QF to announce CBR-DRW route from Feb 2010.

[Ash W]

Originally Posted by Kain C

Secondly, 330 metal (even though it's mostly plastic isn't it?) would be very welcome at HBA over Dec/Jan, even if just on selected days.

No the A330 is mostly metal.

As for the rest of your post, don't you think the airlines know what they are doing? As Andrew has been attempting to point out to you they, the airlines have ALL the facts and figures and have chosen to deploy their limited assets where they beleive they will get the best returns. Without any in depth knowledge of those figures and for every other route whining is pointless.

Edited - Mod

[Kain C]

Well, the reason that I am whining is that in 2006 this happened (from The Mercury Newspaper):

THERE may still be room at the inn for the forthcoming Christmas week in Hobart -- but there is no way for anyone to get here.

At least not directly from Melbourne.

In an extraordinary situation, no seats are available on any flight into Hobart from Melbourne on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

The situation is creating chaos for business travellers scheduled to hold meetings in Hobart next week, who now find they cannot get to Tasmania's capital city except on Sunday or Thursday.

It is believed to be the first time such a lack of airline capacity has affected Hobart for a sustained period.

Urgent talks were held yesterday between Tourism Tasmania chief executive Felicia Mariani and Qantas about improving access to Hobart.

Both Qantas and Jetstar in the past year have reduced the number of daily flights and total passengers able to fly to Tasmania, particularly Hobart.

State Tourism Minister Paula Wriedt said yesterday she was perturbed by the looming shutdown in access from Melbourne to Hobart next week.

"I will continue to actively encourage airlines to increase flights but at the end of the day it is unfortunately a commercial decision that each airline must make," Ms Wriedt said.

Tourism Council of Tasmania chief executive Daniel Leesong said while it was encouraging to see incoming planes fully booked, it did Tasmania no good if travellers who wanted to come here were turned away because of flight access problems.

"In some ways it's a great problem to have, but it needs to be resolved if it continues," Mr Leesong said.

The first flight from Melbourne to Hobart next week is on Thursday.

But even then the cheapest one-way ticket is a hefty $219 per person with Jetstar, with prices not falling below $200 until Christmas Eve.

And the flight access problem from Melbourne is not confined to Hobart. Even the alternative of flying from Melbourne to Launceston and hiring a car to drive to Hobart for business appointments is out, because all flights to Launceston for the same three days are booked out.

But none of the three domestic airlines -- Jetstar, Virgin Blue or Qantas -- is prepared to put extra flights on to alleviate the bottleneck.

Qantas is however looking at switching the type of planes that fly the Melbourne-Hobart route next week from 737s to 767s, which would enable it to offer 24 extra seats per flight.

Plenty of flights are still available in the other direction, from Hobart to the mainland.

Then for 2007, the airlines collectively offered 4,000 fewer seats on HBA-MEL for December, and 7,000 fewer for January (2008); and it happened again!

Now in 2009, we have this from September:

http://www.themercury.com.au/article...81_travel.html

December pax have traditionally been 10-15% higher than September pax. With no increase in services compared with September this year (JQ took some off for Nov which they will put back on for Dec), I can forsee it happening for the 4th time in 4 years, which I find unacceptable!

[Ash W]

Sure demand may be higher, but you are not getting the point that the airline has to consider demand on ALL routes and allocate their resources to suit.

[Gareth U]

With respect to CBR-DRW-CBR flights an employee publication implies they will connect to CBR-MEL services. I won't quote it as it is poorly worded.

Perhaps this is the poor man's version of the direct MEL-DRW QF services I was pondering? Would be a clever idea to have MEL-DRW customers connect through CBR to relieve ADL, SYD and BNE services and also boost CBR-DRW loads. I cannot imagine 3 -800s could be filled solely on O&D customers.

[Kain C]

Well, there are existing MEL-CBR (QF804) and CBR-MEL (QF483) that would connect quite nicely with the CBR-DRW and DRW-CBR respectively. So does the article imply that the same aircraft will operate MEL-CBR-DRW-CBR-MEL, or simply that there will be suitable connecting flights. I would prefer to see HBA-CBR-DRW-CBR-HBA myself, but I guess that won't be happening!

Lastly, there have been good comments regarding aircraft capacity allocation when this thread took a side turn for a bit , but no-one has posted a single advantage for QF not loading in the connecting schedule for these new CBR-DRW flights. They obviously know where it will come from, so is there a single advantage for holding back the schedule?

[Ash W]

QF804 is a 767, so that is not the aircraft that will continue to Darwin unless they down grade to a 737-800 and cancel the return QF811 flight to Melbourne 3 days a week. I don't see that happening as clearly it is a busy flight, hence the need for a 767.

One flight that does stand out is QF706 from Adelaide. It arrives about the right time to be able to continue to Darwin and I cannot see where that a/c goes after it arrives in Canberra. So maybe it is a possibility. It is a -400 though. And for the return as you pointed out QF483 seems logical but again it is a -400.

So I guess some time soon we will see some new flights, or some changes to existing flights to accomodate this new flight to Darwin. Why it hasn't been done now is anyones guess. Time will tell.

[Gareth U]

The Boeing 737-800 services will operate Monday, Wednesday and Friday, also connecting Canberra customers to evening Melbourne services.

Take from that what you will.

[Ben Smith]

Just did a dummy booking for MEL-DRW-MEL in Feb and the connection via Canberra is showing in both directions. One of the CBR-MEL evening connections, QF483 is showing as a 737-800, while In January it is shown as a 737-400. It would be fair to say that QF845 and QF483 are operated by the same aircraft.

[Kain C]

Originally Posted by Kain C

There are no additional CBR-PER, CBR-ADL, CBR-MEL, CBR-SYD or CBR-BNE flights on these 3 days; how does the aircraft get to CBR to do the CBR-DRW? Does the PER-CBR just overnight and then do the CBR-DRW 3 days a week, while sitting on the ground in CBR all day the other 4 days?

Looks like the aircraft comes from SYD. The exisiting QF 803 SYD-CBR (0720-0815) does the CBR-DRW on Mon,Wed,Fri; and does QF 564 CBR-SYD (0855-0950) on Tue,Thu. In the afternoon QF 879 SYD-CBR (1725-1820) operates Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun; so together with the DRW-CBR aircraft (on Mon,Wed,Fri) the next departure out of CBR is daily, although I don't know where to. Maybe it overnights in CBR?

[Jarden S]

From New worldwide airline routes at centre for pacific aviation, it has got 3 new 737-800 flights from MEL-CBR starting feb10. So these may be the ones that carry onto Darwin