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.

If they were going to use CR, you’d think it would be before everyone who took lwop to avoid CR start coming back in September.

Unless the vaccine somehow turns into an abysmal failure, I really don’t see CR being needed.

With the announcement today re vaccine going earlier (February now) which makes me think did AJ know or maybe heard a rumor this could happen hence selling tickets in July?!

I’m sure AJ and co will be formulating a plan and that plan will involve every Domestic pilot. I’m sure every international pilot will be needed there is a void in the Australian market now VA are no longer.

It would be wonderful news if they can roll this out on the timeline announced and we can all get back to work again. The US also had a plan to vaccinate huge numbers in a short time frame, last I read at the rate it is actually going at now, it would take them about decade to vaccinate most of the country. I'm sure the Australian roll out plan will be smooth as silk though...

If it is to be mostly the Astrazeneca vaccine for Australia, and it is widely available from CSL at refrigerator temperature(-2deg C), can't see why vaccinating the entire country in short order would be much of a big deal at all. I didn't see any queues whilst as many as 18 million people received the flu jab, last year.

27 May 2020
"An additional two million flu vaccines will be available from this week bringing the total number available in 2020 to a record 18 million.This is up from 13.2 million flu vaccines in 2019, 11 million in 2018 and almost 10 million more than the 8.3 million flu vaccines provided in 2017.".
https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/...ct-australians

What proof is there you’ve had the flu jab though? If it’s a requirement to have some sort of COVID passport stamp for travel, that would add to the logistics compared to the flu?

i have a travel vaccination record. Somewhere.
it was a thing for a long time for visiting some parts of the world.

mechanism exists

Whilst we've rarely had the flu vaccine the past, in order to enter the retirement facility where my Mother-in-Law resides, we were required to show proof of having had the flu vaccine. Three of us had received the vaccine at different centres, but a simple receipt from each, presented at the time, showed the date and the type of vaccine received. I'd be surprised if this information is not available anytime you get this jab.

IATA are working on a vaccine passport at the moment.

https://www.iata.org/en/programs/passenger/travel-pass/

And this works fine in a high trust environment - all that's at stake is your propensity to kill your Grannie, so you have a high incentive to be actually compliant.

Not so much if having a genuine-looking Covid vaccine certificate is needed to allow you to for example: escape the Covid-hotspot hell you are stuck in; and/or gain the DEC position you've been working towards since you were a teenager; and/or complete the PhD that will ensure your and your families financial security for the next twenty years.
In these situations, something you can bodge up with a word processor and a bit of free PDF editor software isn't going to cut the mustard. I'm guessing there might be something like a Visa stuck into your passport with an official stamp.
Of course, in a country where $US100 is a month's wages for a high-paid passport office worker ...

My stand down job involves me ensuring people have a fluvax. Some print out their immunisation record from mygov, others have a standard letter from their doctor. All of them look like they could be created on Word in about 5 minutes.

It will have to be a lot more secure than that.

It wouldn't be hard to have something that could be verified online at a government website. A bar code on the vaccine pass which when scanned confirms the validity of the pass and displays a picture of the holder, no more difficult than scanning a boarding pass at an airport autogate.

laminated cards at least! Would take at least a trip to Koh san road to get something that legit.

The government said there is no way borders will be open or Australians permitted to travel overseas In July.
Greg Hunt said it was always the end of 2021.
Considering a mutated and more infectious strain exists and has spread globally like the UK strain, they won’t be in a hurry to open borders.
It may even be delayed till 2022.
Other than the IFAM flying, repatriation or Tasman flying there won’t much international flying.
Does not look like there will be much domestic flying either.Border closures look to be in place till the vaccine is established.
Lot of unknowns why qantas would be doing this.Could be revenue.Could be best case scenario as someone said.Could be a way of pushing for extended jobkeeper so they can extend stand down.

July is 6 months away and vaccination is expected to start in February. A well run campaign could have sufficient numbers of people protected to allow a limited opening up with restrictions and conditions in place. A vaccination certificate and negative test result might suffice for inbound travellers, and could be a requirement for departing the country.

Borders are unlikely to be thrown open on 1 July but there could be an easing of the noose.

“Start” in February is the key word. Pretty sure the Aus Govt plan has the vast majority vaccinated by the end of October at the earliest.

Israel currently has the fastest rollout of anywhere and they can only do 1 million in 12 weeks.

Given the highly conservative choices taken by the state governments at least (not sure the Feds have the same view), I’d say July has ZERO chance of QF doing any international flights. Even at Christmas time my pessimistic view has a 50/50 chance 14 day quarantine will still be in place for a large number of arrivals.

Fed Gov plan is to have 4million people done by end of March. Given the cautious approach and planning they’re taking they can’t afford to mess this up. Sco Mo will announce an election some time this yr so this will be apart of his election campaign, the success of the roll out.

Most definitely - in an election year ScoMo can't really campaign on closing the international border like the state leaders were able to trumpet their excellence in keeping out the great unwashed. WA appears to be doing just that (election in Mar). ScoMo will be judged strongly on the rollout and it's perceived effectiveness from now until then. It is in his best interests for it not to be a clusterf*ck. The federal health department doesn't seem as dazed and confused as some of it's state counterparts.
News suggests most of USA and Europe under emergency protocols are not even coming close to using all of their batch allocations (lots of vials in warehouses not being utilised yet).

We have a chance for the government to really try to get the rollout right. Media suggests they are working with the states and territories right now... I think in this aspect of the pandemic response there is room for cautious optimism.

The other thing to keep in mind is as the vaccine is rolled out and as the percentage of the recipients increases, you might find that the requirement to quarantine will probably change from mandatory hotel to being able to be done at home, this in itself will allow an increase of travel inbound, although probably initially not tourists, more like returning citizens and students. You will then find vaccinated Australians will be able to apply for a permit to leave and travel.
So around July you have the situation crossing over from what we have now to what will become the new new norm for a while until it can be fully opened up, my guess would be about this time next year.
WA will be sometime around 2050. :rolleyes:

Caveat being this is applying commonsense which has been lacking with the current bunch of Australian politicians.

I think with four million being vaccinated by March, a July start date for QF might not be far off the mark. The main issue is to vaccinated the vulnerable group ASAP. Get them done and the pressure is off the health system. Anytime after that and it’s icing on the cake.

So with international fights commencing July 1...whose coming back from LWOP? Where’s Normanton these days - very quiet!!

787 is scheduled for daily

SYD - SFO, LAX, DFW, JNB, LHR, HKG*
PER - LHR
BNE - LAX
MEL - LAX

Did we acquire some extra airframes or something??
Let alone crew.......