How will the West be won?

He was, as was the public, in awe of the great big Douglas that would replace DC-3s on the flight to Perth cutting out several stops at Ceduna, Forrest and Kalgoorlie.

And interestingly, in a sign of things to come, there had been aby John Watkins, then with the Department of Civil Aviation to have the DC-4s configured with five abreast seating which as Mr Brogden explained “would give 10 more seats thus yielding profits with lower fares. ” However, Watkins, who then joined TAA as director of engineering, was overruled by DCA whose control was extensive.

What would Watkins and Brogden think of Qantas and Virgin Australia today slugging it out for control of transcontinental traffic using flat beds for business class and state of the art seatback video systems with thousands of hours of entertainment to woo economy passengers? Theywould probably laugh some more once they had recovered from shock! But the transcontinental routes in Australia are no laughing matter – they are the “Blue Riband” of the country’s air routes connecting Perth, the engine room of Australia’s resource economy, with the financial centres of Melbourne and Sydney and to a lesser extent Brisbane.

While they rank 6th, 7th and 12th from a passenger number count they are tops when it comes to RPKs, and the distances involved mean they are a showcase for Australia’s airlines’ best offerings.

And what is on offer to the airlines is corporate Australia’s high rollers and their companies. Today Qantas schedules eight daily services from Perth to Melbourne, seven to Sydney and four to Brisbane, while Virgin offers up five to Melbourne, four to Sydney and three to Brisbane. All, except two Virgin Brisbane services, are operated by 279 to 304-seat A330s.

While we take nonstop flights for granted, control of the transcontinental routes was initially fought on the ability – or not – to fly nonstop westbound.

In the mid 1950s Australian National Airlines (ANA) had the DC-6 which could operate from Melbourne to Perth nonstop. The new upstart TAA did not and used to charter DC-6s from British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, particularly in the peak holiday season. TAA maintained the DC-6s for BCPA.

TAA looked at buying Comets for the Perth route to give it the edge. When its Viscounts arrived in 1954 it had slipper tanks fitted and operated these aircraft nonstop from Adelaide to Perth but with a much reduced payload. And inwinter the airline would flight plan for Adelaide to Kalgoorlie and then if conditions were not as bad as forecast re-flight plan over Kalgoorlie to fly nonstop to Perth.

The Viscount, while a winner on the east coast, was not the answer and TAA tried three times to buy Caravelle jets for the Perth route but was knocked back by the government on fears the purchase would be the death of first ANA and later Ansett-ANA.

TAA’s plan was to operate the Caravelle from Sydney to Perth via Adelaide with a Viscount feeder service from Melbourne.

The compromise Lockheed Electra arrived in the late 1950s and its configuration of 60 first class and 18 economy seats is an extraordinary contrast to today’s configurations.

Ansett-ANA had the lead on TAA with Electra deliveries by several months and was able to move its marketshare from 45. 8 per cent to 53. 3 per cent while it enjoyed a monopoly on Electra services. It put the aircraft onto the Melbourne to Perth route as well as Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane.

With the airline’s new Viscount 800s Ansett-ANA evolved the slogan of “System of the Golden Jets”. The aircraft had a golden interior and the hostesses were adorned in gold lame outfits.

With the advent of pure jets in the form of the Boeing 727 in 1964 range faded as an issue replaced by inflight product and service, although it wasn’t till TAA took delivery of its A300B4 and Ansett its 727-200LR in the early 1980s that Sydney to Perth in all weather was possible.

With the A300B4 and later the Boeing 767 in Ansett colours consumers showed a clear preference for widebodies on long-haul transcontinental flights. Later with the merger with Qantas and Australian Airlines the former would deploy Boeing 747-300s and 400s on Perth routes as a marketing edge and to move peak holiday and sporting-related traffic.

The 747 was as expected a massive hit with travellers, particularly business traffic who enjoyed the full international service and flatbeds in many cases. With the demise of Ansett in 2001 the rivalry for corporate business on transcontinental routes waned until 2011 when low-cost Virgin Blue morphed into Virgin Australia with a business class product.

That transformation has seen the most pitched battle in Australia’s aviation history with sickening losses to match.

To match the Virgin Australia business product, Qantas was forced to first ditch its seven-across (2-3-2) business class configuration on its A330s, upgrade its 767s and then announce lie-flat beds for domestic business class.

That business class lie-flat bed will be rolled out this month and the fleet will be completed by mid- 2015. Designed in collaboration with Marc Newson, the new Business Suite will be fitted to all of the airline’s 28 A330 aircraft.

In a world first passengers will be able to recline their seats from boarding through to landing. The Business Suites, as Qantas calls them, are fully-flat beds with direct aisle access for every passenger in a 1-2-1 layout.

Based on the Vantage XL seat, manufactured by Thompson Aero Seating, it was developed and customised extensively by the airline after ergonomic trials and inflight monitoring with a panel of experts and ongoing feedback from customers.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce is not surprisingly lyrical about the Business Suites, telling Australian Aviation that he “believes the product will deliver the best travel experience between Australia and Asia, and probably the best domestic travel experience anywhere in the world. ” There of course is no doubt about being the best domestic travel experience, although that will be a neck and neck race with Virgin’s new offering. That transformation has seen the most pitched battle in Australia’s aviation history with sickening losses to match. “We’ve listened to what matters most to our customers and done extensive ergonomic trials to deliver the highest levels of comfort, privacy and intuitive design,” said Joyce.

And there is no doubt that business passengers will appreciate the space the suite offers which allows you to eat while continuing to work.

“This is something our business customers said was very important to them, and plenty of storage room to keep the range of electronic devices that people now travel with. ” Joyce adds that a “key point of difference from all other carriers is that the seat can be in recline and fitted with the mattress from takeoff right through to landing. With many business passengers enjoying a meal in the lounge prior to travelling, this means more time to rest and sleep. ” The airline will also fit the latest Panasonic eX3 system for business class. The economy cabin on the A330 will have in-seat power to charge devices, new seat cushions and covers and inflight entertainment in every seat through Q-Streaming or seatback screens.

The Qantas upgrade will be matched by Virgin Australia’s new first/business suite as the airline’s CEO John Borghetti likes to call them. The new bed, the airline claims, is longer and wider than Qantas’s and will be fitted to all A330s as well as international 777s.

“The new bed will widen the gap between Virgin and Qantas much more in our favour,” Borghetti said in October at the unveiling.

“It is virtually a first class style of product. ” Like Qantas the configuration is 1-2‑1 and the reality away from the hype is that there will be very little difference between the two products – they are both outstanding.

While the two airlines slug it out in the business space another more complex war for domination of the transcontinental routes is going on behind the curtain in economy.

The benchmark is Qantas’s full service, no add-ons product which is the world’s best economy product.

But that is now under extreme pressure on two fronts.

Firstly, from Virgin with a revamp of its transcontinental proposition with free meals and drinks and then on price from Jetstar and Tiger with their no-frills rock bottom fares.

While passengers may still travel Qantas – or Virgin – the market perception of what is a fair fare is set by the lowest competitor.

Putting that into perspective Jetstar has three daily flights from Perth to Melbourne and one to Sydney while Tiger has two to Melbourne and one to Sydney and the fares are rock bottom starting from an everyday regular $139. On key Perth to Sydney and Melbourne routes the LCC marketshare sits at about 15 per cent and that is static. While aircraft equipment and inflight product are pivotal the total experience plays a major role in luring corporate accounts. This was brought home to Australian Aviation when several limo drivers told of senior executives saying they – and their company – wouldn’t change to Virgin until the airline was able to open its ‘Club’ in Perth.

The Club is the airline’s answer to Qantas’s famous Chairman’s Lounge. The problem for Virgin is it cannot open its Club until its new terminal is completed and that is running 12 months late. The Virgin Domestic Pier as it is known is being built as an extension to the airport’s international terminal called T1.

According to Virgin the year-long delay is costing it tens of millions of dollars in “lost revenue and operational inefficiencies”. The Virgin Domestic Pier was supposedto open in June this year but has been pushed back three times to July next year.

“And going on past performances I am not confident about that date, ” Borghetti told Australian Aviation.

“This terminal is the centrepiece of our commitment to WA. ” Virgin Australia has opened its match to the sanctuary for top executives and politicians in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne but there is no room in its existing terminal in Perth.

Borghetti said that while the airline’s facilities in Perth were good, they were nowhere near what the airline had planned for the new Virgin Domestic Pier as an extension of the international terminal.

The latest estimate from Perth Airport is for construction to be completed by March-April, with the airline moving in at the end of June.

Perth Airport chief executive Brad Geatches said he regretted that the construction of the “complex” $300 million project was taking longer than the airport had targeted. “The project is a large and complex one being integrated into the existing terminal facility,” Geatches said.

And while Virgin struggles with the on-ground experience in Perth Qantas has announced the construction of a new Domestic Business Lounge in Perth due to open in the third quarter of 2015.

Once completed the airline will have The Qantas Club, Chairman’s Lounge and Business Lounge to woo travellers flying to the east.

When Virgin vacates its existing terminal (T3), adjacent and linked to the Qantas Terminal (T4), the entire area will be dedicated to the Qantas Group domestic operations and be dubbed the Qantas Precinct.

Qantas is adamant that the trans-continental routes between Perth and the east coast “are absolutely vital” for the airline and its customers. “That’s why we made Perth the launch marketfor our world-first smart check-in system, it’s why we’re investing in the best domestic aircraft product in the world with our upgraded A330‑200s, and it’s why we’re building a fantastic new Perth Business lounge for our many frequent flyers in the west. ” The message unsurprisingly is the same at Virgin Australia. The airline’s chief commercial officer Judith Crompton says that Perth “represents the epicentre of the last decade of national growth through the mining boom and associated industries such as banking, finance and marketing. ” Crompton emphasises that when Virgin launched its Game Change Program in 2011 “we knew that the transcontinental market was critical to our ability to attract the corporate and premium leisure sectors. To help deliver on this strategy we have taken delivery of six brand new 279-seat Airbus A330s. ” “The transcontinental flights are typically the longest you can take whilst still being in Australia so offering a high quality international-grade experience is paramount. For corporate clients who fly to and from Perth being able to sleep or to spreadout as they work is really important. We have found as more and more customers try our product they are sticking with us,” Crompton said.

“We believe we offer the best premium product on the transcontinental route and this will only be enhanced further when we introduce our new business class suites from March 2015. We are investing in the customer experience on the transcontinental routes as we know how important these routes are to the rest of our network. ” “Perth is a very important market within our national network and in

According to Virgin the year-long delay is costing it tens of millions of dollars.

fact is Australia’s fastest growing capital city airport. As such it is at the forefront of our innovation of the customer experience as next year we will be opening our flagship, state-of-the-art terminal in Perth. This will give West Australian customers the first chance to experience the future of our new check-in and lounge experience. ” Whereas the battle for ‘The West’ was once fought on range, today the battle lines are more around flat beds and lounges for the corporate traveller and full-service meals and entertainment for economy passengers.

The two combatants are neck and neck, evidenced by the lack of a Chairman’s Lounge equivalent from Virgin being a determining factor for some key accounts to stay with Qantas, although Qantas’s new Business Suites may sway them back.

And that is going to be the landscape into the future as each airline strives to outdo the other. Both will look for a knockout blow and that will come in the form of the 787 or A350 – but which airline will be first?