Comment – Hope for the Eighties

By 1986 the current 737-200 will be getting pretty “old” in comparison to the then-available types such as the Fokker F-29, McDonnell Douglas ATMA, the Boeing 737-300, 757 and the mooted Airbus Single Aisle (SA) model. With TAA moving into one of these types in the latter part of the 80s you can bet your bottom dollar that ATI will be going in for a quick back trade on a fleet of 737-300s. Naturally to even suggest this now would be anathema for Ansett personnel as it would totally undermine the wide-body appeal would have us believe.

And that raises another point that has been heavily played on.

To call the 737 a wide-body is a little imaginative, don’t you think? A great aeroplane, yes, but not a wide-body. In fact the last time I was in Hawaii I came across a clever piece of marketing that tends to perform the opposite to what the ATI publicity people would have us believe.

Aloha Airlines operate the 737, Hawaiian operates DC-9-50s. The Aloha 737 has the much-applauded (by ATI) six-abreast seating while the Hawaiian DC-9 has five-abreast seating. What this of course results in is 42 window seats in the Aloha Boeing as compared with 52 window seats in the Hawaiian DC-9. Hawaiian cunningly advertise that as you have come to Hawaii to see the beauty of the islands wouldn’t it be a pity to spend your flight six feet from a window! Sort of makes you think.

Personally I always found the double seat arrangement on the port side of the DC-9 very comfortable but there again I haven’t just purchased a fleet of 737s, have It All this of course shows just how important marketing Is – will the passenger have a more enjoyable flight from Sydney to Melbourne on an Airbus or a 737? Who knows, but as all passengers must embark/disembark from the single aerobridge I would tend to prefer getting on a plane with 100 seats than two and a half times that number. On a Sydney to Perth haul the situation is different as the true spaciousness of the real wide-body {whether it be A300 or 767) comes into its own.

So there you have it; by 1984 TAA will be operating A300s, Boeing 727s and DC-9s. Ansett will be operating Boeing 767s, 727s and 737s. What this means is that we will have REAL competition between the two domestic carriers instead of the ridiculous situation where both carriers ran to precisely the same schedules creating havoc at the smaller airports and totally stifling any opportunity of real competition.

Perhaps too, our domestics won’t be all that domestic anymore. ATI have already served notice of their desire to open up North Queensland to our Asian neighbours with an introductory service from Townsville (at the heart of the Barrier Reef) to Singapore via Darwin. ATI would also like to operate trans-Tasman and also from the Pilbara into Bali and onto Asia. TAA have not been left out either and their eyes are set on the possibility of once again serving New Guinea with aircraft more suited to the route than are currently operated by Qantas.

Indeed Qantas may take pride in claiming they have the world’s only all-747 fleet but that in itself could weigh heavily against them in the 80s through tailoring an airline ideally suited to long haul Australia/UK sectors at the expense of more regional destinations. Qantas missed the boat when they let slip their Airbus options in 1979 and preferred the Boeing 747SP to either the Airbus or the Lockheed Tristar 500. Services from Australia to Port Moresby, Wellington and Christchurch, Bali and Djakarta, Noumea etc, all require something a little less expansive than the world’s biggest airliner. An A300 or Tristar would have been ideal for firmly cementing Qantas as our only overseas carrier in that shorter haul, marginal field ports not altogether suited to economic 747 operation. Instead we have Ansett and TAA jumping at the opportunity to pioneer new regional overseas routes and to serve the ports that Qantas is receiving less and less joy from. The Boeing 767, 727 and the Airbus A300 are ideal aircraft for the above mentioned sectors and Federal Transport Minister Hunt is not issuing too many negatives at this stage so the long cherished dreams of old Sir Reg getting his birds into foreign ports could come true in the not too distant future.

Certainly better schedules could be maintained, shifting a lot more passengers in both directions using a lot less fuel per person than is currently the case. It would certainly help to bring Australia closer to her neighbours – and that would be a very good thing.

On the purely domestic scene, East West Airlines has grown overnight to become a force to be reckoned with by TAA and ATl in a deregulated environment. East West, alias Northern Airlines will be getting into F-28 jets within a year and no doubt the Northern Territory government will try its hardest to stop the domestics serving any port north of Alice Springs {which itself is rapidly growing into a major tourist region) while Northern F-28s pick up the cream heading north to Darwin. One has to remember that East West is not new to the Territory – they were, after all, the first carriers to operate direct Sydney to Alice flights in F-27s back in the mid-70s. Northern will also be introducing a fleet of Swearingen Metros to supplement the Fokker aircraft, something that will certainly improve the air service in our deep north.

Airlines of NSW haven’t fared too well with their de Havilland Dash 7 plans. Firstly, the people of Norfolk Island plainly preferred the East West F-28 to the slower Dash 7 while almost overnight Masling purchased a major shareholding in the Sydney to Newcastle operator Aero Pelican. This virtually wrecked Airlines . of NSW’s primary role for the capable Dash 7 which would have been ideal for operations into the restricted environment of Belmont, home base tor Aero Pelican.

What of the future?

A lot is happening, both major domestics are to compete and I do mean compete) with opposing airlines, Qantas will ultimately need to fight to retain its regional ports, Northern and East-West are about to really take off and we, the air travelling public, despite ever increasing fuel costs, are about to get the best deal yet.