedition to gather interest for a bigger plan on how to manage numbers into 2022, or, does he have better intel than the gov?

Closing Covid testing at 0930 during a pandemic due to excess demand doesn’t classify as doing a ‘good job’. Even more so when you’ve had 8 months to put the processes in place. Even more significantly after having already been caught with you pants down previously. We haven’t even started on the ‘hard border’ locking Victorians in NSW and unable to return home, the 24 hours notice provided, the contrary nature of the advice that previously spoke of Sydney but then extended the hard lock down to all of NSW. Victorian government is a basket case.

Or it’s merely a very easy and cheap method to conduct market research about the level of demand and how that varies by destination

It generates cash flow as well, pax pay for tickets and QF get to use the money interest free until the flight either operates or gets cancelled and refunded.

With the vaccine now a reality, realistic predictions can now be made regarding a return to something approaching normal.

Domestic - hmmm, maybe.
International - totally different beast, no way.
Just IMHO.

Depends how the vaccine is going really. If all the vulnerable groups here are vaccinated and only vaccinated pax are carried with some kind of testing done on arrival I don’t see what the issue is. I haven’t seen the schedule but I’m guessing it’s possibly reduced to start, with the aim of ramping up once everyone here has had the jab.

“Closing” a testing station in Melbourne doesn’t mean it’s closed all day, it means it’s unsafe to accept more people due to safety reasons ( like cars blocking roads, excessive wait times). These stations are usually re opened a few hours later and continue through the day.
the media gets everyone in a frenzy to get to a station at 5 am before they open at 9, if people got to these so called “closed” testing stations at 5 in the afternoon it’s a 15-20 minute wait, but that’s not newsworthy...from personal experience.
not sticking up for the Vic gov at all, just as is often the case in our industry, the media are selective how they report.

The vaccine will only stop the severity of the the disease, not specifically infection. There’ll still be vaccinated travellers who spread it, but not nearly as much as those with a full blown version of the disease. Eventually with enough herd immunity the virus won’t find anywhere to go and spread won’t be exponential.

There are some at risk groups with weak immunity who can’t be vaccinated successfully so herd immunity will
be crucial to protecting them. But yeah it’s telling how international are iced are planned to begin in July, I thought the vaccine rollout wasn’t going to be completed until closer to year’s end, but management might have more accurate info from the government on when the critical levels will be reached.

I'm somewhat surprised after all that's happened that so many are simply expecting a new vaccine, without the usual testing protocols, on a virus that's already mutating, will be the silver bullet.
Hopefully yes - hell yeah but .....

There's no way the government has any "superior" info to pass on to anyone, they can only go along and react to the successes and failures that get thrown up as we bumble along.

Equally - just like the borders opening and closing on whims - Qantas et al can just as quickly stop selling seats, cash to gain and nothing to lose.
And if flights cancelled - rebook or credits, no probs.
Refund the cash? :D:D:D Not in this lifetime! ;)

Any form of forward planning requires assumptions to be made and plans are based on this and tweaked as necessary. In the past, computer modeling was reasonably accurate, schedules and fares could be set based on the previous year + or - a bit. Now it's a shot in the dark, no one knows how many people want to fly from Sydney to Hong Kong on the 23 of October and what price they will be willing to pay. The software that adjusts prices based on supply and demand needs altering, bookings could be lost if it sets fares too high based on a last minute rush and people decide not to travel, but revenue gets lost if it fills the aircraft up early with cheap fares in response to low demand as people wait and see.

QF need to start somewhere and getting a few flights going in July, possibly with similar fares to 2019 and adjusting from there seems a reasonable move.

The day they were closing multiple sites early they did 23K tests in the day. Hardly a big load when you consider that NSW did just under 70K tests in the 24 hours leading up to 8pm on Christmas Eve.

70k is a huge number but for the past few days there have been more tests done in vic than nsw,in reality there are always people who will pick the facts they like out of media reports & use them to their advantage.
There were 2700 tests done in qld recently over 70 sites so avg less then 40 per site but the media didnt like that story.
In the act 1 day recently there were about 200 tests done for the day,what a massive result!
I think you will find that most if not all of the hierachy in the testing scenario right now are trying to get as many people tested as possible but like lots of things its very hard to please everyone & achieve a timeframe that everybody likes or is happy with.

The issue has never been about who is testing more, well for me anyway Vic and NSW the biggest so should be comparative in numbers. My issue is the capability for a state to handle a spike in testing and cope QLD recent debacle WA has never even tried they think 2000 is a massive haul you would think given what Vic has been through no thanks to DA incompetent leadership that they would be the world leaders in this area the Vic gov have not learnt a thing. Only NSW has proven they can handle this pandemic whilst living as normally as possible yes there have been mess ups but lessons learned. Victoria random rule changes based on nothing, the latest this morning not allowing their own residents to cross not only have we now separated as Australians their own state is turning them away.

Two Plans
 

I suspect that the QF Head Shed are working on two plans. The one being advertised is the best case scenario - everything tracks towards being able to start flying Internationally from 01 July 21. The other (confidential) plan is the worst case scenario. This takes into account Covid +. The plus? If you hadn't noticed things aren't so great around the world and events even bigger than C-19 may be in this planning mix. China, Iran, US domestic politics - take your pick. I suspect that this plan will be the absolute last ditch attempt to keep Qantas International afloat with a core of International expertise if it all blows over.

I reckon that this second plan would be the sweeping away of all industrial agreements and a selection of a small group of personnel to keep the operation in a sort of hibernation. You can speculate on what that would look like. Perhaps just keeping the 787 due to its youth and legs and 300 pilots. Less? From that work out how many people are required to support them.

With left and right of arc established, as events unfold, management can select boxes from each plan's shelves and apply as necessary. Note that I think that government ownership will also be at play if events approach the worst case situation.

''With left and right of arc established, as events unfold, management can select boxes from each plan's shelves and apply as necessary. Note that I think that government ownership will also be at play if events approach the worst case situation.[/QUOTE]''


Why would government ownership come into play when the government made it perfectly clear when VA was looking for help "a market lead solution"was the way to go. Not saying that was the wrong response by the way.

Cheers Hoss 58

[QUOTE]Why would government ownership come into play when the government made it perfectly clear when VA was looking for help "a market lead solution"was the way to go. Not saying that was the wrong response by the way./QUOTE]

Fair enough. I personally think the government would not let the 'flag carrier' shrink its international arm past a certain mass.

Qantas has already said it won’t come out the other side of the pandemic the same size in international.No airline has.
Around 190 + pilots were identified as Long Term Surplus. They won’t need those numbers for a decade.
Just because a seniority number might be 200 less does not mean anything.That is best case scenario.Even after moving up a few hundred numbers many will not keep their position after a few RINs.
Getting rid of a few people off the bottom in long haul would be a reality.Would only cost QF 26 weeks pay at SO rates.