LAX772LR wrote:

WorldFlier wrote:

Does a First/Business Class seat + occupant + baggage + catering weigh more than the equivalent # of Economy Seats + Occupants + Baggage + Catering?

Yep.

A single J seat can weigh as much as a whole row of 9abreast Y seats. F seats are even worse.

It's not uncommon for J seats to weigh 80-100kg... and that's before airline customization choices.

Economy seats, OTOH, usually weigh closer to 12-15kg.

That almost certainly isn’t true. I completely agree with you on Premium seats being very heavy but it doesn’t compensate for the extra pax and luggage.

Hence why on all the ULH flights the aeroplanes are congifured in a low density PREMIUM configuration such as SQ to EWR. A flight of all business class + passengers will weigh a huge amount less than all economy.

would the a35k make it? with what load? and a a380? TK would really be competitive in East Europe/Germany/Italy and Med/ with right scheduling.

edit: next will be LH with the right a/c from MUC

RJMAZ wrote:

This has been misreported. The route will use their A350's.

The 787-9 can't do SYD-IST unless it has 120-150 passengers. The standard 280T A350-900 can carry twice as many passengers that distance.

These are the exact routes that justify a split fleet of 787's and A350's. You put the A350's on the ultra long haul routes and the 787's on normal long haul routes.

You are so biased, that your comments look beyond silly.

The A350 is a fantastic plane, no doubt. Regardless of what your theoretical stats show on paper, there is something called 'real world operations' (and it includes finance, etc). All the MBA's like to live in theory, instead of reality most times. The 789 is flying some of the world's longest routes and doing so profitably and with some cargo (SFO-SIN, PER-LHR). Your whole comment about 787's needing to be on 'normal long haul routes' is laughable.

The A350 is remarkable, but the base version won't be carrying twice as many passengers as the 787 -- Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Now that the 787 is in service and doing these routes, you have to throw 'theory' and 'on paper' out the window. There is a reason why these 787's are being flown at these extreme distances. It's because it can do them profitably and do them very well.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

RJMAZ wrote:

This has been misreported. The route will use their A350's.

The 787-9 can't do SYD-IST unless it has 120-150 passengers. The standard 280T A350-900 can carry twice as many passengers that distance.

These are the exact routes that justify a split fleet of 787's and A350's. You put the A350's on the ultra long haul routes and the 787's on normal long haul routes.

You are so biased, that your comments look beyond silly.

Look everyone! Someone just said I am biased against the 787

It's funny because the regular members here have accused me of being a Boeing fanboy many times.

I have to highlight this as evidence that I am not biased towards any manufacturer.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

The A350 is remarkable, but the base version won't be carrying twice as many passengers as the 787 -- Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Now that the 787 is in service and doing these routes, you have to throw 'theory' and 'on paper' out the window. There is a reason why these 787's are being flown at these extreme distances. It's because it can do them profitably and do them very well.

The first 280T normal A350 was only delivered 6 weeks ago. That is why the 787 is currently doing some of the worlds longest routes. It has not thrown payload range charts out the window. The 787 has simply been around for many years longer.

The 787-9 is on par with the 2014 launched 268T A350-900 with payload range. Airbus now has higher weight variants with 280T being the base model from 2018 onwards. And yes if you fly SYD-IST the 280T base model A350-900 can lift twice as many passengers as the 787-9.

It is not biased to say the 777-300ER can carry twice the payload of the A330-300 on a long haul route. It is fact. The A330 is simply optimised for shorter routes.

I assume you dont know how to read a payload range chart. Aircraft do not have a set maximum range. At maximum payload/cargo most aircraft can only fill the fuel tanks to 50-75%. As you add more fuel range increases but payload must reduce. Once you fill the fuel tanks to 100% you usually have a decent but light passenger load left. This is how the 787-9 flies Perth to London. However this is still not the maximum range of the aircraft, you can't add more fuel but you can start to remove passengers to make the flight lighter. You only gain a tiny bit of range for removing a large amount of your passengers. SYD-IST is 250nm further than PER-LHR but passenger weight needs to be nearly halved. Airlines do NOT want to do this as the profit is disappearing really quick. This is why LAX-SIN was cancelled.

The 280T A350-900 on SYD-IST would not reach that profit killing point. It will do the route easy with twice the passengers of the 787-9. Sure there might be a perfect day where you have a tail wind and can make it with 200 passengers in a 787-9 but on that same day the A350-900 could have done it with 300 seats and belly freight. Its the average and bad weather days that reduce the year round profitability of a route. The 787-9 would have to block many rows of seats on a regular basis.

LAX772LR wrote:

george77300 wrote:

Hence why on all the ULH flights the aeroplanes are congifured in a low density PREMIUM configuration such as SQ to EWR. A flight of all business class + passengers will weigh a huge amount less than all economy.

That's only half of the equation, the other being revenue. Many such flights are actually capable of carrying more weight than the configuration belies, but wouldn't be able to generate the revenue needed to sustain the operation with a denser more Y-skewed cabin.

Well looking at the same plane with fixed dimensions (777-300 between doors L2 & L3) there is 184 economy seats (10 abreast) or in this case 42 business seats in the same space (Apex Suites JAL).

Assuming the same as before

J
Seat: 100kg
Pax: 70kg
Luggage: 30kg
Total: 200kg x 42 = 8,400kg

Y
Seat: 15kg
Pax: 70kg
Luggage: 20kg
Total: 105kg x 184 = 19,320kg

Of course revenue is a factor but the difference in weight is huge. All economy as I said weighs a lot more than all business. That is nearly 2.5x heavier in an all Y config over all J. of course you can tweak some of these values but it is a huge difference.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

ewt340 wrote:

Oh boy, they really pushing B787-9 range don't they. They probably wouldn't carry any revenue cargo and sparse configurations in the cabin.

But do they have enough demand to fill the seat to Perth? Sydney/Melbourne does make sense, but not Perth.

Also, since they also have A350-900 on order, why don't they use that instead? it got like 400-500nm more range than B787-9.

Look at the flight durations back a few posts. Yes, the 789 would still be able to carry some cargo. UA is able to carry some cargo Westbound on the SFO-SIN sector.

SFO-SIN is around 7,342 nautical miles. B787-9 range with full load (doesn't include revenue cargo) according to Boeing is around 7,635 nautical miles.

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/787/
https://www.distancefromto.net/

Uhmm, I notice many people actually think that on 7,000nm+ flights, many aircraft could carry "tons of revenue cargo".

Most of these planes can't. Those range you saw on Boeing or Airbus website is a range of the aircraft that carry certain amount of passengers, the food/amenities, fuel, crews, and their luggages. Those range listed doesn't include revenue cargo.

Also, some cargo are heavier than the other, unless they are transporting ballon or super light steorofome on their LD3s. I don't think they could carry much revenue cargo.
A350-900 or B787-9, either one of them would have hard time filling the LD3s in their belly.

lightsaber wrote:

RJMAZ wrote:

This has been misreported. The route will use their A350's.

The 787-9 can't do SYD-IST unless it has 120-150 passengers. The standard 280T A350-900 can carry twice as many passengers that distance.

These are the exact routes that justify a split fleet of 787's and A350's. You put the A350's on the ultra long haul routes and the 787's on normal long haul routes.

Link on misreported rumor? The 789 has proven able to carry more cargo on Perth-LHR than plan. So IST-SYD is plausible. I personally do believe the A350 should be considered.

But which aircraft is A vs. B until we know more. Both can fly the route, with the A359 having more payload, but the 789 has proven more capable than you give it credit.

Lightsaber

With due respect, we need more info on "more cargo". Because 50 extra kg of cargo is also more cargo, but I don't think that would increase the range that much.

It's less about A vs B, especially since TK actually order both A359 and B789. It's more to the fact that, TK would really stretching both aircraft capability if they are ought to operate to East Coast Australia (SYD/MEL).

IST-SYD for now, sounds implausible for B787-9. Because we really stretching the range now. And we haven't talk about headwinds and other shenanigans they would encounter during operations.
Unless of course, if TK does something drastic and fitted the cabin with extremely heavy premium like SQ did with their A359ULR.

I said, for now, heavy premium and no revenue cargo for B787-9. Or 280t A350-900 with little to no revenue cargo. For flights to SYD-MEL.

And maybe, just maybe, A350-1000. It got around 8,400 nautical miles of range according to Airbus. They increased the mtow this June.

ewt340 wrote:

Uhmm, I notice many people actually think that on 7,000nm+ flights, many aircraft could carry "tons of revenue cargo".

Most of these planes can't. Those range you saw on Boeing or Airbus website is a range of the aircraft that carry certain amount of passengers, the food/amenities, fuel, crews, and their luggages. Those range listed doesn't include revenue cargo.

Also, some cargo are heavier than the other, unless they are transporting ballon or super light steorofome on their LD3s. I don't think they could carry much revenue cargo.
A350-900 or B787-9, either one of them would have hard time filling the LD3s in their belly.

It's been reported that UA can often carry 7-10 tons of cargo on the westbound SFO-SIN route. Not too shabby and I'd call that 'tons of cargo'.

Correct me if I am wrong; when look Boeing range charts for 787-900 8000 nm range allows 154 ton oew+payload. We dont know yet OEW lets say rougly 128 ton , that gives only 26 tons of payload.

MeCe wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong; when look Boeing range charts for 787-900 8000 nm range allows 154 ton oew+payload. We dont know yet OEW lets say rougly 128 ton , that gives only 26 tons of payload.

The 787-9 is one hell of a plane. People only want to talk about 'theory' and what the 'charts' read. Sometimes you have to step back and look at the overall picture of how it's operating in reality. Same for all planes, not just the 787. People are too fixated on 'exactly what it can do on paper' and don't take reality into the equation.

The A350 is a phenomenal plane and will get its fair share of long haul routes going forward, but everyone needs to quit acting like the A350 is superior in every way on these very long routes. If that were actually the case, these airlines operating the 7,000+ nm routes would be dumping the 787 in favor of the 350.

Ok where should I look than ? Or do you think captain tell "hey throw this flight plan fuel, just fill the tank we will fly to destination" ?

PER-LHR: 7,829nm (current longest ULH route, on 789)
IST-SYD: 8,076nm

That is about 250nm further... A challenge, but not impossible. However, not as bad as some claim.

Lightsaber

MeCe wrote:

Ok where should I look than ? Or do you think captain tell "hey throw this flight plan fuel, just fill the tank we will fly to destination" ?

Well, first of all, it's hard to understand your grammar.

Secondly, absolutely not. I'm simply saying that real world operations are proving the plane has absolutely incredible performance, especially when you stand back and see that it can take some cargo on westbound flights on both SFO-SIN and PER-LHR. I'm simply implying that real world performance is better (or less crippling) than a lot make it out to be. Before these routes started, folks on here would be shouting that there was no way they could even put a full load of passengers onboard, much less some additional cargo.

All that is to say, I think if TK actually use the plane on this route, you will see that it performs better than you think. Someone posted that it would only be able to carry ~135 passengers, which I find ludicrous.

Use critical thinking, step back and look at the big picture. Some get so caught up in 'paper performance' before a route is even started that they lose all sight of reality.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

MeCe wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong; when look Boeing range charts for 787-900 8000 nm range allows 154 ton oew+payload. We dont know yet OEW lets say rougly 128 ton , that gives only 26 tons of payload.

The 787-9 is one hell of a plane. People only want to talk about 'theory' and what the 'charts' read. Sometimes you have to step back and look at the overall picture of how it's operating in reality. Same for all planes, not just the 787. People are too fixated on 'exactly what it can do on paper' and don't take reality into the equation.

The A350 is a phenomenal plane and will get its fair share of long haul routes going forward, but everyone needs to quit acting like the A350 is superior in every way on these very long routes. If that were actually the case, these airlines operating the 7,000+ nm routes would be dumping the 787 in favor of the 350.

No, because for starter A350-900 could carry around 40 more passengers compared to B787-9. Changing the plane would mean significant capacity increase. Second, Airlines choose an aircraft family based on their need, it would be ridiculous to just Ignore every other aspect regarding the airlines operations. Maybe they only operate 2 routes longer than 7,000 nm. By that case, stretching the range of B787-9 would be better compared to operating A350-900 on shorter routes. Or maybe they prefer to use B787 because they operate the smaller B787-8 and bigger B787-10 with shorter range.

A350 is also more expensive to purchase. But there is one thing that you need to understand, A350 is an heavier aircraft by design. The wings, engines are optimized to fly further. There is an advantages that A350 could offer compared to B787-9. Not saying B787-9 were not optimized for long-haul flights, but you could understand why A350 would give TK more edge on Australian flights.

And the fact is, Airbus LOVE to increase the MTOW of their aircraft. From A330ceo, A330neo and even A350. This give them a slight edge compared to B787-9. Not saying Boeing can't do it, but I'm just using a proven situation here since Airbus have been making really big improvements on their products regarding ranges and payload capability.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

ewt340 wrote:

Uhmm, I notice many people actually think that on 7,000nm+ flights, many aircraft could carry "tons of revenue cargo".

Most of these planes can't. Those range you saw on Boeing or Airbus website is a range of the aircraft that carry certain amount of passengers, the food/amenities, fuel, crews, and their luggages. Those range listed doesn't include revenue cargo.

Also, some cargo are heavier than the other, unless they are transporting ballon or super light steorofome on their LD3s. I don't think they could carry much revenue cargo.
A350-900 or B787-9, either one of them would have hard time filling the LD3s in their belly.

It's been reported that UA can often carry 7-10 tons of cargo on the westbound SFO-SIN route. Not too shabby and I'd call that 'tons of cargo'.

WOW, that's pretty amazing, where did you found that out?

WorldFlier wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

Would be really interesting to see what they do:

IST-PER wouldn't be much of a challenge for a 789 at all.
IST-MEL would be almost the exact same distance as PER-LHR

IST-SYD would easily become the longest 787 route ever attempted though-- nearly 300mi longer than QF's PER-LHR, more than 520mi longer than UA's LAX-SIN.

.....not sure a 789 has the moxy for that, unless TK goes with an ultra-sparse high-premium configuration, similar to SQ's ULR cabin.

If TK goes 4-class (First, Business, Premium Economy, Economy w/ 32" pitch) that would be sparse enough, no?

But the rest of their fleet is all 2-class 7-abreast business and 9 abreast economy. They just did away with premium economy from the 77W fleet.

ewt340 wrote:

A350 is also more expensive to purchase. But there is one thing that you need to understand, A350 is an heavier aircraft by design. The wings, engines are optimized to fly further. There is an advantages that A350 could offer compared to B787-9. Not saying B787-9 were not optimized for long-haul flights, but you could understand why A350 would give TK more edge on Australian flights.

That is worth repeating. The 789 is cheaper to fly for most missions. If, like QD PER-LHR, if the plane can do it, even with restricted payload, it is a better business case with fleet commonality.

There are many missions the A350 is better. But then there will be some that are 778 or 779.

But as this is a rumor... We will wait.

Lightsaber

FriscoHeavy wrote:

It's been reported that UA can often carry 7-10 tons of cargo on the westbound SFO-SIN route. Not too shabby and I'd call that 'tons of cargo'.

I call BS. UA has blocked rows of seats on SFO-SIN before in winter which means it has zero cargo in winter.

You are talking best case scenario. You have to take into account the yearly average and worst case scenario to determine route profitability.

Weather varies. So the total payload will vary.

SFO-SIN loads year round could look like this:
10% of trips have 5-10T extra payload.
40% of trips have 0-5T extra payload.
40% of trips have zero cargo and 10% seats empty
10% of trips have zero cargo and 20% seats empty

Taking into account normal load factors the above would make the route perfectly acceptable.

SYD-IST the 787-9 loads year round could look like this:
0% of trips have 5-10T extra payload.
10% of trips have 0-5T extra payload.
40% of trips have zero cargo and 10% seats empty
40% of trips have zero cargo and 20% seats empty
10% of trips have zero cargo and 30% seats empty

Profitability in SYD-IST would be low. The ticket price has to increase as you have fewer passengers.

SYD-IST on the 280T A350 year round could look like this.
10% of trips have 10-15T extra payload.
40% of trips have 5-10T extra payload.
40% of trips have 0-5T extra payload.
10% of trips have zero cargo and 10% seats empty

You can see the profitability increases as the extra range of the A350 allows a higher percentage chance of carrying a full passenger load. You could use that extra payload capability to fit more seats with a denser cabin.

So if you were forced to use the 787-9 on SYD-IST and MEL-IST you would want a very premium heavy cabin with at most 200 seats. Sydney would then get more blocked rows than Melbourne when the weather is below average.

16 hours in coach?? I know Turkish has a nice economy cabin, having flown on them before, but still... that’s insane. But hey, people will do it.

flyingclrs727 wrote:

WorldFlier wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

Would be really interesting to see what they do:

IST-PER wouldn't be much of a challenge for a 789 at all.
IST-MEL would be almost the exact same distance as PER-LHR

IST-SYD would easily become the longest 787 route ever attempted though-- nearly 300mi longer than QF's PER-LHR, more than 520mi longer than UA's LAX-SIN.

.....not sure a 789 has the moxy for that, unless TK goes with an ultra-sparse high-premium configuration, similar to SQ's ULR cabin.

If TK goes 4-class (First, Business, Premium Economy, Economy w/ 32" pitch) that would be sparse enough, no?

But the rest of their fleet is all 2-class 7-abreast business and 9 abreast economy. They just did away with premium economy from the 77W fleet.

Oh, then they better go 8 abreast in coach on the 787 like ANA!

Perth must be a great idea.

4engines4lnghll wrote:

16 hours in coach?? I know Turkish has a nice economy cabin, having flown on them before, but still... that’s insane. But hey, people will do it.

I've done it with EVA Air / Toronto - Taipei it's not as bad i basically slept the whole time ..

people exaggerate i mean turkish has been doing IST - BOG with A332 that's 14:20 flight time

I actually wanted to try horse tranquilizer one day. Although I don't know if passengers are allowed to carry ketamine and a needle through the airport.

Hopefully the TSA understand the situation.

ewt340 wrote:

I actually wanted to try horse tranquilizer one day. Although I don't know if passengers are allowed to carry ketamine and a needle through the airport.

Hopefully the TSA understand the situation.

Hahahah my point exactly. Maybe TK will offer ambien after the dinner service. Only for FF with status though

Here is a quote from topic : United daily double SFO-SIN will cancel LAX-SIN
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1397827

And we are talking adding more range for 789. There is no doubt it is a great plane but has limits like everything else. Of course it can be done but only with 24 tonnes payload, with full tanks of fuel and may be two sets of crew. Who will pay for this ?

jayunited wrote:

jagraham wrote:

My question was aimed at this post; are they routinely leaving the freight behind on LAX-SIN, or are they leaving more than a couple of rows of passengers also? Noting that SFO-SIN is about 280 nm shorter, which shouldn't make the difference between all the cargo and no cargo and maybe 50 seats blocked

Yes we are routinely leaving behind freight on a year around basis and during the winter months we are either leaving passengers behind or blocking rows. SFO-SIN we do not have these problems the 789 can handle this route almost on a year around basis we do have to block rows and limit freight for 3-4 weeks during the winter when there are extremely strong headwinds over the Pacific. In fact there have been plenty of times during the winter months when facing strong headwinds SFO-SIN flight time has exceeded 18+ hours. Those winds decimate LAX-SIN and in some cases we were forced to block 50 or more seats on LAX-SIN. I give UA credit for trying LAX-SIN with the 789 but in our current configuration the route proved to be to much for the aircraft to handle efficiently and perhaps profitability

I'm hoping UA will try again we do have A359s on order perhaps UA will order a few A359ULR to cover routes like LAX-SIN.

MeCe wrote:

Here is a quote from topic : United daily double SFO-SIN will cancel LAX-SIN
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1397827

And we are talking adding more range for 789. There is no doubt it is a great plane but has limits like everything else. Of course it can be done but only with 24 tonnes payload, with full tanks of fuel and may be two sets of crew. Who will pay for this ?

That quote sums it up. United blocking 50 seats in winter is a profit killer. I dont understand how users think the 787-9 can do the route.

FriscoHeavy wrote:

[Someone posted that it would only be able to carry ~135 passengers, which I find ludicrous.

Use critical thinking, step back and look at the big picture. Some get so caught up in 'paper performance' before a route is even started that they lose all sight of reality.

SFO-SIN- 7340nm
LAX-SIN - 7621nm

Only an extra 281nm and United has to bump 50 passengers every winter. The payload is reduced significantly.


PER-LHR - 7829nm
SYD-IST - 8076nm

An extra 247nm. So payload will be reduced just like LAX-SIN. The Qantas 787-9 is already low density with 236 seats so bumping 50 seats and you are down to only 176 seats for SYD-IST. That is very low density.

We also dont have any performance data from Qantas on a day with bad weather. We have reports that on good days it can carry a bit of payload. A bad day it might still have blocked seats. So on an equally bad day SYD-IST woulf have below 150 seats or as low as 135 seats.

Remember that as route length gets longer differences in fuel consumption make a bigger difference. I'm sure the 77W would be too expensive to fly given likely yield at its capacity.

The 789 vs. 359 question is more interesting. The 280 t 359 by all available information has a substantial payload advantage over these distances, although RJMAZ is exaggerating the difference (the 789 is already doing better in service than he claims). But the 789 will have lower trip cost, and if it can fly the desired payload, maybe that is good enough. Or maybe TK intends to use a lower MTOW option on its 359s.

DLHAM wrote:

German AeroTelegraph writing about THY flying to SYD.

https://www.aerotelegraph.com/turkish-airlines-greift-golfairlines-auf-sydney-route-an

In this article they wrote that the aircraft type has not been mentioned during the event in Istanbul. So it could either be 789 or A359, with the 789 being in fleet at an earlier stage. So I would just recommend everyone to calm down. Let's wait and see.

No way

As we know, TK is going to get massive numbers of B787s and A350s in a few years.

Is there going to be any chance for TK to start its non-stop flight to Sydney or Melbourne (possibly Brisbane) from Istanbul?

If yes, are those potential routes going to target primarily for transfer passengers from Europe (especially for 2nd-tier cities) or Africa to Australia or vice versa? Or, O&D passengers from Australia to Turkey? I already reckoned the competition in the Kangaroo router is really fierce.

ronmk1986 wrote:

As we know, TK is going to get massive numbers of B787s and A350s in a few years.

Is there going to be any chance for TK to start its non-stop flight to Sydney or Melbourne (possibly Brisbane) from Istanbul?

If yes, are those potential routes going to target primarily for transfer passengers from Europe (especially for 2nd-tier cities) or Africa to Australia or vice versa? Or, O&D passengers from Australia to Turkey?

Possible BUT unlikely. SYD/MEL is till beyond range for B787/A350 FOR TKs type of Traffic. QFs current PER -LHR and expected SYD/MEL -LHR services depends on preimum traffic on aircraft with lower than normal number of seats, which TK is unlikely to get by serving "second tier" European cities or Africa-Australia routes. O & D traffic will exist but most of it will not be preimum traffic and what is preimum will most likely not be enough to justify non stop service.

Gemuser

They could possibly tap into offering one stop service for VFR/Tourism markets like Serbia, Croatia and Secondary destinations in Greece and Italy as well as Turkey O&D, but yields for those will be marginal at best. They would have to up against EK/QF, QR, SQ, CX for premium traffic. I know they have been talking about Australia for years now but I'll believe when FR24 shows a THY callsign tracking southeast over the Kimberley.

Haven't TK be saying that "we will start it next year" for ages?

IST-SYD with B778 will be easy....

Gemuser wrote:

ronmk1986 wrote:

As we know, TK is going to get massive numbers of B787s and A350s in a few years.

Is there going to be any chance for TK to start its non-stop flight to Sydney or Melbourne (possibly Brisbane) from Istanbul?

If yes, are those potential routes going to target primarily for transfer passengers from Europe (especially for 2nd-tier cities) or Africa to Australia or vice versa? Or, O&D passengers from Australia to Turkey?

Possible BUT unlikely. SYD/MEL is till beyond range for B787/A350 FOR TKs type of Traffic. QFs current PER -LHR and expected SYD/MEL -LHR services depends on preimum traffic on aircraft with lower than normal number of seats, which TK is unlikely to get by serving "second tier" European cities or Africa-Australia routes. O & D traffic will exist but most of it will not be preimum traffic and what is preimum will most likely not be enough to justify non stop service.

Gemuser

True that, look at singapore with the singapore route to new york, 18hrs with only seating for 170 people?

What does the bilateral say?

I think given the large European migrant populations from secondary cities QR will be TKs biggest competition as they have a significant network to secondary cities.

I can’t see Brisbane working, very different demographic.

smi0006 wrote:

What does the bilateral say?

7 frequencies to all Australian markets (no provision for extra frequencies outside of SYD/MEL/BNE/PER like a few other bilaterals have)

https://infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/international/files/Growth_Potential_Foreign_Airlines-Northern_Winter_2017-18.pdf

So realistically either SYD or MEL, technically they could do a 4/3 weekly split between both, but that would impact any limited competitive advantage they have.

*EDIT they might be able to get away with daily triangular routing such as IST-SYD-MEL-IST, I'm not sure if that would be counted as 7 or 14 frequencies.

QR is also very aggressive on pricing. When I was looking at going to Europe last year QR was usually the cheapest option for most European markets ex Brisbane (Where they don't even operate) most markets were priced around the 1100-1200 AUD return mark even undercutting the Chinese carriers.