Recce

Theridiculous China air rights decision by Qantas to not even bother contesting the route is a classic example of what we are talking about. At the moment there is not a lot of traffic between Australia and China (largely because of minimal air services) though a decade from now Chinese overseas is projected to rival Japan of today. By 2005 China will, by current estimates, be the second strongest economic power, surpassing Japan and rivalling the USA. Yet in 1993 Qantas doesn’t even consider it important enough to submit a plan for serving this looming economic superpower. Unbelievable! In defence, Qantas management claim they were misled by the DoTC over dual carrier designation rights between Australia and China. If that is true then those responsible should honestly walk away from their comfy offices in disgrace. Certainly there appear to be grey areas within the present bilateral that are being sorted out as these words are written and hopefully what will evolve is a system where Qantas will be able to regain its footing and serve one or two ports in China while Australia Air (which has yet to get off the ground, so to speak and may never even prove viable due to lack of capital) serves the rest.

In the meantime though the whole silly situation (where Qantas also left open the back door for a potential long term competitor) would not have occurred if the airline had been serving Beijing with a twice weekly 767-200. Surely there is sufficient traffic from Australia to China to warrant a 400 seat per week service between the two nations? This also of course highlights the old theory that there is never traffic till sufficient capacity is available to serve that market. One of the more obvious lessons of deregulation is that it actually stimulates the market through the addition of new capacity and frequency coupled with competitive fare structures not available in a highly regulated minimal service regime.

Many feel that Qantas is also missing the boat on Europe. Two decades ago Qantas flew to dozens of ports that it now doesn’t. Apart from Australasia and SE Asia, it’s only primary destinations nowadays are London, Frankfurt, Honolulu and Los Angeles. How much traffic, for instance, does Qantas throw away each year through not serving Athens? Doesn’t it consider Australia’s huge Greek community ever travel home, or Australian tourists and business people wish to visit south eastern Europe? Obviously not.

That daily 767 services could be hubbed out of Bangkok into anumber of European ports is something that we shouldn’t even need to suggest. Australian traffic to Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Paris and even Berlin (with its Eastern Europe connections) could be stimulated heavily with daily services. And if traffic was genuinely considered to be insufficient to warrant such services why not operate them on a seat share basis with the host airline? What business traveller, for instance, is going to fly to Paris with Qantas when he spends half a day traipsing through Europe to get there. From Melbourne it’s a five stop service, and that’s no joke! Locally, the scene is no better. Ansett win rights to serve Bali via a number of convenient Australian ports including Darwin. Immediately, Qantas moves to operate the same routes. Funny that it never before suggested that it operates 737s out of Darwin for Bali, to open up that market and also promote the NT by backloading European tourists already in Bali. Ansett takes the initiative (because it has to as the new boy in town) and Qantas moves into the same boring copycat tactics that mirrored three decades of the dreadful Two Airline Policy.

The Tasman will be no better. It is hoped that by the end of this year all the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine problems will be resolved and 1994 will be the year the Tasman is finally freed up. Ansett is set to initiate a wide range of point to point A320 services and we bet that whatever they do Qantas will mirror the schedule a day later. Not to serve the market but merely to make life hard for Ansett. We are not intending to push Ansett’s barrow here, we are simply sick of seeing opportunities thrown away by an airline that should know better.

Equipment choice is also masked by a near religious Boeing only policy. Qantas really needs, to maximise yield on many of its secondary routes and to pioneer new long haul markets (which will ultimately go to somebody else if its doesn’t make a stance), an ultra long range aircraft in the 250-300 seat class. That aircraft of course already exists but because it is not made in Seattle it stands little chance of getting taken seriously by Qantas. If Qantas were, for instance, to buy the A340 it would be able to serve all of its long haul routes with premium high yield traffic using a three class configuration with a viable freight capability to boot. Instead it persists in a two class, low yield economy orientated minimal freight capable 767 fleet that leaves too large a gap between the 767 and 747 markets.

Qantas A340s could maximise yield on new nonstop routes like Brisbane or Melbourne/LA, London/Perth or Darwin, Sydney/South Africa in addition to opening up the eventually vast South American market.

As Qantas begins to enter a new era with challenges before it undreamt of just five years ago it had better begin to rethink its image as an ultra conservative government owned monopoly living within a protected cocoon. Those days have gone and it is now time for Qantas to get out and fight for it’s markets before somebody does it for them.

Justice at Last?

During the course of this issue the long awaited Coronal Inquest into the tragic loss of the RAAF 707 in October 1991 will take place in Melbourne.

Hopefully the inquest will be able to unearth information and most importantly attitudes not available via the RAAF’s own inquiry of last year which essentially blamed pilot error in the greyest of terms. Many thought that if the official report was any greyer that it would be white, as in a whitewash. We are amongst them.

Despite the respected opinion of every major airline in the world (most of which operated 707s for more hours a day than the RAAF logs in a year and do know something about the type) the manufacturer and the majority of current operators, the RAAF persists in performing double asymmetric training on its Hercules and Orions. In fact, if you have the audacity to even mention the subject you soon realise that you have touched a raw nerve. You are wrong, we are right- simple as that! Well chaps, the coroner may well feel differently or perhaps he may side with the RAAF heirachy that performing such manoeuvres in a real plane is great stuff. We await the inquest’s results with extreme interest and most of all hope that at last the wives and friends left behind by the 707 tragedy will at least be i vindicated in their simple request-“why did this need to happen in the first place?”