Debrief

Even if, as Has Been Suggested, These Routes Are Only Running at 60 Per Cent Load Factors, That Number Would Support Six Virgin Blue E‑170s a Week, With the E-jets (Admittedly With a Higher Per Seat Cost) Being Small Enough to Handle Incremental Growth as Well as Flat Spots.

Unfortunately Qantas No Longer Has a 100-seat Cabin in the Fleet. The Excellent Boeing 717 Cabin Inherited From Impulse Was Ruined by Inserting More Seats, but the Most Readily Available Gap Filler, the Fokker 100 Which Has Become Available Through Brisbane Based Alliance, Boasts a 2+3 100-seat Cabin With a Nice 32 Inch Pitch. It’s No Surprise Qantas Recently Called Upon Alliance to Bolster Its Services in Wa, and Now in Queensland for the Mackay- Brisbane Qantaslink Flights.

Mackay-brisbane Has Seen a Qantaslink Q400 Up Against a Faster and Higher Flying Virgin Blue 737, With the Jet Reportedly Winning, and the Fokker 100 Will Provide a Significant Capacity Increase Over the 72-seat Q400 and a Better Cabin Than the 737.

Back in the ’90s, Flight West Introduced the Fokker 100 on Its Own and Operated Some Ansett Regional Services, Previously Sharing a Qantas Brisbane-gove Mine Fifo Charter.

The Japan Enigma – Blame Qantas… Again but the Storm in the Whitsundays Pales Into Insignificance Against Cairns’s Reaction to Losing Osaka, Nagoya and Half Its Tokyo Flights.

In Its Prime as a Japan Hub, Jets From Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Darwin, and Hamilton Island, Plus Turboprops From All the Coastal Cities, Meshed With Long Haul Jets From Tokyo, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka and Osaka.

But as Aircraft Grew in Size and Loads Fell, the Inevitable Resulted, Repeated All Along the Coast From Sydney to Cairns in Respect to the Waning Inbound Japanese Tourists.

Against This Trend Airasia X Seeks to Start a Cairns-bali Service, Which to Succeed Would Need to Extend to the Airline’s Kuala Lumpur Hub and Require a Smaller Aircraft Like an A319, or A320 Possibly With an Auxiliary Fuel Tank. Cairns Hopes It Will Bring Wealthy Asians in, Not Take Holidaying Queenslanders Out.

And Tales of Japanese Tourists Being Herded Into Certain Duty Free Shops Run by Their Countrymen and Fleeced, or Being Stung ‘fees’ to Be Photographed on Beaches Have Been Legend.

A Recent Abc Four Corners Exposé on the Gold Coast’s ‘underbelly’ Hardly Inspired, and From the Opera House to the Great Barrier Reef to Uluru, Numbers Have Fallen.

Many of the Older, High-spending Japanese Tour Groups Have Been Replaced by Young Independents Who Travel on the Cheap and Use Three Star Beds or Even Backpackers – the Low Cost Carrier Phenomenon Which Was Initially Hated on Hamilton Island.

Local Mythology Says Hawaii, Which is Again Popular With Japanese, is Closer to Japan and Cheaper, but This is Wrong. Cairns is Closer and, if Comparing Apples With Apples, Hawaiian Fares and Accommodation Are Dearer.

And While a North American Gateway and Destination in Its Own Right, Vancouver is a Similar Distance to Sydney or the Gold Coast, and It Also Reportedly Has Dearer Fares and Higher Ground Costs.

Maybe the Tourism Authorities Need to Market What Today’s Japanese Want, Not What It Wants to Sell Them. Government Tourist Agencies Have Reacted by Focusing Instead on China, but Recent Queensland Efforts in China Only Attracted a Temporary China Eastern Shanghai-brisbane Service, Which Was Unfortunately Triangulated With Melbourne, and a Nebulous Viva Macau Response.

Cairns in Particular Has a Once-only Window of Opportunity to Get Japan Right. The Us is Moving Its Okinawa Military Shield to Guam, Presently a Key Japanese Wedding, Golf, Eco and Dive Centre, Which Will See More Than 20,000 Service Personnel Relocated to the Island.

Guam’s Tourist Facilities, Already Favouring Us Military Personnel, Will Become Mass R&r Places Which Will Likely Deter Japanese Tourists.

If Cairns Can Position Itself to Replace Guam and Also Maybe Give Hawaii- Vancouver a Shake, and Australian Airlines and Wider Australian Tourism Will Win.

Sayonara Osaka?

For Years, Triangulated Services Linking Brisbane and Sydney by Jal, Ansett and Now Jetstar Lengthened the Brisbane-osaka Run by Nearly Four Hours.

Qantas Even Once Ran a Horror Cairns-osaka Service via Sydney, Where Nine Hours After Passengers Joined the Cairns Check-in, They Flew Past Cairns Northbound, Turning a 7. 5 Hour Trip Into 15 Hours, While Inbound via Brisbane Was Only Three Hours Shorter.

Jetstar’s Latest (Final?) Attempt Drops Osaka- Cairns-brisbane and Adds a New Daily Osaka-gold Coast Service Extended to Sydney on Five Days. A Near Identical Australian Airlines Flight Lapsed, and if This Attempt Fails, Say Goodbye to Osaka Except via Tokyo, Which Astute and Better Heeled Southeast Queenslanders Have Long Used, Also via Cairns, to Shorten Travel Time to 12 Hours and, if Travelling by Jal, Arriving at Osaka’s Handy Itama Domestic Airport.