Anger over flight schedule changes

[Kain C]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...17/2572700.htm

Surely an early morning ERJ HBA-SYD and late evening ERJ SYD-HBA would make plenty of money full of high yield business passengers without needing to deep discount the rear as the aircraft is so small. I wonder how long it will be before this situation is changed?

[Marty H]

Both airlines wouldnt have canned it if that was the case Kain clearly it is not full of 'high yeild' business travellers, they still have the option of going via MEL.

HBA isnt exactly the 'business hub' of Australia.

[Ryan K]

From a traveller's point of view, the current situation seems ridiculous to me. It's impossible to get from HBA to SYD early in the morning for business or connecting flights. An overnight stay in SYD is now required for a lot of people. It seems ridiculus that the Qantas Group now have their first JQ service and their QF service departing within an hour of each other.

[Gareth U]

From my own experience of operating QFLink 717 flights ex-HBA the loads during Winter on the 0600 flight were not so good. Even in Summer the early flight ex-HBA was the least popular.

The first SYD-HBA flight had a VERY large proportion of connectors, from memory. I would hazard a guess that these people can connect via Melbourne to most places.

Conversely, the evening SYD-HBA was the least popular of the three daily flights.

HBA isnt exactly the 'business hub' of Australia.

Marty, patrons of the early flights from both MEL and SYD to HBA were mostly 'suits', in my experience. As were the last flights out of HBA.

Despite the above I do think that at least once carrier should be able to manage such a service, even if not daily.

[Marty H]

Originally Posted by Gareth U

Despite the above I do think that at least once carrier should be able to manage such a service, even if not daily.

Possible I guess VB could possibly get maybe a MON/WED/FRI E170 onto it, but if both JQ and DJ have pulled out of the time slot to me that says not well patronised for either airline.

[Ryan K]

JQ's reason for pulling out of that time slot was due to the closure of its Hobart base and therefore no aircraft overnighting in HBA.

[Kain C]

Well, unless they cut some other service (which would then have the other end complaining), then it will have to wait until they get another aircraft delivered. Then the new aircraft overnights in HBA. When is the next E170 due?

As for the crew, well if time between arriving from SYD the night before to departing for SYD in the morning is too short to be done by the one crew, then some sort of crew rotation whereby the arriving SYD-HBA crew do the next day HBA-CBR (also E170) and vice-versa will need to be arranged.

Then DJ will have to find some new services to operate to/from SYD so that the aircraft is kept busy all day. Could they maybe do 3x HBA-SYD with the E170, and leave just 1x 737, instead of 2x 737, freeing up a 737 sector to do an extra SYD-BNE-SYD or SYD-MEL-SYD or SYD-ADL-SYD or something?

[Marty H]

Easier said than done Kain.

[Owen H]

Kain, there are lots of things they could do to be able to have an early morning HBA flight.

The point is, is it worth it for the airline?

The "new world" airlines, such as Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger etc often chop and change routes to whatever is the most profitable for the airline at the time.

In the "old world", airlines like Ansett and Qantas used to fly fly routes for more reasons than just money, including as a service to a community. Some routes would lose money, but that was part of the deal... to have the passenger loyalty you had to fly everywhere... the profits offset the losses.

Unforutnately airline travel has become a race to the bottom, and with the drive for amazingly cheap prices, airlines have to cull the less profitable routes to concentrate on the highly profitable ones, and the days of flying a marginal route to keep a city happy are long gone.

I can assure you, if VB, JQ thought they could make good money doing that flight, they would be doing it.