SCFlyer wrote:

EK413 wrote:

CostaDelSol90 wrote:

The bigger issue is the ultra-restrictive bilateral between Indonesia and Australia regarding DPS flights. See the recent news articles about extra allocation of seats? Qf want the final free seats to make SYD seasonal A330, VA have applied to put MEL double daily. Not as simple as upgrading certain routes to wide bodies as far as DPS goes.

If I recall correctly both SYD/MEL-DPS were A330 pre-covid…


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Only SYD-DPS was A330 from memory, and it was using the sole remaining sloped-flat Skybed configured a/c for most of the pre-covid era..

Correct that the A330 was only from SYD-DPS. MEL was 737.

The aircraft wasn’t just the old seats though - there are plenty of trip reports SYD to DPS on YouTube showing the new/current J class in action on the A330.

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

Are there any restrictions on seats to Japan? Thinking of QF were to pick up the VA slots. Daily from SYD,MEL,BNE is quiet the win - HND seems perfect for 787-10….

HND, SIN, HNL, maybe even HKG seem perfect -10 routes. My personal vote for 330 replacement is 787-10 and more 789 (maybe a lower-J config) and an international config of 321XLR…

smi0006 wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

Are there any restrictions on seats to Japan? Thinking of QF were to pick up the VA slots. Daily from SYD,MEL,BNE is quiet the win - HND seems perfect for 787-10….

HND, SIN, HNL, maybe even HKG seem perfect -10 routes. My personal vote for 330 replacement is 787-10 and more 789 (maybe a lower-J config) and an international config of 321XLR…

I think QF have previously said they weren't overly interested in sub fleets with different configs, given that it might seem unlikely.

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

This isn't "adding", this is delaying. Originally these services were supposed to resume at the end of October at the same frequency.

Fuling wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

This isn't "adding", this is delaying. Originally these services were supposed to resume at the end of October at the same frequency.

I’m curious to know why MEL isn’t starting the same time SYD and BNE are. Granted that MEL has JL currently flying 4 weekly to NRT, but I would assume the market market is big enough for both, especially with the pent up demand to Japan. JL fares are $3k+ in Economy.

kriskim wrote:

Fuling wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

This isn't "adding", this is delaying. Originally these services were supposed to resume at the end of October at the same frequency.

I’m curious to know why MEL isn’t starting the same time SYD and BNE are. Granted that MEL has JL currently flying 4 weekly to NRT, but I would assume the market market is big enough for both, especially with the pent up demand to Japan. JL fares are $3k+ in Economy.

Melbourne labour market is proving harder for the entire industry to recruit and retain staff,
Followed closely by Sydney. Brisbane/QLD is doing fine. Maybe they are trying to derisk their operation?

Potentially the Vic govt didn’t want to put up the money at this stage given JL are already flying to Tokyo. Seems the Qld govt were willing to put money in though.

It will need to build up again so adding capacity back in a phased approach likely works best.

Inbound from Japan, QLD has always been stronger than VIC although the yen might make that market difficult

Melbourne is a stronger business market, but until that traffic builds, there is still decent demand both ways for leisure but that will take time. QF and JLwill likely take a conservative approach at the moment to see how things progress.

Fuling wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

This isn't "adding", this is delaying. Originally these services were supposed to resume at the end of October at the same frequency.

That makes sense regarding delaying. So many former QF routes keep getting their re start date pushed back further and further it seems.

Melbourne Airport T1 (QF) has had to be evacuated due to an inadvertent security breach. All passengers and staff including those already boarded on undeparted planes have had to go back landside and be rescreened. Significant delays and cancellations are underway with the knock-on of delays to stretch throughout the day.

IndianicWorld wrote:

Melbourne is a stronger business market, but until that traffic builds, there is still decent demand both ways for leisure but that will take time. QF and JLwill likely take a conservative approach at the moment to see how things progress.

Furthermore, if you can’t start them all at the same time it makes sense to commence with BNE over MEL as it is the more logical routing for connections. Victorians connecting in BNE or SYD are already heading in the right direction, vs Brisbanites flying down to SYD or MEL is not ideal and adds significant distance and time.

I guarantee QF is also front-loading BNE with the intention to use that in a case against VA at the IASC, i.e. "look, we're already flying BNE-HND and VA isn't, so we should get VA's HND traffic rights". Not saying the factors others have mentioned are incorrect, just adding this one to the pot.

There are no seat or aircraft type restrictions on flights between Australia and Japan, only a limit (21 per week) on the number of services each country's airlines can operate to/from Australia using HND. Of those, QF hold 14 (hence daily from SYD and the other 7 split between BNE and MEL), and VA hold 7 with the requirement that VA utilise theirs by March next year.

DeltaB717 wrote:

I guarantee QF is also front-loading BNE with the intention to use that in a case against VA at the IASC, i.e. "look, we're already flying BNE-HND and VA isn't, so we should get VA's HND traffic rights". Not saying the factors others have mentioned are incorrect, just adding this one to the pot.

There are no seat or aircraft type restrictions on flights between Australia and Japan, only a limit (21 per week) on the number of services each country's airlines can operate to/from Australia using HND. Of those, QF hold 14 (hence daily from SYD and the other 7 split between BNE and MEL), and VA hold 7 with the requirement that VA utilise theirs by March next year.

It was stated earlier that the IASC has given VA the final deadline of March 2023 with a "Use it or Lose it" ultimatum. It's unlikely IASC will remove those rights from VA before that deadline.

Although the chances are high that VA will let those rights lapse with the rights automatically returning to the IASC at the end of March 2023, which would go against VA in a future application for HND in the unlikely case they wish to apply again.

tullamarine wrote:

Melbourne Airport T1 (QF) has had to be evacuated due to an inadvertent security breach. All passengers and staff including those already boarded on undeparted planes have had to go back landside and be rescreened. Significant delays and cancellations are underway with the knock-on of delays to stretch throughout the day.

9 news report from this morning, the rescreening queue extended into T2...... Inexperienced staff perhaps?

As others have said, the labour market in Melbourne is still very tight, especially for 'entry level' type jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gnxLws5e8

IndianicWorld wrote:

Melbourne is a stronger business market, but until that traffic builds, there is still decent demand both ways for leisure but that will take time. QF and JLwill likely take a conservative approach at the moment to see how things progress.

I think you'll find the reason for QF favoring BNE over MEL is the same reason that JQ flies CNS-NRT, CNS-KIX and OOL-NRT. There is a very large inbound market from Japan to Qld.

Even though MEL was favored over BNE for the use of the HND slots, as long as QF's Japan capacity is below pre-COVID levels, they'll likely favor BNE over MEL for HND. If they get beyond the 14x weekly to HND and have to return to NRT, then we might see BNE return to NRT. However, I suspect that QF hope they will get hold of VA's HND slots by the time that happens and they can consolidate 21x weekly at HND rather than a split HND/NRT operation.

melpax wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

Melbourne Airport T1 (QF) has had to be evacuated due to an inadvertent security breach. All passengers and staff including those already boarded on undeparted planes have had to go back landside and be rescreened. Significant delays and cancellations are underway with the knock-on of delays to stretch throughout the day.

9 news report from this morning, the rescreening queue extended into T2...... Inexperienced staff perhaps?

As others have said, the labour market in Melbourne is still very tight, especially for 'entry level' type jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gnxLws5e8

Just an observation, all of the recent security breaches in Australia have all happened at QF-exclusive terminals. I find that very strange, to be completely honest.

AdvancedBikkie wrote:

melpax wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

Melbourne Airport T1 (QF) has had to be evacuated due to an inadvertent security breach. All passengers and staff including those already boarded on undeparted planes have had to go back landside and be rescreened. Significant delays and cancellations are underway with the knock-on of delays to stretch throughout the day.

9 news report from this morning, the rescreening queue extended into T2...... Inexperienced staff perhaps?

As others have said, the labour market in Melbourne is still very tight, especially for 'entry level' type jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gnxLws5e8

Just an observation, all of the recent security breaches in Australia have all happened at QF-exclusive terminals. I find that very strange, to be completely honest.

Maybe QF terminals - but different third party providers at each. All managed by the airport companies not QF. I do feel sorry for QF on this one Melbourne airport should have really worn the brunt of this incident they manage the security screening not QF.

smi0006 wrote:

AdvancedBikkie wrote:

melpax wrote:

9 news report from this morning, the rescreening queue extended into T2...... Inexperienced staff perhaps?

As others have said, the labour market in Melbourne is still very tight, especially for 'entry level' type jobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gnxLws5e8

Just an observation, all of the recent security breaches in Australia have all happened at QF-exclusive terminals. I find that very strange, to be completely honest.

Maybe QF terminals - but different third party providers at each. All managed by the airport companies not QF. I do feel sorry for QF on this one Melbourne airport should have really worn the brunt of this incident they manage the security screening not QF.

Yeah, the reason I bring it up is because you get people on Twitter going "QF not being the Spirit of Australia again!" or socialist-leaning people going "this is why privatisation doesn't work".

I feel that it's just a bit unfair, to be honest.

QF isn't that bad compared to airlines internationally. In fact, they're pretty okay.

AdvancedBikkie wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

AdvancedBikkie wrote:

Just an observation, all of the recent security breaches in Australia have all happened at QF-exclusive terminals. I find that very strange, to be completely honest.

Maybe QF terminals - but different third party providers at each. All managed by the airport companies not QF. I do feel sorry for QF on this one Melbourne airport should have really worn the brunt of this incident they manage the security screening not QF.

Yeah, the reason I bring it up is because you get people on Twitter going "QF not being the Spirit of Australia again!" or socialist-leaning people going "this is why privatisation doesn't work".

I feel that it's just a bit unfair, to be honest.

QF isn't that bad compared to airlines internationally. In fact, they're pretty okay.

Yeah - and QF have nothing to do with security screening now they have ended their leases on their terminals. Again, can’t shut en entire industry down for year and reopen it overnight… not to mention lots of changes to security screening requirements during covid.

But for some balance Adelaide’s turn now -
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-11/ ... /101521846

smi0006 wrote:

Maybe QF terminals - but different third party providers at each. All managed by the airport companies not QF. I do feel sorry for QF on this one Melbourne airport should have really worn the brunt of this incident they manage the security screening not QF.

You are technically right but the passengers have bought their tickets with QF so the will naturally blame them. Very few passengers are interested in the byzantine complexity of who is responsible for what at Australian airports.

In this case, it appears a passenger who arrived from PER on the red-eye misunderstood what they needed to do to transfer to another domestic QF service and went through the exit doors into the T1 baggage hall before realising their mistake and going backwards through the exit doors to re-enter the secure zone which set off the alarms. If they had gone upstairs and re-entered airside through security, none of this would have happened.

In relation to the subsequent delays, it wouldn't have mattered whether QF or Melbourne Airport were handling security; massive delays were inevitable. It takes a long time to completely vacate the terminal of staff, passengers and visitors and then recheck them all. Even if they'd have had 20 security lanes open which isn't possible in T1, significant delays would have occurred.

QF appear to have done pretty well getting going again with most of their services now running within 30 minutes of schedule which means there should be no residual knock-on effect during this afternoon's peak.

tullamarine wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

In this case, it appears a passenger who arrived from PER on the red-eye misunderstood what they needed to do to transfer to another domestic QF service and went through the exit doors into the T1 baggage hall before realising their mistake and going backwards through the exit doors to re-enter the secure zone which set off the alarms. If they had gone upstairs and re-entered airside through security, none of this would have happened.

Maybe Alan was right all along... this person is clearly not "match fit" for travel. Those doors are plastered with "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" all over them!

Pretty concerning though that this person was not identified immediately via nearby staff or CCTV, I believe it sets off alarms if someone walks through.

ben175 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

In this case, it appears a passenger who arrived from PER on the red-eye misunderstood what they needed to do to transfer to another domestic QF service and went through the exit doors into the T1 baggage hall before realising their mistake and going backwards through the exit doors to re-enter the secure zone which set off the alarms. If they had gone upstairs and re-entered airside through security, none of this would have happened.

Maybe Alan was right all along... this person is clearly not "match fit" for travel. Those doors are plastered with "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" all over them!

Pretty concerning though that this person was not identified immediately via nearby staff or CCTV, I believe it sets off alarms if someone walks through.

In the person's defence, they may have been an infrequent flyer in which case the whole process can be a bit baffling and confusing. In addition, they had just stumbled off a red-eye at 5:30AM (2:30 AM Perth time) and was probably bleary eyed.

It was an honest mistake and it appears the airport had no choice but to evacuate the terminal. As for picking it up on CCTV, I assume it all happened very quickly in that they came through and then turned around. I saw a person nearly do it when I came back from Sydney a few months ago and told them they had to go upstairs and go back through security. They were confused and worried that they'd get in trouble. As I said, for infrequent travellers it can be a bit overwhelming.

tullamarine wrote:

You are technically right but the passengers have bought their tickets with QF so the will naturally blame them. Very few passengers are interested in the byzantine complexity of who is responsible for what at Australian airports.

Security staff are clearly identified as non-airline staff since they wear clearly different uniforms. If anything, I think most people would misidentify them as government employees. That said, you're correct. As a consumer, you buy a ticket from an airline and ultimately hold them responsible.

In the more complex array of byzantine complexity, this is one of the areas that the ACCC enquiry is focussing on and which airlines have specifically pointed to. Airlines have few mechanisms to hold airports and their contractors to account for service quality. Qantas's initial submission to ACCC noted the lack of meaningful quality metrics used and the inability for airlines to link any performance benchmarks into user agreements. What is really ironic is that the airports place performance benchmarks on airlines. God forbid the airline occupies a stand for too long and the airport will penalise the airline, but don't try and hold the airport to a benchmark!

tullamarine wrote:

In this case, it appears a passenger who arrived from PER on the red-eye misunderstood what they needed to do to transfer to another domestic QF service and went through the exit doors into the T1 baggage hall before realising their mistake and going backwards through the exit doors to re-enter the secure zone which set off the alarms. If they had gone upstairs and re-entered airside through security, none of this would have happened.

Are the exit doors not sufficiently engineered to prevent this from happening?

ben175 wrote:

Maybe Alan was right all along... this person is clearly not "match fit" for travel. Those doors are plastered with "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" all over them!

Pretty concerning though that this person was not identified immediately via nearby staff or CCTV, I believe it sets off alarms if someone walks through.

I'm not so quick to judge people. Very easy to look at it from afar without knowing the context. Was the person visually impaired? Are they not able to read or understand English? Was the signage partially obscured? So many potential reasons and pointless in speculating. Also highlights the importance of design and accessibility. So many people will quickly criticise attention to accessibility (broadly defined) without realising that it's not just to help affected people but to avoid broader negative externalities.

tullamarine wrote:

ben175 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

Maybe Alan was right all along... this person is clearly not "match fit" for travel. Those doors are plastered with "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" all over them!

Pretty concerning though that this person was not identified immediately via nearby staff or CCTV, I believe it sets off alarms if someone walks through.

In the person's defence, they may have been an infrequent flyer in which case the whole process can be a bit baffling and confusing. In addition, they had just stumbled off a red-eye at 5:30AM (2:30 AM Perth time) and was probably bleary eyed.

It was an honest mistake and it appears the airport had no choice but to evacuate the terminal. As for picking it up on CCTV, I assume it all happened very quickly in that they came through and then turned around. I saw a person nearly do it when I came back from Sydney a few months ago and told them they had to go upstairs and go back through security. They were confused and worried that they'd get in trouble. As I said, for infrequent travellers it can be a bit overwhelming.

I completely disagree - those doors do not open from the landslide direction so there is no way this was a simple bleary eyed mistake. This person has most likely waited for someone to exit and then tried to sneak through to avoid the inconvenience of going upstairs and through security screening again. I work at the airport and believe me - people trying to do stupid things like this are not uncommon.

evanb wrote:

'm not so quick to judge people. Very easy to look at it from afar without knowing the context. Was the person visually impaired? Are they not able to read or understand English? Was the signage partially obscured? So many potential reasons and pointless in speculating. Also highlights the importance of design and accessibility. So many people will quickly criticise attention to accessibility (broadly defined) without realising that it's not just to help affected people but to avoid broader negative externalities.

If this is the case, I will happily eat my words. Again, I have seen people do crazy stuff at the airport because they think it will save them a minute, or a dollar, or be more convenient for them. I'm just speaking from experience working in this environment.

qf2220 wrote:

Are the exit doors not sufficiently engineered to prevent this from happening?

They are, but in the context of safety trade-offs. It's simply not worth over engineering a door to prevent this if it may injure someone in the process. Harm reduction rather than elimination becomes the overriding design philosophy.

At most overseas airports there is a human sitting at the exit doors to prevent anyone doing it. Having one way automatic doors doesnt prevent much when there is a constant stream of people.

QF or Mel airport have the ability to risk manage these events to say its a low risk entire re-screen is not required (this used to be done in the past) but now QF dont run the terminals perhaps neither party is willing to go down this path

ben175 wrote:

If this is the case, I will happily eat my words. Again, I have seen people do crazy stuff at the airport because they think it will save them a minute, or a dollar, or be more convenient for them. I'm just speaking from experience working in this environment.

I've commissioned and been involved in cost effectiveness studies for airports on interventions involving design, passenger flow and accessibility. One thing that has always surprised me is that when we did studies that interviewed people after experiences and we got an idea why people misinterpreted and misunderstood things it was recognisable that heterogeneity in behaviour was often a function of things we hadn't considered beforehand.

The challenge though is that results are often implementable in a rather dichotomous manner. We can design for pure efficiency knowing that a tiny number of people not able to navigate that system can cause it to implode (just like this), or we can design a system for the lowest common denominator and accept that it makes the system more inefficient for everyone. How do we consider these trade-offs? In practice, they're also not binary, but more a continuous function, and also not likely linear.

For example, an airport wants to use bidirectional travelators and escalators. Which side gets the forward direction? In a domestic airport, we know that we can place them in the same manner that road traffic travels (left side forward in countries who drive on the left and vice versa) - this is more intuitive for most airport users. In international terminals in big connecting hubs, does this intuitively make sense for most people? Think somewhere like Dubai where you have people coming from everywhere!

One project we did was testing the placing and design of signs to try and nudge more people in the right directions. Guess what? The signs caused disruption by slowing/stoping people, and more slowing/stoping than it saved at the travelator or escalator. Net impact was particularly poor since the people who the sign benefited were not the people who needed the nudge! What that led to was a more discrete separation of the flow of passengers so that the flow was only in one direction. This seems simple but is more more difficult to integrate into design. This is a total abstraction from the case, but just highlights that this may be as much of a design issue, and we cannot design for infinite redundancy, and cannot always anticipate behaviour of an individual who may be unfamiliar, inexperienced, or have some other exogenous factor that exposes a design feature.

jrfspa320 wrote:

At most overseas airports there is a human sitting at the exit doors to prevent anyone doing it. Having one way automatic doors doesnt prevent much when there is a constant stream of people.

QF or Mel airport have the ability to risk manage these events to say its a low risk entire re-screen is not required (this used to be done in the past) but now QF dont run the terminals perhaps neither party is willing to go down this path

Given T1 has 2 such exits, one at either end of the terminal, what you are proposing would require 2 staff to man the exits for about 18 hours per day, 7 days per week. You can see why neither would jump at this option from a cost perspective. Interestingly Concourse E at MEL (the main VA gates) previously didn't have any physical barrier stopping people going back into the secure zone other than a security guy sitting on a plastic chair. Now the terminal's security points have been reconfigured, this is no longer the case and T3 now has the same one-way double door setup as T1.

tullamarine wrote:

jrfspa320 wrote:

At most overseas airports there is a human sitting at the exit doors to prevent anyone doing it. Having one way automatic doors doesnt prevent much when there is a constant stream of people.

QF or Mel airport have the ability to risk manage these events to say its a low risk entire re-screen is not required (this used to be done in the past) but now QF dont run the terminals perhaps neither party is willing to go down this path

Given T1 has 2 such exits, one at either end of the terminal, what you are proposing would require 2 staff to man the exits for about 18 hours per day, 7 days per week. You can see why neither would jump at this option from a cost perspective. Interestingly Concourse E at MEL (the main VA gates) previously didn't have any physical barrier stopping people going back into the secure zone other than a security guy sitting on a plastic chair. Now the terminal's security points have been reconfigured, this is no longer the case and T3 now has the same one-way double door setup as T1.

It's been a while, but doesn't SYD have a person sitting there monitoring those doors in the VA terminal? from memory hidden behind a screen on the right hand side as you exit

smi0006 wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

Are there any restrictions on seats to Japan? Thinking of QF were to pick up the VA slots. Daily from SYD,MEL,BNE is quiet the win - HND seems perfect for 787-10….

HND, SIN, HNL, maybe even HKG seem perfect -10 routes. My personal vote for 330 replacement is 787-10 and more 789 (maybe a lower-J config) and an international config of 321XLR…

787-10 definitely is a good match for Asia routes but think AJ will settle for lower-J config 789.

a19901213 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

NZ516 wrote:

Qantas is adding additional services to HND with the news of Japan opening up fully for Tourists. Brisbane will see 3 weekly service which will now begin on 1Dec.
MEL to HND will be starting on March 23 at this stage.

https://simpleflying.com/qantas-adding- ... melbourne/

Are there any restrictions on seats to Japan? Thinking of QF were to pick up the VA slots. Daily from SYD,MEL,BNE is quiet the win - HND seems perfect for 787-10….

HND, SIN, HNL, maybe even HKG seem perfect -10 routes. My personal vote for 330 replacement is 787-10 and more 789 (maybe a lower-J config) and an international config of 321XLR…

787-10 definitely is a good match for Asia routes but think AJ will settle for lower-J config 789.

781 wouldn’t do much more than Asia HNL, QF have talked about flexibility so a lower J 789 that can do other routes like BNE-US etc makes some sense. I wonder about A359s as well.

evanb wrote:

ben175 wrote:

If this is the case, I will happily eat my words. Again, I have seen people do crazy stuff at the airport because they think it will save them a minute, or a dollar, or be more convenient for them. I'm just speaking from experience working in this environment.

I've commissioned and been involved in cost effectiveness studies for airports on interventions involving design, passenger flow and accessibility. One thing that has always surprised me is that when we did studies that interviewed people after experiences and we got an idea why people misinterpreted and misunderstood things it was recognisable that heterogeneity in behaviour was often a function of things we hadn't considered beforehand.

The challenge though is that results are often implementable in a rather dichotomous manner. We can design for pure efficiency knowing that a tiny number of people not able to navigate that system can cause it to implode (just like this), or we can design a system for the lowest common denominator and accept that it makes the system more inefficient for everyone. How do we consider these trade-offs? In practice, they're also not binary, but more a continuous function, and also not likely linear.

For example, an airport wants to use bidirectional travelators and escalators. Which side gets the forward direction? In a domestic airport, we know that we can place them in the same manner that road traffic travels (left side forward in countries who drive on the left and vice versa) - this is more intuitive for most airport users. In international terminals in big connecting hubs, does this intuitively make sense for most people? Think somewhere like Dubai where you have people coming from everywhere!

One project we did was testing the placing and design of signs to try and nudge more people in the right directions. Guess what? The signs caused disruption by slowing/stoping people, and more slowing/stoping than it saved at the travelator or escalator. Net impact was particularly poor since the people who the sign benefited were not the people who needed the nudge! What that led to was a more discrete separation of the flow of passengers so that the flow was only in one direction. This seems simple but is more more difficult to integrate into design. This is a total abstraction from the case, but just highlights that this may be as much of a design issue, and we cannot design for infinite redundancy, and cannot always anticipate behaviour of an individual who may be unfamiliar, inexperienced, or have some other exogenous factor that exposes a design feature.

I've been involved in similar work too. Yes it is an interesting field.

However, I disagree in this case, because it's a known issue worldwide. The problem here is they've cheaped out in the door design. I'd always recommend going for airlock doors as you find in much of the world at domestic airports. For those who are unfamiliar, exiting you enter a door which shuts behind you, there is then a corridor with a second door which opens. Airlock doors prevent this type of event because the airside door locks if somebody enters from landside.

Passengers get confused and make wrong turns, who knows the passenger might not have even realised they'd left the airside area. That's why products like I describe are standard practice in most domestic airports worldwide, and they're available in Australia too!

beachroad wrote:

evanb wrote:

ben175 wrote:

If this is the case, I will happily eat my words. Again, I have seen people do crazy stuff at the airport because they think it will save them a minute, or a dollar, or be more convenient for them. I'm just speaking from experience working in this environment.

I've commissioned and been involved in cost effectiveness studies for airports on interventions involving design, passenger flow and accessibility. One thing that has always surprised me is that when we did studies that interviewed people after experiences and we got an idea why people misinterpreted and misunderstood things it was recognisable that heterogeneity in behaviour was often a function of things we hadn't considered beforehand.

The challenge though is that results are often implementable in a rather dichotomous manner. We can design for pure efficiency knowing that a tiny number of people not able to navigate that system can cause it to implode (just like this), or we can design a system for the lowest common denominator and accept that it makes the system more inefficient for everyone. How do we consider these trade-offs? In practice, they're also not binary, but more a continuous function, and also not likely linear.

For example, an airport wants to use bidirectional travelators and escalators. Which side gets the forward direction? In a domestic airport, we know that we can place them in the same manner that road traffic travels (left side forward in countries who drive on the left and vice versa) - this is more intuitive for most airport users. In international terminals in big connecting hubs, does this intuitively make sense for most people? Think somewhere like Dubai where you have people coming from everywhere!

One project we did was testing the placing and design of signs to try and nudge more people in the right directions. Guess what? The signs caused disruption by slowing/stoping people, and more slowing/stoping than it saved at the travelator or escalator. Net impact was particularly poor since the people who the sign benefited were not the people who needed the nudge! What that led to was a more discrete separation of the flow of passengers so that the flow was only in one direction. This seems simple but is more more difficult to integrate into design. This is a total abstraction from the case, but just highlights that this may be as much of a design issue, and we cannot design for infinite redundancy, and cannot always anticipate behaviour of an individual who may be unfamiliar, inexperienced, or have some other exogenous factor that exposes a design feature.

I've been involved in similar work too. Yes it is an interesting field.

However, I disagree in this case, because it's a known issue worldwide. The problem here is they've cheaped out in the door design. I'd always recommend going for airlock doors as you find in much of the world at domestic airports. For those who are unfamiliar, exiting you enter a door which shuts behind you, there is then a corridor with a second door which opens. Airlock doors prevent this type of event because the airside door locks if somebody enters from landside.

Passengers get confused and make wrong turns, who knows the passenger might not have even realised they'd left the airside area. That's why products like I describe are standard practice in most domestic airports worldwide, and they're available in Australia too!

The doors in question at MEL are literally the exact kind of doors you are describing.

Another reason as to why I think this was not an accident.

ben175 wrote:

beachroad wrote:

evanb wrote:

I've commissioned and been involved in cost effectiveness studies for airports on interventions involving design, passenger flow and accessibility. One thing that has always surprised me is that when we did studies that interviewed people after experiences and we got an idea why people misinterpreted and misunderstood things it was recognisable that heterogeneity in behaviour was often a function of things we hadn't considered beforehand.

The challenge though is that results are often implementable in a rather dichotomous manner. We can design for pure efficiency knowing that a tiny number of people not able to navigate that system can cause it to implode (just like this), or we can design a system for the lowest common denominator and accept that it makes the system more inefficient for everyone. How do we consider these trade-offs? In practice, they're also not binary, but more a continuous function, and also not likely linear.

For example, an airport wants to use bidirectional travelators and escalators. Which side gets the forward direction? In a domestic airport, we know that we can place them in the same manner that road traffic travels (left side forward in countries who drive on the left and vice versa) - this is more intuitive for most airport users. In international terminals in big connecting hubs, does this intuitively make sense for most people? Think somewhere like Dubai where you have people coming from everywhere!

One project we did was testing the placing and design of signs to try and nudge more people in the right directions. Guess what? The signs caused disruption by slowing/stoping people, and more slowing/stoping than it saved at the travelator or escalator. Net impact was particularly poor since the people who the sign benefited were not the people who needed the nudge! What that led to was a more discrete separation of the flow of passengers so that the flow was only in one direction. This seems simple but is more more difficult to integrate into design. This is a total abstraction from the case, but just highlights that this may be as much of a design issue, and we cannot design for infinite redundancy, and cannot always anticipate behaviour of an individual who may be unfamiliar, inexperienced, or have some other exogenous factor that exposes a design feature.

I've been involved in similar work too. Yes it is an interesting field.

However, I disagree in this case, because it's a known issue worldwide. The problem here is they've cheaped out in the door design. I'd always recommend going for airlock doors as you find in much of the world at domestic airports. For those who are unfamiliar, exiting you enter a door which shuts behind you, there is then a corridor with a second door which opens. Airlock doors prevent this type of event because the airside door locks if somebody enters from landside.

Passengers get confused and make wrong turns, who knows the passenger might not have even realised they'd left the airside area. That's why products like I describe are standard practice in most domestic airports worldwide, and they're available in Australia too!

The doors in question at MEL are literally the exact kind of doors you are describing.

Another reason as to why I think this was not an accident.

Agreed - after 15yrs working in airports this is another example of probably a well off passenger or frequent flyer feeling the rules don’t apply to them and try to get round the system…. I’ve seen it happen at Sydney international way too many times. Doors are fitted with emergency bars to open, pax miss a flight and push bars to open the doors and run down bridge… always HVC from the lounge.

ben175 wrote:

beachroad wrote:

evanb wrote:

I've commissioned and been involved in cost effectiveness studies for airports on interventions involving design, passenger flow and accessibility. One thing that has always surprised me is that when we did studies that interviewed people after experiences and we got an idea why people misinterpreted and misunderstood things it was recognisable that heterogeneity in behaviour was often a function of things we hadn't considered beforehand.

The challenge though is that results are often implementable in a rather dichotomous manner. We can design for pure efficiency knowing that a tiny number of people not able to navigate that system can cause it to implode (just like this), or we can design a system for the lowest common denominator and accept that it makes the system more inefficient for everyone. How do we consider these trade-offs? In practice, they're also not binary, but more a continuous function, and also not likely linear.

For example, an airport wants to use bidirectional travelators and escalators. Which side gets the forward direction? In a domestic airport, we know that we can place them in the same manner that road traffic travels (left side forward in countries who drive on the left and vice versa) - this is more intuitive for most airport users. In international terminals in big connecting hubs, does this intuitively make sense for most people? Think somewhere like Dubai where you have people coming from everywhere!

One project we did was testing the placing and design of signs to try and nudge more people in the right directions. Guess what? The signs caused disruption by slowing/stoping people, and more slowing/stoping than it saved at the travelator or escalator. Net impact was particularly poor since the people who the sign benefited were not the people who needed the nudge! What that led to was a more discrete separation of the flow of passengers so that the flow was only in one direction. This seems simple but is more more difficult to integrate into design. This is a total abstraction from the case, but just highlights that this may be as much of a design issue, and we cannot design for infinite redundancy, and cannot always anticipate behaviour of an individual who may be unfamiliar, inexperienced, or have some other exogenous factor that exposes a design feature.

I've been involved in similar work too. Yes it is an interesting field.

However, I disagree in this case, because it's a known issue worldwide. The problem here is they've cheaped out in the door design. I'd always recommend going for airlock doors as you find in much of the world at domestic airports. For those who are unfamiliar, exiting you enter a door which shuts behind you, there is then a corridor with a second door which opens. Airlock doors prevent this type of event because the airside door locks if somebody enters from landside.

Passengers get confused and make wrong turns, who knows the passenger might not have even realised they'd left the airside area. That's why products like I describe are standard practice in most domestic airports worldwide, and they're available in Australia too!

The doors in question at MEL are literally the exact kind of doors you are describing.

Another reason as to why I think this was not an accident.

The ones I'm talking about have a mechanism which means you can't get back in, because if you pass wrong way through the landside door, the airside door locks shut and an alarm goes off. So that says to me there are two scenarios. A) the person passed the airside door but not the landside door, never actually leaving the secure airside area and some dumbo over reacted (highly likely), or B) these are doors made to look secure (i.e. security theatre) when they're not. Both are equally likely in my experience.

Screening incidents are actually on a worrying upwards trend globally, as post COVID many experienced staff have moved on. The problem is that re-screening everybody takes thousands of people and crams them into an insecure landside area, where they are sitting ducks for an attack (it's still the right thing to do, but it's open to manipulation).

If there is evidence this was deliberate (innocent or hostile intent), throw them in jail and generate as much publicity as possible.

beachroad wrote:

ben175 wrote:

beachroad wrote:

I've been involved in similar work too. Yes it is an interesting field.

However, I disagree in this case, because it's a known issue worldwide. The problem here is they've cheaped out in the door design. I'd always recommend going for airlock doors as you find in much of the world at domestic airports. For those who are unfamiliar, exiting you enter a door which shuts behind you, there is then a corridor with a second door which opens. Airlock doors prevent this type of event because the airside door locks if somebody enters from landside.

Passengers get confused and make wrong turns, who knows the passenger might not have even realised they'd left the airside area. That's why products like I describe are standard practice in most domestic airports worldwide, and they're available in Australia too!

The doors in question at MEL are literally the exact kind of doors you are describing.

Another reason as to why I think this was not an accident.

The ones I'm talking about have a mechanism which means you can't get back in, because if you pass wrong way through the landside door, the airside door locks shut and an alarm goes off. So that says to me there are two scenarios. A) the person passed the airside door but not the landside door, never actually leaving the secure airside area and some dumbo over reacted (highly likely), or B) these are doors made to look secure (i.e. security theatre) when they're not. Both are equally likely in my experience.

Screening incidents are actually on a worrying upwards trend globally, as post COVID many experienced staff have moved on. The problem is that re-screening everybody takes thousands of people and crams them into an insecure landside area, where they are sitting ducks for an attack (it's still the right thing to do, but it's open to manipulation).

If there is evidence this was deliberate (innocent or hostile intent), throw them in jail and generate as much publicity as possible.

It’s been reported the person spent about a minute in the baggage claim area before realising his mistake and then going back through, so he definitely did pass through to landside.
Apparently it took security too long to get to the alarm, meaning they could not physically identify the person, thus everyone being evacuated. This is the worrying factor for me - a clear lapse in the security system.

I saw someone run through a secure door at JFK once and literally within three seconds of the alarm going off he had armed security chasing him. I know obviously the US has far stricter security processes, but these constant breaches are music to the ears of people with hostile intentions.

Forgive me if I missed this - UA to go 10-weekly SYD-SFO over high season. 24 flights a week to SYD is impressive.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... co-flights

Between BNE launch, return of MEL, pretty impressive growth for UA/VA. Well done. Does make me wonder how QF will go recapturing the marketing, and if they have just shrunk a little too much again.

smi0006 wrote:

Forgive me if I missed this - UA to go 10-weekly SYD-SFO over high season. 24 flights a week to SYD is impressive.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... co-flights

Between BNE launch, return of MEL, pretty impressive growth for UA/VA. Well done. Does make me wonder how QF will go recapturing the marketing, and if they have just shrunk a little too much again.

I suspect QF will move their primary focus to LAX with SFO as a secondary point, whereas UA (with codeshares from VA) is the other way around.

UA focuses primarily on their SFO hub with a secondary focus at LAX (as LAX is not a primary hub and the widebodies into LAX are usually rotated from the other UA hubs for their flights to SYD/MEL/NRT).

SCFlyer wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

Forgive me if I missed this - UA to go 10-weekly SYD-SFO over high season. 24 flights a week to SYD is impressive.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... co-flights

Between BNE launch, return of MEL, pretty impressive growth for UA/VA. Well done. Does make me wonder how QF will go recapturing the marketing, and if they have just shrunk a little too much again.

I suspect QF will move their primary focus to LAX with SFO as a secondary point, whereas UA (with codeshares from VA) is the other way around.

UA focuses primarily on their SFO hub with a secondary focus at LAX (as LAX is not a primary hub and the widebodies into LAX are usually rotated from the other UA hubs for their flights to SYD/MEL/NRT).

LAX has been the main entry point for QF for many years. SFO was adopted as a lesser port in response to perceived demand and was an ideal port for the smaller but very range capable 789s whilst the A380s did most of the heavy lifting into LAX from SYD and MEL.

With the limitations in its fleet as it restarts post-COVID, it is understandable that SFO has again been relegated. Will it come back? Probably. Will it ever challenge LAX as the primary QF west coast entry point? No.

ben175 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

ben175 wrote:

Maybe Alan was right all along... this person is clearly not "match fit" for travel. Those doors are plastered with "WARNING: DO NOT ENTER" all over them!

Pretty concerning though that this person was not identified immediately via nearby staff or CCTV, I believe it sets off alarms if someone walks through.

In the person's defence, they may have been an infrequent flyer in which case the whole process can be a bit baffling and confusing. In addition, they had just stumbled off a red-eye at 5:30AM (2:30 AM Perth time) and was probably bleary eyed.

It was an honest mistake and it appears the airport had no choice but to evacuate the terminal. As for picking it up on CCTV, I assume it all happened very quickly in that they came through and then turned around. I saw a person nearly do it when I came back from Sydney a few months ago and told them they had to go upstairs and go back through security. They were confused and worried that they'd get in trouble. As I said, for infrequent travellers it can be a bit overwhelming.

I completely disagree - those doors do not open from the landslide direction so there is no way this was a simple bleary eyed mistake. This person has most likely waited for someone to exit and then tried to sneak through to avoid the inconvenience of going upstairs and through security screening again. I work at the airport and believe me - people trying to do stupid things like this are not uncommon.

I'm going to respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that there is "no way" this was an innocent mistake.

These exit corridors have pass-back alarms which detect motion in the 'wrong' direction, i.e. if someone turns around inside the corridor and starts walking back towards the airside, an alarm will sound and an evacuation and re-screening procedure occurs. This could well represent a scenario where a passenger arrives in MEL on an overnight flight, gets on autopilot, goes to leave the airside and then "whoops" and turns around to go back for their next flight. Certainly the media I've read (and maybe I've missed something important, who knows) about this situation doesn't say they walked through from the landside and triggered the alarms...

smi0006 wrote:

Forgive me if I missed this - UA to go 10-weekly SYD-SFO over high season. 24 flights a week to SYD is impressive.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... co-flights

Between BNE launch, return of MEL, pretty impressive growth for UA/VA. Well done. Does make me wonder how QF will go recapturing the marketing, and if they have just shrunk a little too much again.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. It's difficult to analyse capacity a long way out at this point given the tinkering that airlines are doing, but if we look at the week of Monday 19 December, one of the busiest weeks of the year, QF will operate 37 flights ex-Australia to North America (including Vancouver in this), 23 ex-SYD, 8x MEL and 6 ex-BNE. 19 to LAX, 9 to DFW, 3 to YVR and 6 to HNL. Total capacity 10,682 seats. One may even add AA JV capacity to this. UA will operate 38 flight ex-Australia, 21 ex-SYD, 14 ex-MEL and 3 ex-BNE. 17 to SFO, 7 to IAH and 14 to LAX. Total capacity 10,417 seats. This is quite similar and much of the difference in network balance is a function of feed and revenue management. QF and UA have different networks, capacity and yield available on both ends. Yes, UA have grown, but that is mostly replacing VA's capacity. QF simply don't have the spare aircraft around to do this.

DeltaB717 wrote:

I'm going to respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that there is "no way" this was an innocent mistake.

These exit corridors have pass-back alarms which detect motion in the 'wrong' direction, i.e. if someone turns around inside the corridor and starts walking back towards the airside, an alarm will sound and an evacuation and re-screening procedure occurs. This could well represent a scenario where a passenger arrives in MEL on an overnight flight, gets on autopilot, goes to leave the airside and then "whoops" and turns around to go back for their next flight. Certainly the media I've read (and maybe I've missed something important, who knows) about this situation doesn't say they walked through from the landside and triggered the alarms...

I'm amazed judgements everyone is making based on hearsay.

evanb wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

Forgive me if I missed this - UA to go 10-weekly SYD-SFO over high season. 24 flights a week to SYD is impressive.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... co-flights

Between BNE launch, return of MEL, pretty impressive growth for UA/VA. Well done. Does make me wonder how QF will go recapturing the marketing, and if they have just shrunk a little too much again.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. It's difficult to analyse capacity a long way out at this point given the tinkering that airlines are doing, but if we look at the week of Monday 19 December, one of the busiest weeks of the year, QF will operate 37 flights ex-Australia to North America (including Vancouver in this), 23 ex-SYD, 8x MEL and 6 ex-BNE. 19 to LAX, 9 to DFW, 3 to YVR and 6 to HNL. Total capacity 10,682 seats.

BNE-LAX is currently 10x weekly till the end of this month. It will drop back to daily (x7 weekly) from November onwards, not x6.

SCFlyer wrote:

BNE-LAX is currently 10x weekly till the end of this month. It will drop back to daily (x7 weekly) from November onwards, not x6.

It may be, but I looked at a specific week (Monday 19 December to Sunday 25 December). Per GDS, no BNE-LAX scheduled Saturday 24 December.

SCFlyer wrote:

DeltaB717 wrote:

I guarantee QF is also front-loading BNE with the intention to use that in a case against VA at the IASC, i.e. "look, we're already flying BNE-HND and VA isn't, so we should get VA's HND traffic rights". Not saying the factors others have mentioned are incorrect, just adding this one to the pot.

There are no seat or aircraft type restrictions on flights between Australia and Japan, only a limit (21 per week) on the number of services each country's airlines can operate to/from Australia using HND. Of those, QF hold 14 (hence daily from SYD and the other 7 split between BNE and MEL), and VA hold 7 with the requirement that VA utilise theirs by March next year.

It was stated earlier that the IASC has given VA the final deadline of March 2023 with a "Use it or Lose it" ultimatum. It's unlikely IASC will remove those rights from VA before that deadline.

Although the chances are high that VA will let those rights lapse with the rights automatically returning to the IASC at the end of March 2023, which would go against VA in a future application for HND in the unlikely case they wish to apply again.

Can a 737max make CNS-HND with weight restrictions? they get their first max in February so maybe thats a plan? or BNE-GUAM-HND?

anstar wrote:

Can a 737max make CNS-HND with weight restrictions? they get their first max in February so maybe thats a plan? or BNE-GUAM-HND?

I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, I thought the reason VA couldn't do this was that it had be a non-stop flight Australia to Japan OR that it couldn't go via the USA. Can't remember which of those I had actually read.