Just wondering if we might see the Lufthansa Group return to Australia/NZ in the coming years, and if so when. Any thoughts?

InnsbruckFlyer

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

Just wondering if we might see the Lufthansa Group return to Australia/NZ in the coming years, and if so when. Any thoughts?

InnsbruckFlyer

I wouldn't write anything off with the big EU airline groups, but Asia & India seem to be huge areas for growth at the moment, so I'd find them less surprising. Some context in your original post about Lufthansa's history in Australasia would be appreciated too btw

I would have thought codeshares with SQ and NZ would have this market covered. SQ has a huge market share- potentially biggest? After QF ex-AU.

Back in the day OA,AZ,JU,KL etc all flew to Australia, then the SQ,CX,TH,MH pushed them out of the market, now we see EY,EK,QR impacting the Asian carriers.

I think it’s a slim chance to non but only potential for EU carriers, LH,AF,BA back in Australia is if they follow QF and overfly the Asian and middle eastern hubs. But I don’t think the premium market to justify ULH is large enough to share beyond QF, and they have the Australian FF base locked up. NZ is further still, and just too far.

JamesCousins wrote:

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

Just wondering if we might see the Lufthansa Group return to Australia/NZ in the coming years, and if so when. Any thoughts?

InnsbruckFlyer

I wouldn't write anything off with the big EU airline groups, but Asia & India seem to be huge areas for growth at the moment, so I'd find them less surprising. Some context in your original post about Lufthansa's history in Australasia would be appreciated too btw

Here is some info of LH's former flights to Australia (source: routesonline.com):

1969 May
LH690 Frankfurt-Athens-Karachi-Bangkok-Singapore-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Singapore-Bangkok-Karachi-Athens-Frankfurt
known as one of most profitable LH route at the time
1 weekly 707

1974 Mar
LH690 Frankfurt-Karachi-Bangkok-Singapore-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Singapore-Bangkok-Karachi-Frankfurt
1 weekly 707

LH692 Frankfurt-Athens-Bombay-Bangkok-Singapore-Sydney
LH693 Sydney-Singapore-Bangkok-Bombay-Athens-Frankfurt
1 weekly 707

LH694 Frankfurt-Karachi-Bombay-Bangkok-Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney
LH695 Sydney-Jakarta-Singapore-Bangkok-Bombay-Karachi-Frankfurt
1 weekly 707

1974 Apr
LH690 Frankfurt-Bombay-Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Singapore-Bombay-Frankfurt
1 weekly DC10

LH692 Frankfurt-Bombay-Singapore-Sydney
LH693 Sydney-Jakarta-Singapore-Bombay-Frankfurt
1 weekly DC10

LH694 Frankfurt-Bombay-Singapore-Sydney
LH695 Sydney-Singapore-Bombay-Frankfurt
1 weekly DC10

1979 Oct
LH690 Frankfurt-Bombay-Singapore-Jakarta-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Jakarta-Singapore-Bombay-Frankfurt
2 weekly 747

LH692 Frankfurt-Bombay-Singapore-Melbourne-Sydney
LH693 Sydney-Melbourne-Singapore-Bombay-Frankfurt
1 weekly 747

1982 Nov
LH690 Frankfurt-Dubai-Kuala Lumpur-Melbourne-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur-Dubai-Frankfurt
2 weekly 747. 3rd weekly from Dec

1985 Jul
LH690 Frankfurt-Dubai-Kuala Lumpur-Melbourne-Sydney
LH691 Sydney-Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur-Dubai-Frankfurt
2 weekly 747COMBI

1989 Oct
LH786 Frankfurt-Dubai-Kuala Lumpur-Melbourne-Sydney
LH787 Sydney-Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur-Dubai-Frankfurt
1 weekly 747COMBI
Dubai stopover stopped from DEC

LH788 Frankfurt-Abu Dhabi-Singapore-Melbourne-Sydney
LH789 Sydney-Melbourne-Singapore-Abu Dhabi-Frankfurt
1 weekly 747
Abu Dhabi stopover stopped from DEC

LH796 Frankfurt-Bangkok-Sydney
LH797 Sydney-Bangkok-Frankfurt
2 weekly 747

1991 Feb
LH786 FRA-KUL-MEL-SYD
LH787 SYD-MEL-KUL-FRA
1 weekly 747-400COMBI

LH788 FRA-SIN-MEL-SYD
LH789 SYD-MEL-SIN-FRA
1 weekly 747-400COMBI

LH796 FRA-BKK-SYD
LH797 SYD-BKK-FRA
1 weekly 747-400

LH798 FRA-BKK-MEL-SYD
LH799 SYD-MEL-BKK-FRA
1 weekly 747-400

1994 Feb
LH796 FRA-BKK-SYD
LH797 SYD-BKK-FRA
1 weekly 747

LH788 FRA-SIN-MEL-SYD
LH789 SYD-MEL-SIN-FRA
2 weekly 747

I'm not sure, but I think there was an OS flight to Australia not too long ago (since OS considered within LHG).

stylo777 wrote:

I'm not sure, but I think there was an OS flight to Australia not too long ago (since OS considered within LHG).

There was: VIE - KUL - SYD - KUL - VIE, on a 777

At some point towards the end NG/OS delinked SYD and MEL and had c.2003/2004 IIRC

VIE-KUL-SYD 772
VIE-SIN-MEL 763 (and I believe 772 at one point)

I can distinctly remember seeing a OS 772 in Lauda colours(? - not 100% sure on that part) taking off from SYD 31/07/2004. I remember on any given day you could see either livery. OS pulled Australia in March 2007 making it the last continental European airline to do so.

The Lauda/OS flight was axed because it did not make Money. Later it turned out that the route was highly profitabel, they just forgot to add the cargo Revenue to add to the total Revenue.

InnsbruckFlyer wrote:

stylo777 wrote:

I'm not sure, but I think there was an OS flight to Australia not too long ago (since OS considered within LHG).

There was: VIE - KUL - SYD - KUL - VIE, on a 777

Was Austrian the last European airline to serve Australia? (Excpt. UK based airlines)

Very much doubt LH group will return to Australasia given NZ and SQ and TG have such solid coverage of the region and didn't they also just sign an interline agreement with CX? Airlines today are trying to eliminate one-stop service.

PanHAM wrote:

The Lauda/OS flight was axed because it did not make Money. Later it turned out that the route was highly profitabel, they just forgot to add the cargo Revenue to add to the total Revenue.

Highly doubt that. Those flights weren't making money. Period.

http://www.airways.ch/files/2006/0706/0 ... sydney.htm

Historically, passenger yield has been, for the most part, higher than cargo yield. Also between 2007 (when OS ended SYD/MEL service) and now, cargo yields have gone down, especially between SE Asia and Europe.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/Documents/ ... 1-2016.pdf
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/facts_fig ... -facts.pdf

Virgin Atlantic stopped flying to Australia many years ago. Only British Airways can fly to Australia. Virgin Atlantic had an interline agreement with Swiss/Lufthansa/Austrian between Europe and Australia via Asia.

I would LOVE to see LH/LX/OS aircraft in Australia! lol

FlyboyOz wrote:

Only British Airways can fly to Australia.

Not sure if you just used the wrong word there but that's not the case - the Australia-UK bilateral permits any eligible airline unlimited frequencies and capacities between the two countries, and the definition for eligibility is pretty straightforward (Article 4, Sec 2A of the Agreement sets out the requirements for a UK airline).

The availability of fifth-freedoms from the intermediate stop will however be determined by that country's agreements (for example, the Australia-HK bilateral imposes capacity and frequency restrictions on Australian airlines flying Aus-HKG-beyond).

Overall, the gradual withdrawal of European airlines from Australian service, and QF from Europe, is pretty much entirely a result of commercial pressures from Asian and Middle-Eastern airlines who have the geographic upper-hand. VS ended HKG-SYD because it was unviable, BA are only still in SYD because moving to the 77W and Mixed Fleet crew lowered their costs sufficiently.

Will never happen. The cost of sending an expensive piece of real estate a further 8-10 hours beyond Asia for a fare only $100 or so higher than Europe-Asia would be irresponsible. BA survives only because of high yield premium traffic.
Some of the LH dates above are a bit off: in the late 80's the 742 routing was FRA-BOM-KUL-SYD/MEL The 744's overflew BOM. The last service was on Condor LH painted 763: FRA-BKK-SYD/MEL with a return via SHJ- the customer feedback was so negative the service was quickly suspended. LH has publicly stated many times they make more money being offline in Australia than when they flew here- the operational costs are just too high.
The Austrian service started as a Lauda Air 763 VIE-HKT-SYD/MEL with no traffic rights HKT-Australia, but QF/TG could sell seats. HKT was later replaced with BKK and then with 772's via KUL.

Probably this one or mistaken: FRA-HKG-SYD or MUC-BKK-MEL.

Thenoflyzone wrote:

PanHAM wrote:

The Lauda/OS flight was axed because it did not make Money. Later it turned out that the route was highly profitabel, they just forgot to add the cargo Revenue to add to the total Revenue.

Highly doubt that. Those flights weren't making money. Period.

http://www.airways.ch/files/2006/0706/0 ... sydney.htm

Historically, passenger yield has been, for the most part, higher than cargo yield. Also between 2007 (when OS ended SYD/MEL service) and now, cargo yields have gone down, especially between SE Asia and Europe.

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/Documents/ ... 1-2016.pdf
http://www.iata.org/pressroom/facts_fig ... -facts.pdf

It is true they forgot! I once asked this question over a dinner in New York with a high ranking Austrian employee he looked at me and said "even you know this". They made a big error. But frankly I agree after the 2008 crash the increasing competition I douth this flight would have survived even if Austrian didn't make this mistake. Just we will never know for sure.

Too expensive for VS to send the gas-guzzling A346 beyond HKG to SYD at the time, with high operating costs outstripping revenue.

VS has since returned to the Australian market, although as code-share only by placing their code on VA's HKG-MEL (and shortly HKG-SYD) flights despite the long transit times in HKG (since the VA flights connect to/from a number of HX flights as part of the JV with them, not with VS).

the entire LH group has a code share on CX flights to NZ
I do not think they are interested

The 777-8 can easily do Frankfurt to both Sydney and Melbourne direct. They are both under 9000nm so it could do the route with over 300 passengers.

Even their A350's could have a crack at the route as it is 500nm shorter than the London route Qantas wants to do. Are they rated over 275T?

smi0006 wrote:

I would have thought codeshares with SQ and NZ would have this market covered. SQ has a huge market share- potentially biggest? After QF ex-AU.

Back in the day OA,AZ,JU,KL etc all flew to Australia, then the SQ,CX,TH,MH pushed them out of the market, now we see EY,EK,QR impacting the Asian carriers.

I think it’s a slim chance to non but only potential for EU carriers, LH,AF,BA back in Australia is if they follow QF and overfly the Asian and middle eastern hubs. But I don’t think the premium market to justify ULH is large enough to share beyond QF, and they have the Australian FF base locked up. NZ is further still, and just too far.

British Airways still fly to Australia.

Arion640 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

I would have thought codeshares with SQ and NZ would have this market covered. SQ has a huge market share- potentially biggest? After QF ex-AU.

Back in the day OA,AZ,JU,KL etc all flew to Australia, then the SQ,CX,TH,MH pushed them out of the market, now we see EY,EK,QR impacting the Asian carriers.

I think it’s a slim chance to non but only potential for EU carriers, LH,AF,BA back in Australia is if they follow QF and overfly the Asian and middle eastern hubs. But I don’t think the premium market to justify ULH is large enough to share beyond QF, and they have the Australian FF base locked up. NZ is further still, and just too far.

British Airways still fly to Australia.

and
Australia and NZ do not have the German flag on it but the British one

not the same thing

Kashmon wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

I would have thought codeshares with SQ and NZ would have this market covered. SQ has a huge market share- potentially biggest? After QF ex-AU.

Back in the day OA,AZ,JU,KL etc all flew to Australia, then the SQ,CX,TH,MH pushed them out of the market, now we see EY,EK,QR impacting the Asian carriers.

I think it’s a slim chance to non but only potential for EU carriers, LH,AF,BA back in Australia is if they follow QF and overfly the Asian and middle eastern hubs. But I don’t think the premium market to justify ULH is large enough to share beyond QF, and they have the Australian FF base locked up. NZ is further still, and just too far.

British Airways still fly to Australia.

and
Australia and NZ do not have the German flag on it but the British one

not the same thing

You've lost me. The poster I quoted put AF/BA/LH in the same category saying they don't fly to Australia. When infact, one of them does and the other two don't.

[twoid][/twoid]

RJMAZ wrote:

The 777-8 can easily do Frankfurt to both Sydney and Melbourne direct. They are both under 9000nm so it could do the route with over 300 passengers.

Even their A350's could have a crack at the route as it is 500nm shorter than the London route Qantas wants to do. Are they rated over 275T?

Lufty always flew to Australia direct, no change of aircraft. Or do you mean non-stop?

If Qantas get their wish for a capable SYD-EU variant of the 777/A350, then it is plausible that Lufthansa might want to capture some of the non-stop market, but I can't see them resuming 1-stop service.

Lufthansa, Air France, Austrian and Finnair all carry huge amounts of Australian passengers and do have something to gain from an increased brand presence in Australia. Lufthansa has often said Australia is their largest market which they do not fly to.

I can't see it happening until direct service is a relatively low-risk proposition.

@ devron - thanks for confirming my Story. It is indeed true that they forgot to even check the freight Revenue. The combination of passenger and freight Revenue would have made These flights profitable. If that still would be so today is another Story. Looking at the recently publicised results of LHCargo speak for that.

FlyboyOz wrote:

Virgin Atlantic stopped flying to Australia many years ago.

Many years ago? Like less than four years ago?

They pulled back from Australia in May 2014. Personally I wouldn't describe that as many years ago.

I wouldn't expect that in the near future. But in the long run, I could see mainline nontstops as soon as they become viable to serve the sizeable O&D and for easy connections to the UK. LCY-FRA-SYD could have some appeal to it.

I`m sure that LH group will not go to Australia/NZ in the next 10-15 years.
Even if there will be aircrafts available which could do FRA-SYD non-stop the operational costs will be too high.LH would never be able to offer competitive fares.
TG,EK,SQ,EY are able to offer much chaeper fares due to the geografical location of their hubs.
And i don`t think that many people from germany/australia would be several hundred AUD/EUR more just to reduce the total transit time from 21-22 to 16-17 hours.

cedarjet wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

RJMAZ wrote:

The 777-8 can easily do Frankfurt to both Sydney and Melbourne direct. They are both under 9000nm so it could do the route with over 300 passengers.

Even their A350's could have a crack at the route as it is 500nm shorter than the London route Qantas wants to do. Are they rated over 275T?

Lufty always flew to Australia direct, no change of aircraft. Or do you mean non-stop?

Yes non stop.

It would be very interesting as the new aircraft could do the route with a fairly decent profit and very little restrictions. To London that little extra distance causes a massive hit on payload.

It's sad that BA is the only airline from Europe to Australia, but those flights tie up a lot of assets. I don't see many coming back, just more alliance connections.

Hey guys
The idea of Eurowings flying to Bali is intriguing. I DO see a possible market Germany-Australia on a German airline, and Qantas repeatedly has mentioned Frankfurt and Berlin in its longer range forecasts so obviously they feel that there is a market too.
Eurowings flying some kind of Germany-Bali-Sydney flight would echo Condor's Lufthansa-branded 767 flights all those years ago. It may be low-yielding but sustainable, and would give the LH Group the footprint they may desire down under.
The problem is of course, Lufthansa = premium whereas Eurowings = NOT premium....
Thus
Would there be sufficient low-yielding Eurowings passengers to make Eurowings flights work?
Or
Would there be sufficient high-yielding Lufthansa passengers to make Lufthansa flights work?
And in any case, I still predict that Norwegian will be the next European carrier to operate to Australia, either from Singapore south or from Argentina west....
Cheers
Bunumuring

No Eurowings would not be sustainable. The LH 763 flights were actually a disguised low cost Condor operation (aircraft/crew). "Low yielding, but sustainable" is a scary concept that should never ever be entertained when you have a finite number of aircraft at your disposal.

As for the OS story about not adding the cargo revenue- sounds something more Lauda management like (they had some interesting characters running the show here), than Austrian. I mean seriously, every month the outstation gets a route performance report and for months nobody noticed the cargo line was blank? The country manager and cargo manager didn't notice? Nobody in VIE cargo noticed? Or was it a convenient excuse to withdraw the route?

QF has said it's considering FRA - PER on the 789 - why would that route only work for QF and not for LH?

Cheers,

C.

planemanofnz wrote:

QF has said it's considering FRA - PER on the 789 - why would that route only work for QF and not for LH?

Cheers,

C.

What's the dominant point of sale, Germany or Australia? If it's Australia you have answered your question. Last year Australia saw 207K visitors from Germany and 736K from the UK.

http://www.tourism.australia.com/en/mar ... ivals.html

MIflyer12 wrote:

planemanofnz wrote:

QF has said it's considering FRA - PER on the 789 - why would that route only work for QF and not for LH?

Cheers,

C.

What's the dominant point of sale, Germany or Australia? If it's Australia you have answered your question. Last year Australia saw 207K visitors from Germany and 736K from the UK.

http://www.tourism.australia.com/en/mar ... ivals.html

I assume it's predominantly Germans going to Australia, as is the case with New Zealand, which would favour LH (helped maybe with a code-share with VA).

Cheers,

C.

LGAviation wrote:

I wouldn't expect that in the near future. But in the long run, I could see mainline nontstops as soon as they become viable to serve the sizeable O&D and for easy connections to the UK. LCY-FRA-SYD could have some appeal to it.

There would be more appeal for LCY-FRA-SYD than a nonstop LHR-SYD? Can't see it. From other points outside London via Frankfurt, maybe, but not from London, especially with Crossrail operational by the time the 779 flies.

Here are some interesting stats on Germany - Australia / New Zealand:

- The leading carriers on Germany - Australia are EK, EY and SQ, in that order, with EK and SQ in decline.
- QF's share of the market of Germans coming to Australia has declined from 27% in 2012 to 8% in 2016.
- Only 18% of Germans visit PER, compared to 64% visiting SYD, 40% visiting MEL and 30% going to BNE.
- SYD, SIN and MEL are the leading transit hubs to New Zealand - with SYD and MEL in decline (due to EK).

See:
- http://www.tourism.australia.com/conten ... 002919.pdf (Australia).
- https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-r ... ember-2017.

Cheers,

C.

The QF 789's are configured premium heavy so I think a PER-FRA option is a wet dream. While there might be a lot of German tourists visiting Australia (working holiday visa anyone?) these aren't the pax that would be paying to fly nonstop- to PER. These are the pax that fly ME3 or CN3 (FYI my recent LOT WAW-PEK flight was completely full and half the load were German transit pax connecting with CA at PEK- LOT do very thorough gate passport checks to not get fined for pax not complying with Chinese transit restrictions).

eta unknown wrote:

The QF 789's are configured premium heavy so I think a PER-FRA option is a wet dream.

Eh, Germany is Australia’s tenth-largest trade partner, and Germany is the sixth-largest destination for Australian investment abroad.

Is there really hardly any business traffic for LH and/or QF to target, that would be willing to pay a premium for a non-stop service?

For example:

Some of the largest German employers in Australia are Allianz, Hanson Australia (Heidelberger Zement), BOC (Linde), Siemens, Bosch, DB Schenker and Deutsche Bank. Other German companies have a presence across a number of industries in Australia, including automotive and advanced manufacturing (Bosch, Hella, Continental, ZF, Fuchs, Carl Zeiss), ICT (SAP Research, Software AG, IMC), pharmaceuticals/chemicals (Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer, BASF, Evonik, Fresenius Medical Care), logistics and transport (DBSchenker, DHL), clean technologies (Remondis) and banking/insurance (Munich RE, Commerzbank, Allianz) and clean energy (SMA, Schueco, Degerenergie).

A range of Australian companies have a large presence in Germany. Sonic Healthcare and CSL Behring, both in the medical sector, employ around 5,000 and 2,000 people respectively, making them the biggest Australian employers in Germany. High profile Australian companies, like Macquarie Bank, have a broad range of interests in Germany, from wind farms to internet start-ups. Large Australian investment companies, like IFM investors, have made investments in sectors like the electricity grid, buying 40 per cent of '50Hertz Transmission,' which transports power to 18 million people in Germany.

See: http://dfat.gov.au/geo/germany/Pages/ge ... brief.aspx.

Cheers,

C.

NZ321 wrote:

Very much doubt LH group will return to Australasia given NZ and SQ and TG have such solid coverage of the region and didn't they also just sign an interline agreement with CX? Airlines today are trying to eliminate one-stop service.

CX/LH signed a code share agreement last year, the CX flights to NZ and Australia are code shared so the LH group pax from MUC, VIE, ZRH, and FRA are code shared on these services. CX code shares on 14 destinations with the 3 LH group airlines.

eta unknown wrote:

The QF 789's are configured premium heavy so I think a PER-FRA option is a wet dream. While there might be a lot of German tourists visiting Australia (working holiday visa anyone?) these aren't the pax that would be paying to fly nonstop- to PER. These are the pax that fly ME3 or CN3 (FYI my recent LOT WAW-PEK flight was completely full and half the load were German transit pax connecting with CA at PEK- LOT do very thorough gate passport checks to not get fined for pax not complying with Chinese transit restrictions).

I’m not saying QF will definitely fly PER-FRA but the QF789 while premium heavy is a 236 seater which again would see QF aiming at the higher end of the market. Not so much the lower end tourist.

eta unknown wrote:

The QF 789's are configured premium heavy so I think a PER-FRA option is a wet dream. While there might be a lot of German tourists visiting Australia (working holiday visa anyone?) these aren't the pax that would be paying to fly nonstop- to PER. These are the pax that fly ME3 or CN3 (FYI my recent LOT WAW-PEK flight was completely full and half the load were German transit pax connecting with CA at PEK- LOT do very thorough gate passport checks to not get fined for pax not complying with Chinese transit restrictions).

Think it would be more likely to see AKL-PER-FRA by NZ, than an QF PER-FRA. NZ will have much more feed ex-FRA with being able to hock into LH's network.

If anything an NZ/LH JV on AKL-PER-FRA with NZ ops AKL-PER and LH on PER-FRA could be an option.

zkncj wrote:

Think it would be more likely to see AKL-PER-FRA by NZ, than an QF PER-FRA. NZ will have much more feed ex-FRA with being able to hock into LH's network.

If anything an NZ/LH JV on AKL-PER-FRA with NZ ops AKL-PER and LH on PER-FRA could be an option.

MUC would be better for range / payload. Could LH's 309 seat A350-900 do MUC-PER?

PA515

zkncj wrote:

Think it would be more likely to see AKL-PER-FRA by NZ, than an QF PER-FRA. NZ will have much more feed ex-FRA with being able to hock into LH's network.

If anything an NZ/LH JV on AKL-PER-FRA with NZ ops AKL-PER and LH on PER-FRA could be an option.

That's actually a very interesting thought, but NZ will probably need A350-900s in order to make it given that NZ typically have somewhat dense cabin configurations. But it seems plausible given there's a large expat-NZ population in Perth, and NZ do have an international lounge at PER. Perhaps NZ could continue to run 787-9s to PER but LH could fly the FRA - PER leg. That said, NZ work relatively closely with Singapore Airlines and SQ may not be particularly happy if NZ start feeding pax direct to LH, so that's another issue.

Qantas may start trying to plug some "proper" widebody flights between PER and AKL too, with the hope of feeding AKL pax into the ex-PER European flights. That would be a competitive challenge to NZ and SQ certainly.

KL once served AMS-KUL-SYD & now code-share on MH. I can’t remember the year KL pulled out of SYD?

EK413

The KLM service had multiple en route changes- it was frequency limited to one flight per week until about the late 80's. First MEL (via various points AUH/KHI/CMB) was cut while SYD lingered on for a few more years, but the flight was always under the microscope in AMS the last few years because of the costs of sending the flight SIN-SYD. The last service was on 744's SYD-SIN-AMS sometime around 2000.

For a while until recently, LH had a Lufthansa Intouch office in MEL. That was probably the only direct presence the group had in Australia. Lufthansa Technik also had a JV with QF via LTQ maintenance, until QF decided to close it.

I remember that I was in Sydney a few years back and I saw a Lufthansa Group office in the CBD.

EK413 wrote:

KL once served AMS-KUL-SYD & now code-share on MH. I can’t remember the year KL pulled out of SYD?

EK413

The last KL flight from SYD was on the 23 March 2001, presumably that was the end of the NW schedule for that year. Flight operated as KL843 as SYD-SIN-AMS, 744 PH-BFI CIty of Jakarta operated the last flight

planemanofnz wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

The QF 789's are configured premium heavy so I think a PER-FRA option is a wet dream.

A PER-FRA would work, but a MEL-FRA could also be a winner once possible.

Melbourne is home to the Australian HQ's for BMW, Mercedes, Siemens & Bosch, among others. These 4 companies alone run substantial operations here, Allianz also has a decent presence in Melbourne. So there would be the premium demand for a non-stop FRA flight in both directions.