Qatar Airways to operate out of Sharjah
 

From the UAE Khaleej Times(10/10):

"QATAR Airways will commence passenger flight operations from Sharjah International Airport on October 28 to European, Asian and Middle Eastern destinations, according to a Press release.

"It is the tremendous demand that is encouraging us to operate from Sharjah and we are sure the Sharjah International Airport will support our cause to the best possible extent," said Regional Manager of Qatar Airways Ali Al Rais.

Qatar Airways will operate two weekly flights, connecting international destinations like Frankfurt, London, Munich, Cairo, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Doha, Kuwait, Jeddah, Riyadh, Amman, Beirut, Sanaa, Mumbai, Trivandrum, Delhi, Karachi, Lahore, Dhaka, Khartoum etc, on Mondays and Thursdays.

The airline is operating with Airbus 320 and Airbus 300, equipped with state-of-art in-flight entertainment and shopping facilities. It has plans to add more flights in the future.

The Sharjah airport handles more than 1,000 passengers per day and is expecting a steady increase in traffic with the onset of winter. The Sharjah International Airport is witnessing a steady increase in passenger movement since the last quarter and more new airlines are planning to operate through the airport owing to the facelift given to it as a whole."

Bit like BA saying.........'Edinburgh to New York on BA' (but via LHR!).

All these flights will be via DOH.......they said the same thing in the Bahrain press a couple of weeks ago.

Re: Qatar Airways to operate out of Sharjah
 

hi
i think it will be good for the gulf family to go to shrj than dxb
.the traffic will increease spesialy the familys like the hotels between sharja and dubai. and it will be faster to check in and out than dxb ,and u are there ,it is good destaniation it is dxb #2
route and dxb is stratigic destaniation i think

Bahrainlad, I was wondering why they were bothering, since the competition from DXB is going to be keen. They are offering some fairly aggressive DOH connect times - less than an hour in a number of cases.

Pricing will be interesting.

If it's anything like Bahrain, the pricing will be "competitive" to say the least!!!

In fact, so "competitive" that they will undercut every other carrier and destroy the market, just like they did/are doing in BAH.

All this guff about QR being interested in profitability....they want load factor, not yield.

Well said
 

How true, QR is not (and never have been) interested in yields, they are only interested in load factors.

although QR boasts about high load factors on some routes, yields are pretty sick. think easyjet has better yields. I am not surpised that they have ruined the BAh market with low prices, that is why i said in my previous posting, the guy in charge of revenue and yield manangement is useless, a puppet.

but with SHJ I hear the booked load factor is only 20%, so what is going on? In fact I am awaiting some inside info on this... so watch this space. Rumours are that this is a subsidised route by shj authorities.

has anyone heard that QR is flying to MAN from march 2003? I hear that it will be 5 times a week to compete with EK. There goes the prices in MAn too

shj was a diplomatic request

From what I have heard there are incentives offered by SHJ for QR to start flights there. SHJ has been trying for a while to attract passenger airlines to fly there especially with the new terminal under construction which would otherwise be a waste if not more passenger airlines operate to SHJ.

In my opinion starting flights to SHJ is a wrong move and if they see lots of demand to that area of the UAE then adding extra flights to DXB is a better move. Also 2 flights per week doesn't make much sense in attracting business passengers or connecting passengers. Probably the only people you'll see utilising these flights are labourers from South Asia.

On the subject of yeilds, most if not all airlines around the world saw dropping yeilds in the current economic climate especially after September 11. You are seeing airlines such as BA which traditionally were very reserved with discounted tickets now offering excellent deals for Business and First Class passengers. QR are known on having low prices for connecting traffic, but this practice is not only used by QR but by most other airlines operating to the Gulf. From Doha if I want a cheap ticket to Europe, my best bet is KLM followed by GF or EK. To Asia both EK and GF undercut QR ex DOH and you see airlines like AI, BG and even IR offering unpassable deals to Asia. Another thing to consider is that QR don't advertise much (something that I disagree with) but the CEO believes that offering cheap tickets will still be cheaper and more effective in attracting passengers than advertising.

Another trend that I am surprised no one noticed is that QR are also increasing prices to many markets. Ex-LHR QR had very low prices to Asia and the Gulf. Prices started to increase after QR got more established in the London market. After September 11 prices plunged again and this is a natural way to attract passengers back into flying. Now if you monitor prices on QR ex-LHR you will see a steady increase in prices from round about March and now for example prices to KTM and MLE are nearly double what they were at around January. The same thing is happening all accross QR's network, in routes where QR are starting to get more established prices are being raised to being comparable or even higher than competitors.

One last point, QR's isn't supposed to be profitable untill ~2007 and all losses are acounted for. In fact from what people in Upper Management said including Al-Baker QR are meeting and exceeding all their targets and the losses they are making are less than what they have accounted for.

If I was running an airline I would chose a slow and steady expansion plan, but with QR's financial backing they can afford rapid expansion plans and only time will tell if those plans will be succesfull or not. In fact if you looked at Al-Baker's plans in 1997 you will see that he didn't plan all this expansion but rather pursued a more slow, steady and focused expansion plan but the reason QR have been going through all of this expansion a few years ahead of this plan is summer up in this quote from Al-Baker.

We plan to freeze our fleet expansion no later than 2005 and then wait until we get our A380's. But we are servants of our country, and if my government wants me to expand more than is allowed for in my business plan, then I have to obey. We are geared towards the requirements of the state.

If the government wants QR to expand in expense of profits then it is their right since they are the ones financially backing it.

Anyway I am happy that this thread has gone down to the level of hurling insults and constant bickering.

In regards to prices, I think it is almost always that connecting traffic will have a lower yield than directs. So, when it comes to selling tickets from Doha, GF and KL will logically offer lower yields than QR. However, I have also heard that when it comes to selling tickets from BAH, QR has been REALLY undercuting GF by quite a lot thereby slowly killing GF. I have also heard that the reason they can do that is because they do not have to worry about certain costs (such as fuel, which is paid by the government). As a result, they can afford to lower prices significantly and steal away traffic from GF. How much of this is true?

Boilermaker,

I have also heard that the reason they can do that is because they do not have to worry about certain costs

I don't know about fuel I wouldn't be surprised if its free, but virtually everything in DOH is owned by them (e.g. Ground Handling, Catering etc...). They also have a very low cost structure compared to other airlines in the Gulf for several reasons. So the money saved helps compensate for the low yeilds.

Anyway all there losses are covered by the government so they can afford to lose money. The government will basically give QR all they need untill they can get on their feet and have the IPO before then end of this decade.

It's hard to do a direct comparison as they fly on different days....but for a week jolly to CDG from BAH in Feb next year, QR are almost £200 cheaper than Gulf Air........and GF is a non-stop service!!

Total: £705.40
09:45 Depart Manama (BAH)
Arrive Paris (CDG) 18:45 Wed 12-Feb
10hr 0mn Qatar Airways 153 / 15
Connect in Doha (DOH)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21:20 Depart Paris (CDG)
Arrive Manama (BAH) 09:00 +1 day Wed 19-Feb
10hr 40mn Qatar Airways 16 / 152
Connect in Doha (DOH)


Total: £902.00
01:45 Depart Manama (BAH)
Arrive Paris (CDG) 07:05 Thu 13-Feb
6hr 20mn Gulf Air 19
Nonstop flight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11:20 Depart Paris (CDG)
Arrive Manama (BAH) 19:40 Thu 20-Feb
7hr 20mn Gulf Air 18
Nonstop flight

BahrainLad,

It works both ways (Prices from ITN.net).

Doha (DOH) to Paris (CDG) Friday, February 14 / Paris (CDG) to Doha (DOH) Friday, February 21

Qatar Airways: QR3050 ($876.30) non-stop
Gulf Air: QR2000 ($597.30) via Abu Dhabi (AUH)

That just proves my above point that all Gulf Airlines do this and not just QR.

It is not really a case of just Gulf airlines, but this sort of thing happenes all over the world, even in the U.S. Direct tickets are almost always more expensive than itineraries with connections. It does not make any sence to have a one-stop ticket be more expensive than a direct, since there is more travelling involved. So, to make it attractive, the price is less.

Fair enough.

My only remaining argument is that I have heard from several people, including those who sit on the Bahrain Yield Improvement Committee (made up of representatives of all the airlines) that QR are in danger of being reprimanded for aiming to 'destroy' the market out of BAH......so much so that other airlines are starting to complain....

I havent been in Dubai for a while, but on the last intra gulf flight I booked, I was under the impression that all NON STOP flights had to be the same price. On my last trip to Doha, I looked into return flights from Dubai. EK, GF and QR offered the same fare. The travel agent said there was an agreement between the airlines that they all would charge the same price from Dubai. Similar scenario when flying to BAH and MCT. All flights had to be the same price. It was the rules.

I recently checked the internet and it also backs me up. Flights from DXB to MCT, BAH and DOH are all the same price, give or take 1 or 2 dollars. Is this rule just valid for flying from Dubai, or is it valid from the other nearby states.

I should also add that even the 1 STOP intra Gulf flights were very, very similar in price.

Cheers

It isn't really a rule that the prices should be the same. Every now and then, the airlines get together and try to agree on a certain unified price for certain destinations. This is to prevent the decline in yields that all airlines are going through due to the severe competition. Sometimes it works out and they abide by the agreements made, and sometimes they don't.

The way QR is undercutting the fares is ridiculous. The published fare on my OW ticket from Trivandrum to Heathrow via DOHA was around Indian Rupess 35000.The amout I paid to my travel agent was Indian Rupess 2000. I had checked with some three others all flying on the same flights to Heathrow on QR and some were paying as low as Indian Rupess 17000 (50% of the published fare).
Load Factor at what cost?
rsoman

load factors at QR
 

It was roseman asked the question of load factors at what cost?

Inside info is that since May this year (after the current commercial ex-GF man taking over), yields have dropped significantly and QR's brake even load factors have supposed to risen closer to 80%.

I found out yesterday that the current load factor on the network is about 68-70%, very much less than to even to cover the cost of operation. I am confident that this is accurate info as my contact is very close to people in commercial.

so we all can see the affect of low ticket prices, and for sure, QR has a vcery high cost base to match its very poor revenue.

I am awaiting some very useful info which maybe of interest to us all here.

Now before anyone accuses us of QR bashing, the comments I have made are reality and causes for concern for every staf and Qatari's like me who are proud of QR (not for their management obviously!).

Peace my rothers!

BA load factor
 

Interesting concerns expressed on load factor. In their latest release(09/02), BA say that their current passenger load factor is 76.8%.

the plot thickens.....
 

Two more airlines reduce fares

By SOMAN BABY


TWO more airlines have followed Gulf Air's lead and reduced their fares.

Qatar Airways and Indian Airlines are the latest carriers to reduce their fares to India.

Civil Aviation Affairs (CAA) yesterday endorsed a move by airlines to offer promotional fares for limited periods.

Gulf Air reduced fares by up to 50 per cent to 29 destinations in Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent on Sunday.

Gulf Air sought the approval of CAA before implementing the new promotional fares.

"The new fares have been introduced under certain terms and conditions and for a limited period of time," a CAA Air Transport Directorate spokesman told the GDN yesterday.

"It has been made clear at the Board of Airline Representatives meetings that every airline has the right to introduce promotional fares for a limited period, provided the CAA is informed three working days in advance," added the spokesman, in reply to a letter from Air India. Air India had complained that Gulf Air's unilateral decision was a blatant violation of the Yield Improvement Committee (YIC) fares.

"Gulf Air has followed all regulations before slashing their fares - other airlines also have the right to do so," continued the CAA spokesman.

"Airlines wishing to do so should apply in advance and we approve their decision if we find it reasonable."

Qatar Airways reduced its fares to Bombay and Trivandrum to BD139 yesterday, against Gulf Air's BD150.

The fare was earlier BD202 to Bombay and BD244 to Trivandrum.

Gulf Air's new business class fare to these destinations is BD200, while Qatar Airways reduced it to BD149.

"The move has been taken to protect our market share. We have already written to CAA," said a Qatar Airways spokesman.

Indian Airlines reduced its return fares to Calicut to BD210 from BD265, while a one-way fare dropped from BD165 to BD125 yesterday.

"The sales validity is until Monday and outbound travel should be completed before November 30," said Indian Airlines area manager G Dinakaran.

Air India had earlier matched its Bombay and Delhi fares with that of Gulf Air on Sunday.

The Cochin fares were reduced yesterday from BD265 to BD210 (return) and BD165 to BD125 (one way).

The airline also dropped its one-way fare to Bombay and Delhi to BD95.

Gulf Air's fares are based on return travel.

Gulf Air's regional general manager for the GCC and Middle East, Ali Murtaza, said the reduced fares have been welcomed by the travelling public.

"The response in the past two days has been overwhelming," he said.

Meanwhile, travel agents have taken measures to benefit from the new fares introduced by the airlines.

Sunshine Tours is offering three nights accommodation at an extra BD30 each to passengers who fly to Malaysia and Bangkok on Gulf Air at BD150.

Passengers travelling to India are being offered three nights' accommodation in Bombay at BD30 and three nights in Trivandrum at BD35 each, said general manager Abraham John.

the plot thickens!
 

From the Qatar Peninsula(16/10):

"The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has cautioned all travel agents in the country against selling air tickets at discounted prices offered by Gulf Air under its Ramadan Kareem scheme. Travel agents found selling such tickets will be fined QR10,000 for each rebated ticket issued, according to a CAA circular.

The notice states that Gulf Air introduced these fares in the market without the mandatory approval from the CAA. The CAA usually approves the market fares that can be offered by any carrier in the country as agreed under the banner of the various Yield Improvement Committees (YICs) to prevent a fare war. The circular urges travel agents not to accept any new fares from airlines unless they are endorsed by the CAA.

While comments from Gulf Air and CAA officials were not available, industry sources said that a few concessional tickets had been issued since the scheme was announced earlier this week. Travel agents expressed surprise at the lower fares announced by Gulf Air since the period starting just before the Holy Month of Ramadan and lasting till Eid Al Fitr is considered the peak season, when fares are usually higher."

So.....QR undercut everyone out of Bahrain....but when GF give QR a bit of their own medicine in their own market, they're not allowed to?

Double-standards? Surely not!

and now Oman ......
 

From "Times of Oman"(15/10):

"Breaking the serenity on the fare front, some of the airlines have come out with ‘thunderous’ offers. Two key airlines have fired the first salvos of this ‘war’, which will be duly responded to by the other airlines. But, what Oman Air and Gulf Air have done this time is that they have crushed the business class return fares to Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram to RO190, which is lower than the economy fares (RO199).

While this offer is only for a limited period, it is still bound to woo passengers into the flying fold, but travel agency officials yelled blue bloody murder yesterday after Oman Air followed Gulf Air into this temporarily turbulent ‘low fare season”.

“It’s ridiculous; absolutely ridiculous,” a top agency official told the Times of Oman yesterday.

“How can airlines stoop so low? They have brought the business class fares to abysmal depths, which is now treading lower than the economy fares…what does this mean? That the business class passenger is lesser than the economy class passenger?

“Clearly, this is an insult,” the agency official said.

Another agency official said: “This is typical. No load; no YIC (Yield Improvement Committee). Until then there is this great drama of YIC and keeping to the norms, but the moment the loads suffer, they are reaching for their scissors.”

But, passengers are not complaining. “This is a Dussera (festival) gift,” a passenger said, adding that this could also be to usher in the Diwali — festival of lights — next month.

The reason for this sudden low fare offer is not known. But airline sources claim that loads have been pretty low — especially on the business class level — to Indian sectors and therefore this was a “gimmick” to woo some passengers into this segment.

“I was travelling from Mumbai the other day and I was the only passenger on board the business class. I had two stewardess catering to my needs,” an agent, who is a frequent flyer, reported.

Gulf Air triggered this slide when they slashed their fares on October 13. However, their promotion (sales) would end by October 19. But travel validity is till November 30, 2002. Chances are that they would continue for another session, sources claim.

But, Oman Air came out blazing a day after, keeping their offer (both sales and travel validity) up to November 30.

“Now, it is just a matter of time that the other airlines would follow suit,” airline sources said.

However, the biggest slash is not on the Indian segment. Gulf Air, Oman Air and Qatar Airways are offering amazing fares on flights from Oman to destinations in Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

Qatar Airways is clearly featuring the most unbelievable offer — just RO135 for a return ticket to London/Paris/Frankfurt/Munich/-Milan.

While Gulf Air is also offering an otherwise incredible offer of RO150 (return) to Frankfurt/London/Paris on economy class, it pales in comparison to the Qatar Airways offer.

A brief look at the fares: Oman Air (business class fares): Mumbai (RO150); Chennai (RO190); Thiruvananthapuram (RO190); Colombo (RO200); Beirut (RO190); Cairo (RO190); Zanzibar (RO210) and RO140 economy; Dar Es Salam (RO210) and RO140 economy.

Gulf Air (business class): Chennai/Thiruvananthapuram/Islamabad/ Lahore/Peshawar (RO190); Mumbai/Delhi (RO170); Dhaka (RO160); Karachi (RO150); Kathmandu (RO200); Colombo (RO200); Bangkok/Hong Kong/Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur/Singapore (RO300); Frankfurt/London/Paris (RO600); Larnaca/Istanbul (RO300); Sanaa (RO220); Khartoum and Nairobi (RO200) and Casablanca (RO700).

Gulf Air (economy): Frankfurt/London/Paris (RO150); Larnaca/Istanbul (RO100); Sanaa (RO90); Khartoum/Nairobi (RO120); Casablanca (RO200); Bangkok/Hong Kong/Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur/Singapore (RO150).



FYI 1 Omani Rial is about 1.67pounds sterling.
Thus RO150=250 pounds sterling.

Nice to know that "..the biggest slash is not on the Indian segment"!

Newswatcher

Loved your last line.

Wet socks can be so uncomfortable.

Yup. I was tickled by that last comment too.

On the subject of the original thread, Dubai Airport and negotiating Dubai city traffic to get to the airport, has become a real pain. I know of lots of people who are quite thrilled about having alternatives to DXB. SHJ is one of them.

Then there is the proposed new airport at Jebel Ali. It seems to have been given the go ahead.

QR will simply continue to undercut GF on all routes to force out the latter. As simple as that. That is the remit that the new guy has been given. Simple and true.

However, QR are somewhat yield focussed. I don't entirely agree with the comments about load factors and volume in Y as being the be all and end all of the company's business strategy.

The new Jebel Ali airport has rumours of going ahead, not going ahead....the subject of a new Jebel Ali airport is still not at all clear at this time. The proposal for a new airport is for cargo, not for any sort of passenger services. It would be great to have an airport there as Jebel Ali is the main industrial zone around Dubai with the huge man made Jebel Ali Port, all of the oil and metal works etc..etc. But again, if an airport does pop up there, there will be no plans to operate passenger services.

On the subject of transportation to the airport, yes it can be tough getting there sometimes but it just depends which way you go. People only have a problem sometimes if they decide to plough straight through rush hour traffic in the obvious problem areas. If you are on the South side of the Creek, there are four ways to get accross. If you are on the DXB side of the creek, the airport is only 5-10 minutes away from anywhere.

If you are travelling from Sharjah, then it can be a different story as the Dubai-Sharjah highway is notorious for numerous accidents everyday. However, there is no excuse for travellers who live there to moan about traffic to the airport as there are alternative routes to get to DXB. No matter where you are travelling from to get to DXB, it is easy to get to if you just avoid the trouble spots.

Much of the air traffic passes through the airport at night. When much of the services occur from say 11pm to the end of the Emirates rush at 9am, there is not really a problem getting to the airport. For those travelling to the airport for those flights the roads are very quiet.

The UAE's first railway is scheduled to open with the new terminal at DXB in 2006. This railway will connect key points in Dubai with the airport and provided it runs well, it will eliminate any excuses to moan about finding it hard getting to DXB.

Just one more point to do with pax for the SHJ-DOH route. Of course passengers are going to be happy with an SHJ-DOH route, but the only people that will tend to use it will be business travellers or those doing visa runs wanting to travel to DOH or BAH. Business travellers wanting to travel beyond will still go to DXB. For example, if a businessman wants to travel to Bangkok, it is much more convienient for him to travel to DXB and get a direct flight there rather than travelling to the closer airport, go backwards, connect and get on another plane to Bangkok.

If tourists are travelling back to their home countries and live in Sharjah, I doubt very many people will use SHJ, even if they are planning on travelling on QR and connecting through DOH. They will go to DXB and jump on that QR flight simply because DXB is a much better airport. The Duty free is amazing, facilities are superb. If QR fly out of both DXB and SHJ, why would you want to fly through SHJ when DXB is a much better airport? Tourists dont really want convienience, they want quality and DXB is a lot better than SHJ. I know people who live in Sharjah, and often flew Gulf Air back to the UK. Every time they made the trip, they connected through BAH. However, when GF used to fly SHJ-BAH, they never hopped on that flight, they went to DXB as it was a much better airport to travel through.

In my opinion, the QR SHJ-DOH route will barely attract any passengers wishing to connect to onward destinations through DOH. The passengers will primarilly be business travellers to DOH and BAH and those on visa runs to DOH.

Cheers

Difficult to believe that the airport at Jebel Ali will be just for cargo. With the development of the holiday trade, particularly the "palm tree" islands(interesting article in the Mail on Sunday magazine today(20/10), I would have thought that Jebel Ali was an ideal destination for the "package" brigade.

See also:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...ight=jebel+ali

Newswatcher,

I cant argue with your point on the 'package brigade.' My knowledge of the new airport comes from my Dad who is an architect/project manager in Dubai. When the whole idea came up for a new airport a few years ago, all of the design companies became excited about getting the job. It was then that the idea was to build an exclusive cargo airport, similar to Ostend in Belgium to take the cargo directly to the Free Zone at Jebel Ali. The idea for the airport to be exclusively for cargo was partly because of transportation problems for lugging huge machinery from the present airport to Jebel Ali. It is a surprisingly long distance, and due to the large amount of buildings between Jebel Ali and the airport, it would be tough to build a railway to link the 2 together.

The idea for the new airport was going to include one hell of a long runway to allow the largest aircraft at their MTOW's take off in the hottest temperatures. Railway lines were going to have direct links to all points throughout the Free Zone. Highways solely for the purpose of transporting cargo around were also going to be built. The idea was to keep all of the industrial operations away from the city, to keep the busy city centre clear of large slow trucks.

This was all just a few years ago, but unlike today there was nowhere near the same amount of hotels around. Possibly now they are thinking about sending some pax services, but I am sure they will more or less solely charter traffic. I never thought about the charters but Jebel Ali would be an excellent place to put them. However, Palm Island is not really going to be a package sort of place. Yes, there are going to be many hotels, but 5 star jobs. The houses on the island that can be bought are all exceeding 250,000 pounds to buy. The shops are all Gucci and Versaci types. Its not really a package place. I think on that whole stretch up Jumeirah beach, there is maybe 1 4 star hotel, when the rest are all 5. The Rulers are looking to attract tourists, but not in a Cyprus or Ibiza sort of way. Areas in those package holiday countries have become destroyed and the Ruling party does not want to attract that sort of crowd. Not to put anyone down by saying that but I mean they dont want people walking around the streets at 5 in the morning spewing into a jug of beer. They are trying to attract more middle to upper class tourist families.

So to tell you the truth....LOL....I dont know what is going on now. So much changes all of the time you never know what to think. I have been away a good few months now, and when I go home the place is going to look so different. I just hope Dubai doesnt turn out to be a major package destination. I have lived there upwards of 8 years now, and it would be a real shame for the place to become a mess. I have seen how irratated the residents of big tourist destinations get when their streets are constantly engulfed by tourists. I dont mean to sound selfish or anything, but when its your home, you dont want the place to become majorly overcrowded.

Just one more thing, I thought it was funny on that thread how if DXB sold the land they were going to expand on, it would pay for 80% of the new airport. It sounds funny the Arabs watching their pennies. ;)

Cheers

Good info BYB.

Actually many of the tourists come on "package" holidays now, it's just that the air element is scheduled. Earlier this year RB visited Dubai and made encouarging noises about Virgin flying to Dubai. When I contacted them, they said that this would not happen during 2002. In fact, in their brochure for 2003, Dubai is included, but air travel is with Emirates.

Remember that the hotel prices drop considerably in the summer, when only "mad dogs and englishmen.......". In fact I have even seen Burj Al Arab down to less than £1000 for 3 nights, from the UK, including air fare!

NW,

Actually it was last year when the talk started of possible Virgin Links to Dubai. I believe RB's first visit was in March '01. He had long talks with the ruling parties in Dubai and proposed quite ambitious plans about flights between DXB and LHR. I believe he talked about 2 or 3 flights a day! His idea was to make Dubai the Virgin Hub of the Middle East, not just with the airline, but Virgin inc.

However due to the tragic events of 9/11, things were put on hold. The beginning of Virgin inc continued however with the opening of the Virgin Megastore in Dubai's Deira City Center. He himself made an appearance to open the place. On a side note, I actually got a job there for three months after putting my flight training on hold until most of the 9/11 tensions blew over. RB took us all out to Scarlets for a free night out. Good Man. Back to the subject at hand, he used his time in Dubai to speak further with the Ruling Party. He explained that plans for the Dubai service were postponed as he needed to consentrate on sorting out the TransAtlantic services. However he made it very clear that Dubai was still very much in the picture, and would still get services in the near future. There are a couple of articles, before and after 9/11 about RB in Dubai. Ill look them up and give the site.

On the subject of the package tours, I understand that there are packages available from around the world. When you said 'package brigde' i thought you were implying 30 jam packed British Charters a day as you would most like likely see going to Malaga and Majorca. When I am back in the UK, I often check out the deals in the windows of Thomas Cook. What I cant understand however, is that folks can get 5 nights in the Jumeirah Beach hotel with return flights on BA for half the price it costs me for an EK return ticket from DXB-ABZ.:confused:
I dont think i'll ever be able to understand that one. Even for us living in Dubai, it would cost us more to have a couple of nights in the JBH than it would for someone to come out from the UK and have twice as long a stay.

Anyway, Ill try and look up those articles for you to have a read.

Cheers

Here are the Gulf News articles on Virgin in Dubai. Both before and after 9/11

Gulf News Virgin March'01

Gulf News Virgin October'01

QR Yields
 

News flash!

I had my contacts in finance and commercial reconfirm some numbers on QR yields. this clearly highlights the problems/comments made in the earlier threads under this topic.

qr yields on BAH has dropped to USD18.00 per pax, the beauty is according to finance... pax cost, res charges etc works out to over USD25.00. So qr's commercial team is in fact paying passengers to fly qr not the other way around.

I am told that the same applies to most other routes, yields are lower than pax cost. I have been promised that I will get more details on these in the coming weeks.. SO WATCH THIS SPACE!

Now we don't want the pro qr fans to bash this thread as false becuase this si ture and accurate info from fakris team. just pointing out the grave situation the airlines is in and if not for the govt... Qr is insolvent!!!!

peace my brothers!

Thanks BYB, you are right, I should have referred to my notes. Doesn't time fly!

For Dubai hotels, you may find these sites useful:

http://www.asiatravel.com/uae/uae.html
http://www.asiatraveltips.com/HotelsinDubai.shtml
http://seastour.com/dubai.htm

I dont really like taking sides on the QR topic. There are so many conflicting reports from all over saying yes they are the best or dont touch them with a barge pole.

However, I am beginning to think there is no excuse for having bad yeilds. Take Emirates for example. They were a loss making airline and like QR they knew they were going to be for a few years. However, this was purely due to expansion, not bad yields. Prices of Emirates tickets have often been higher than the competition. The prices have not really gone up or down in the past years, yet they still get got loads and good yields.

QR is going to run into a problem down the line. Fair enough in someways I have to agree with what they have done. Introduce very low fares on new routes in order to promote the routes and then when people have had a taste of QR, increase the fares to a more reasonable level. That is standard procedure among airlines. However, to everyones disbelief the fares keep comming down. If any money is going to be made from this operation yields are going to have to improve significntly, especially when the airline is spending millions on new aircraft and facilities.

Ok, now we have Qatar inc. Fair enough you can have a loss making airline, but if its bringing millions to the economy there is not as much of a problem. However, as has been said by many people, QR is mainly looking to attract transit passengers using the hub in Doha. Basically there are not many people contributing to Qatar inc as they are only there for a few hours. There may be good loads on many of the routes, but the pax are not getting off in Doha. They are heading further east or further west.

Now we say, Emirates attracts a lot of transit passengers. Yes they do but many of those passenger stop in Dubai for a few days and empty their wallets into the economy. Also, much of the passengers travelling to Dubai are stopping there as their final destination, giving further amounts of money to the economy. Emirates Airlines itself makes huge profits and maintains excellent loads without charging half the price of the competition. And without a question Emirates Inc is huge.

With the low fares being offered on some routes, it is going to begin to pi** off the countries whos airlines are suffering because of it. For years Emirates was not allowed to fly to Bahrain because they were competing with Gulf Air. The idea of Gulf Air was to have one airline for Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman. However when Dubai perks up with their own airline Bahrain says "You betray us, you dont get to fly here." If QR keeps undercutting GF on everything they do, Bahrain and also Abu Dhabi could turn round and say your not comming here. And what shocks me the most is that Bahrain allows QR to operate low fares from there, but Qatar doesnt allow GF to offer low fares from Doha. That just seems rediculous.

It is said that it will be 6 years until QR makes a profit. If that is true, just think of how much they will have lost until their first year of profits. Much of the airline is backed by private backers but if they are losing TOO much money, it will encourage QR to start making some, or they will pull out completely.

To all the real pro QR guys out there, it may sound like I'm having a real bitch but I'm just telling it like it is. I like QR, I find that they are a great airline to fly with, however it is time to start playing fair. People say they have reports of QR making good yields on some routes which seems impossible as even with a full load, the fares they are charging would barely pay for the fuel. I know Doha is no Dubai, but that is no excuse for applying some of these fares. Flying with QR has always been a good experience and with the service they offer they should not have to cut the fares. Once Doha is at the social and economic level where passengers are getting out and spending some cash, Qatar inc will be laughing all the way to the bank. However, it will be a couple of years till then and QR may not only run into trouble as an airline, but also may have some problems with its neighbours.

Just telling it like it is.

Cheers

Interesting post BYB. However, I would like to query your statement about Emirates pricing. I am not aware that they offer discounted prices directly, but they most certainly do through "bucket shops". I was planning a trip to DXB at the beginning of August this year and, at one time, Emirates were actually cheaper than QA. Return for under £300, as long as I used LGW both ways!

Obviously prices fluctuate wildly but, for next February(half-term) the current prices are - £350 with Air France; £356 QA; £383 KLM; £487 BA and £563 Emirates.