Qantas used to sell HKG LHR tickets in Hong Kong when they flew that route (and Hong Kong people com

Proving yet again for slow learners that retreating from markets allows others to advance, China Southern has announced it will offer triply daily return flights between Australia and  Europe in Airbus A330s from 28 October.
payless car rental web site The European cities in the matrix are London (Heathrow), payless car rental web site Paris and Amsterdam, and the Australian gateways most targeted by the expansion of existing China Southern flights are Sydney and Melbourne, although payless car rental web site it also serves the Perth-China route, another Qantas blind spot.
The airline began offering connecting payless car rental web site flights through to London from Sydney and Melbourne in particular in June, and called this the Canton Route, since this is somewhat easier to say in English than the Guangzhou route.
It did this a few months after Qantas dropped its Hong Kong-London flights, and reduced its London flights to twice daily via Singapore, an awesomely brilliant payless car rental web site move by Qantas management that boosted the attractions of flying on a single brand all the way to Europe including London on Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Thai International.
The China Southern matrix payless car rental web site of kangaroo route alternatives involve a connecting time of around three hours in Guangzhou, or about an hour longer than typical Singapore connections, and about the same as travellers can expect in Dubai. And, on recent reports, about as long as it will take to get through Heathrow Airport even with the help of drafted UK military personnel in the current Olympic games security planning triumph.
The real problem payless car rental web site for Qantas is that its market payless car rental web site is largely only in Australia and it has no pickup traffic in Singapore or Bangkok on the way to London. At least China Southern is landing in its home base for its stopover.
payless car rental web site Qantas sells flights to Europe in Singapore, and in the past has blunted bouts of Singapore Airlines discounting in Australia by repaying the compliment in its own market, and also in Singapore s inbound markets. These days it can and does sell through the Jetstar Asia network onto flights beyond Singapore, and there is nothing payless car rental web site to stop anyone so minded constructing their own itinerary from anywhere else in SE Asia to London using Qantas and Jetstar sectors via Singapore.
Geography does make things difficult for Qantas. payless car rental web site But it isn t doing very much to try and make the best of this situation, and even when it had a glimmer of a good idea, it didn t have the management quality or wisdom required to do business in Asia to carry it off.
Qantas used to sell HKG LHR tickets in Hong Kong when they flew that route (and Hong Kong people complained when they can t get to London when Qantas grounded their fleet last year, causing an uproar and made into headline news in HK media)
We usually see the larger capacity medium range A333s in Australia, and all of the smaller capacity longer range A332s could do the EU routes non-stop. I notice it also has another 41 A332s on order, and with the incremental payload/range improvements being included in them that equals more $$$ for the airline.
Good to see ben you are still banging on about London and QF s services The whole stupidity of you argument is beyond me but I think it s important to keep you honest. Now, as opposed to the sheer loss of opportunity by not flying thru the Olympics is dropped you go on to the single-brand angle which is somewhat less entertaining I accept payless car rental web site but nevertheless ignores the fact that flying over HKG and BKK lost money Full stop. Last time I checked the poor suffering QF shareholders would actually like to think a.) the business is being run well (It is not) and b.) QF is not a charity and as such doesn t fly on routes you don t make money even if it is flights back to the motherland (For some of us).
Ben; you ve certainly been nothing but consistent in your criticism of Qantas for it s decision to axe half its London flights. (although you don t tend to dwell on other former European ports like Paris, Rome, Athens, or the add-on Manchester service) I just wish you explain why you expect QF to retain this particular loss making service ? Airlines drop routes all the time. When it s a flagship route like London it s sad but if you re bleeding money and it s only getting worse why continue ?
Given the way in which this excellent payless car rental web site and astute management has just gift wrapped payless car rental web site Hobart and handed it over to Virgin Australia by trashing its jet schedule and adding capacity with smaller turboprops I have to ask myself why would they continue with anything? Or whether they are actually continuing with anything other than sitting around while the ground rushes up to meet an enterprise which has to use a flying metaphor, been fully stalled.
The culture of whinging about competitors, geography and Middle East carriers, other than the one that recently shrugged off their approaches, payless car rental web site is quite seriously offensive. Yes things are tough. But that s their job, they need to go about it. They need to engage their staff, not play upstairs/downstairs with the hired help. They need to reflect on why they failed in Asia with plans for a new venture they forgot to tell the candidate states about before payless car rental web site posturing in the Australian media. They need to understand that ambushing 100,000 passengers with a shut down that reflected an inability to negotiate timely industrial agreements was an act of wanton brand destruction that has done the carrier, and its shareholders deep harm. They need to understand that discovering an up to 91% fall in so called underlying profits 25 days before the end of the financial year is reprehensible conduct, and they need to understand the anger of shareholders who have gone without dividends for three years, and now have a junk share price.
No one disagrees with any reasonable sense that QF is being run by a bunch of jokers You ve actually payless car rental web site missed commenting on their continuing payless car rental web site decline in the SkyTrax survey while Virgin has leaped ahead of them (I note as a Platinum flyer who has been given equivalent status at Virgin for nothing their offers (Virgin s) are highly competitive compared to QF s who don t bother with anything).
Anyway, I agree with most of the points in you last posting. I ve never known a management of any business, let alone an airline, talk down the business so badly as QF has (e.g. We will go bust if Ethihad invest in Virgin for example) and I (and all my QF shareholders are suffering) with the share price etc. at the moment. But you need to ask yourself deeper question If the management are so blatantly wrong (In your mind and indeed mine) why are they still there? Institutional invests are still to be convinced that the company is indeed being led down the wrong path and for that I have to ask why? Are the staffed by MBA idiots who have never held down an operational job in their life and are clearly being mislead by current management?
Much depends on who is really holding shares and why. The foreign domiciled level was way down to around 35% if I recall correctly. Which investors are putting their chips on a leveraged buy out, which are more generally payless car rental web site looking for a recovery, especially if they bought in at recent low levels, and which are trapped because payless car rental web site of inertia?
Why hasn t there been an LBO? Is the stock too costly for the risk? Isn t the money there? Is the asset too damaged to be be worth it? Will everyone be pleasantly payless car rental web site surprised by a less than disastrous result? Doesn t Gina want an airline with her newspapers? I don t know the answers to any of these questions, but I do know a seriously under reported corporate calamity when I see one.
Ben, the recent crash in the share price, payless car rental web site which was well canvassed here, seemed to indicate a portion of the locally domiciled hedge fund investors were shell entities of their offshore owners. As the only part of the business payless car rental web site that is receiving management activity seems to be Jetstar, payless car rental web site you could certainly assume the future distribution of Jetstar shares would appear to be the only reason to own Qantas shares.
Worth noting that Willie Walsh head of IAG noted there is no real benefits in the Olympics as the increase in economy travel balances out the loss of business travel. Also worht noting while QF may be run by Jokers it seems the rest are as well, as they are making big-ish losses.l
Nevertheless, payless car rental web site withdrawing from much of the London trade is negative for the brand s perceptions. People have learned not to think Qantas in association with kangaroo route flights. In terms of other people s losses as an excuse, well, they are not making losses proportionate to those of Qantas, dividends are still being paid, share prices have remained much stronger where listed, and it is instructive to review the most recent guidance from Singapore Airlines for its first FY quarterly traffic figures. I don t think they are having parties in Singapore, but the figures are overall pretty good despite yield pressures.
One of the enduring mysteries of Joyce s Asia commentary are brought to mind by the Silk Air contributions to Singapore Airlines performance. In his many interviews there were several moments where he said the Asia venture would not, stress not, be just like Silk Air. But that is what I believe most analysts familiar with Silk Air, or for that matter Dragonair, would have wanted, assuming there was a ghost of a chance of getting one set up that met the willing investor and regulatory requirements, and then survived a marketing contest with the relevant incumbents.
There is with the benefit of hindsight, a stark difference between the Joyce and Dixon approach to Asian opportunities, in that the latter was very aware of the inevitability, however long it took, of trans border rationalisation in Asia, and the former preferred to mount an invasion.
If we assume rationisation scenarios and strategies are the most important payless car rental web site of all longer term issues for Qantas stakeholders, it is critical to retain as much value and market relevance payless car rental web site in the Qantas group as possible. Yet this is what is being hosed into the wind.
The fare to europ