Quote:
Originally Posted by Rowan McKeever
Now, I completely agree with Kent. I actually argue that DRW would be a better port for a non-stop QF to Europe, because:
* DRW already has domestic and international operations under one roof;
* political geography aside (i.e. just on a pure great circle route), DRW is around 600+km closer than PER to LHR;
* DRW isn't much more than 30mins further (if that) than PER from both ADL and MEL, and is closer to SYD and all points in Qld, so the only non-WA city that is better served by PER-LHR than by DRW-LHR is CBR which has a non-stop PER but not a non-stop DRW; and
* the PER-LHR is, I would imagine, horribly unattractive to anyone in Qld as it's such a big backtrack.
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All of that is somewhat East Coast centric, overlooking the demand locally as well as current feeder services from the east coast and their frequency. Perth already has high traffic to the Middle East which presumably heads to Europe in the main (circa 75k a month), that's not too far from Sydney with its 115k of pax. A direct flight on own metal would be a game changer for Qantas, its somewhat ironic that Qantas has a sticking point their competition avoided by moving. Transfers to VA are pretty easy in their new environs.
Direct services and a current customer base of 75k where you have an advantage of avoiding the sandpit is pretty hard to argue against, especially when there are no current services on offer with QF metal.