ZK-NBT wrote:

Fuling wrote:

Qantasman66 wrote:

What happened to Air China, do they no longer fly to Sydney anymore?

According to CA's latest schedule update, nothing to Australia for Q1 at least.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230109-ca1q23

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... to-beijing

CA to resume PEK-SYD/MEL early February

Nice. Not surprising either despite a recent ABC article saying there will be a significant reduction/slow return of chinese tourists. I think they forget people also transit via China due to low fares.
I can't remember pre covid if they were a330 or not??

3U also resuming CTU-MEL service from early Feb.

gpasternak wrote:

ZK-NBT wrote:

Fuling wrote:

According to CA's latest schedule update, nothing to Australia for Q1 at least.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230109-ca1q23

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... to-beijing

CA to resume PEK-SYD/MEL early February

Nice. Not surprising either despite a recent ABC article saying there will be a significant reduction/slow return of chinese tourists. I think they forget people also transit via China due to low fares.
I can't remember pre covid if they were a330 or not??

Wouldn't think there'll be much transiting going on for a while. Whilst they are returning to lots of markets, it's mostly at 1,2 or 3 weekly to start with.

ZK-NBT wrote:

Fuling wrote:

Qantasman66 wrote:

What happened to Air China, do they no longer fly to Sydney anymore?

According to CA's latest schedule update, nothing to Australia for Q1 at least.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230109-ca1q23

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... to-beijing

CA to resume PEK-SYD/MEL early February

So great to see the Chinese carriers back and ramping up services!

It seems like they are really concentrating on SYD and MEL at the moment. Given that MU, CA, 3U and MF only serviced those two whilst it was CZ who had a bigger Australian network.

qf2220 wrote:

I think that ordering an Uber and ordering a flight are two very different things, psychologically, and I dont think it will work for Bonza.

I agree - especially when you consider that the markets that Bonza is targeting first skew older and less technical than starting on say SYD-MEL.

If they don't have website bookings at launch they will do very quickly thereafter.

Well while Air China continue to serve Minsk and Moscow (or any Russian city) as well as hand money over to fly in Russian airspace, they've no chance of getting a cent of my pay check

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

In partnership with Melbourne Airport and the State of Victoria's Attracting Air Services initiative. An interesting point is VietJet choosing to establish an Australian 'HQ' in Melbourne.

We probably wont know for sure, but are the timing of the Chinese airline returns to Australia and the thawing of the relationship between the governments related?

SCFlyer wrote:

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

In partnership with Melbourne Airport and the State of Victoria's Attracting Air Services initiative. An interesting point is VietJet choosing to establish an Australian 'HQ' in Melbourne.

Queensland government spent quite some time, as was waving cash in front of VietJet for quite a while - the QLD people were quietly hopeful some time back that Vietjet would launch BNE first AUS port and create their HQ in Brisbane, and then things went quiet. This explains it.

Vietjet will be competing with Jetstar - both LCC's with a very entry-level business class offering.....and both notorious for poor schedule adherence and communication.

qf2220 wrote:

We probably wont know for sure, but are the timing of the Chinese airline returns to Australia and the thawing of the relationship between the governments related?

Everything in China is political.

They would probably have come back anyway given the restrictions have actually ending up hurting China themselves more than AU businesses who realised they were too reliant on CN and took the opportunity to find alternative markets.

ArtV wrote:

SCFlyer wrote:

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

In partnership with Melbourne Airport and the State of Victoria's Attracting Air Services initiative. An interesting point is VietJet choosing to establish an Australian 'HQ' in Melbourne.

Queensland government spent quite some time, as was waving cash in front of VietJet for quite a while - the QLD people were quietly hopeful some time back that Vietjet would launch BNE first AUS port and create their HQ in Brisbane, and then things went quiet. This explains it.

Vietjet will be competing with Jetstar - both LCC's with a very entry-level business class offering.....and both notorious for poor schedule adherence and communication.

Given MEL and SYD have by far the largest Vietnamese diasporas, it was always going to be one of those 2 ports that got the business.

Like all these LCCs, it is a mistake to expect amazing service and punctuality. You pay your money, you take your chances.

log0008 wrote:

3U also resuming CTU-MEL service from early Feb.

Here's the article on it: https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230111-3umel

ArtV wrote:

Queensland government spent quite some time, as was waving cash in front of VietJet for quite a while - the QLD people were quietly hopeful some time back that Vietjet would launch BNE first AUS port and create their HQ in Brisbane, and then things went quiet. This explains it.

Vietjet will be competing with Jetstar - both LCC's with a very entry-level business class offering.....and both notorious for poor schedule adherence and communication.

And yet here all 4 (inc JQ) are going to compete out of Melbourne. Is the market really that big even if services aren't daily? Not sure how they can all survive long term?

Velocity7 wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Queensland government spent quite some time, as was waving cash in front of VietJet for quite a while - the QLD people were quietly hopeful some time back that Vietjet would launch BNE first AUS port and create their HQ in Brisbane, and then things went quiet. This explains it.

Vietjet will be competing with Jetstar - both LCC's with a very entry-level business class offering.....and both notorious for poor schedule adherence and communication.

And yet here all 4 (inc JQ) are going to compete out of Melbourne. Is the market really that big even if services aren't daily? Not sure how they can all survive long term?

It is the same with the Australia-Korea market, which is dominated by Sydney, with 5 airlines flying SYD-ICN and only BNE getting any other scheduled service (which is not even year round at this stage).

The Australia-Vietnam market is dominated by Sydney and Melbourne as that is where the strongest overall demand for both inbound and outbound travel by far. That volume makes a compelling case to go into already serviced routes rather than trying to get any first mover advantage into other markets.

Velocity7 wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Queensland government spent quite some time, as was waving cash in front of VietJet for quite a while - the QLD people were quietly hopeful some time back that Vietjet would launch BNE first AUS port and create their HQ in Brisbane, and then things went quiet. This explains it.

Vietjet will be competing with Jetstar - both LCC's with a very entry-level business class offering.....and both notorious for poor schedule adherence and communication.

And yet here all 4 (inc JQ) are going to compete out of Melbourne. Is the market really that big even if services aren't daily? Not sure how they can all survive long term?

Good question. In 2019, BITRE data shows 579,396 passengers taking direct flights between Vietnam and Australia, whereas immigration data shows 440,550 arrivals from Vietnam (including foreigners and Australia residents). The data could be an over/undercount depending on net connections (i.e. are more passengers connecting via third points to/from Vietnam compared to passengers on the direct flights connecting into/onward to/from Vietnam), however these data suggests that it is the later in that there is a lot of onward connecting traffic that supports the market. Furthermore, the immigration data shows phenomenal growth. In the five years between 2014 and 2019, travel between Vietnam and Australia (both directions) grew 51% (Vietnam to Australia: 157%; Australia to Vietnam 30%).

The fragmentation of the market may also be a function of the bilateral agreement between Australia and Vietnam. It allows for 42 weekly frequencies between Vietnam and SYD, MEL, BNE and PER. The allocation process on the Vietnamese side is opaque, but it's likely that VN holds the lion's share and everyone else gets an equal share of the scraps.

Flew ZL last night in J on VH-MFM, this is the first 738 that wasn’t ex VA.

While it was great to have a proper cabin divider and curtain. The cabin was showing its wear/tear from its days with Jet Airways.

Seems that ZL is going to have bit of a consistency issue on there hand, if they keep adding more 738s from random sources and not refurb them.

Halfway thought the flight the crew were trying to workout the lighting, for the Boeing Sky Interior. Instead of dimming the lights, they blacked them out completely for a couple of minutes.

Overall ZL J seems like great value, but if only paid $35 extra to upgrade.

Seemed like the whole cabin last night was upgrades, interesting business model. Would have thought they would be better to replace J with more Y seats.

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

Wow, so now you have VN, JQ, QH and VJ all serving MEL from Vietnam, yet BNE is still yet to get a single service. The Vietnamese population in SE QLD has exploded in the last few years, I'm very surprised we still have yet to see any direct service to Vietnam. So for my (Vietnamese) wife and I, SQ via SIN is still the best way to get to Vietnam from BNE.

Thought I'd book VA BNE-CNS-HND return. I'm not sure I want to travel 8+ hours on a 737 but the pricing in J was really keen (even compared to JQ Business out of OOL to NRT) and the connection in CNS outbound was timely (not so much inbound but not impossible). My normal route on SQ via SIN is much longer and 3x the price

The only thing that stopped me booking was the return CNS-BNE flight with the shortest layover (3+ hours) had no business class on multiple days/weeks so I can only assume that the 700's are starting to appear with an all Y config yet the return fare was exactly the same as the outbound one. I really think this is a miss on VA's part. Surely they are wanting to attract BNE passengers to this flight given the only other choice is QF and the timing is pretty good considering the connection over CNS yet they aren't offering J on the best connecting flight? Of all the flights to put a 700 on, is this really the best one?

Goodbye wrote:

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

Wow, so now you have VN, JQ, QH and VJ all serving MEL from Vietnam, yet BNE is still yet to get a single service. The Vietnamese population in SE QLD has exploded in the last few years, I'm very surprised we still have yet to see any direct service to Vietnam. So for my (Vietnamese) wife and I, SQ via SIN is still the best way to get to Vietnam from BNE.

I suppose it's about critical mass. Looking at the 2021 census, the Vietnamese born population for each of the big three states are as follows:

NSW 97,995
QLD 24,455
VIC 93,598

Obvious caveats regarding the data apply, but the relative scale between NSW/VIC and QLD is very large, hence the critical mass of service to SYD and MEL.

Queensland would also have to heavily rely on Vietnamese inbound tourism (or they and the Airport partner beef up the AAIF subsidy) if they were able to get a Vietnamese carrier into any of the Queensland International Airports via the AAIF fund. As pointed out by other posters, the ex-pat Vietnamese population in Brisbane is small when compared to the Southern capitals, thus it makes business sense to concentrate on the Southern capitals for now.

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

evanb wrote:

Goodbye wrote:

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

Wow, so now you have VN, JQ, QH and VJ all serving MEL from Vietnam, yet BNE is still yet to get a single service. The Vietnamese population in SE QLD has exploded in the last few years, I'm very surprised we still have yet to see any direct service to Vietnam. So for my (Vietnamese) wife and I, SQ via SIN is still the best way to get to Vietnam from BNE.

I suppose it's about critical mass. Looking at the 2021 census, the Vietnamese born population for each of the big three states are as follows:

NSW 97,995
QLD 24,455
VIC 93,598

Obvious caveats regarding the data apply, but the relative scale between NSW/VIC and QLD is very large, hence the critical mass of service to SYD and MEL.

One carrier needs to look at another port in Vietnam, mainly DaNang, for direct flights from Oz - would differentiate and attract a lot who have no choice but to transfer in SGN

rgrassick wrote:

One carrier needs to look at another port in Vietnam, mainly DaNang, for direct flights from Oz - would differentiate and attract a lot who have no choice but to transfer in SGN

I thought about that too. DAD is certainly the third largest port in Vietnam and is substantial in size and with has a strong domestic network. Surprisingly, Australia-Vietnam services are very focused on SGN, with only limited SYD/MEL-HAN operations. Obviously geography plays a role in that, but also HCM City is just that much larger than Hanoi, and Southern Vietnam also has stronger VFR connections to Australia. However, DAD would likely cannibalise a lot of HAN traffic so the incumbents (e.g. VN) certainly won't be interested. The question is whether there would be a first mover advantage for QH and VJ? Unfortunately, I can't imagine that this would be a high yield route, which undermines any gain from a first mover advantage.

However, the elephant in the room is the new airport in HCM City. SGN and the new airport will operate simultaneously (at least for the first 5+ years). There is talk that all international traffic will transfer to the new airport and domestic traffic will be split. One suggestion is that only VN will be allowed domestic traffic at the new airport for the first few years. If this were to happen, I'd expect QH and VJ to shift a fair amount of their international capacity elsewhere.

ArtV wrote:

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

tullamarine wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

Sadly this is nothing new - such occurrences have been happening for months now

https://australianaviation.com.au/2023/ ... ce-to-fly/

Bonza has it’s AOC!

tullamarine wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

DNATA is the ground handler for all the Chinese carriers at Australian ports

As for the original poster's question: With the return of the Chinese and other carriers boosting capacity, I would describe the shortage at our international terminals as worse than ever.

I know of multiple situations where the opening of check-in for international flights out of Melbourne was delayed this week for up to an hour due to a massive shortage of upstairs people. Very few international flights, especially ones with under 90 min turn go out on time these days.

Be it hospitals, cafes or airports we just have to accept that until the nationwide workforce shortages slow down, the quality and timeliness of service just won't be there for quite a while.

Velocity7 wrote:

Thought I'd book VA BNE-CNS-HND return. I'm not sure I want to travel 8+ hours on a 737 but the pricing in J was really keen (even compared to JQ Business out of OOL to NRT) and the connection in CNS outbound was timely (not so much inbound but not impossible). My normal route on SQ via SIN is much longer and 3x the price

The only thing that stopped me booking was the return CNS-BNE flight with the shortest layover (3+ hours) had no business class on multiple days/weeks so I can only assume that the 700's are starting to appear with an all Y config yet the return fare was exactly the same as the outbound one. I really think this is a miss on VA's part. Surely they are wanting to attract BNE passengers to this flight given the only other choice is QF and the timing is pretty good considering the connection over CNS yet they aren't offering J on the best connecting flight? Of all the flights to put a 700 on, is this really the best one?

I wonder if VA is still planning to make changes to their CNS schedules. Currently they don't have any early morning flights from CNS to SYD or MEL, with first flights of the day both departing at 10:45am. It won't be ideal for connections considering the 4h30m transit time.

On the topic of VA and HND, any idea if/when VA will sell tickets ex. Japan? As of now, Tokyo isn't an option for departure on their website, even on their JP site.

According to payalls on News Corp and Australian Aviation, Bonza set to imminently launch and has just been granted an AOC by CASA.

Freebie Article via FlightGlobal: https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/a ... 04.article

Boof wrote:

https://australianaviation.com.au/2023/01/breaking-bonza-set-to-launch-after-gaining-casa-clearance-to-fly/

Bonza has it’s AOC!

I'm sure they would have preferred to get off the ground before Christmas peak. Nevertheless, congrats and here is hoping they are successful.

SCFlyer wrote:

According to payalls on News Corp and Australian Aviation, Bonza set to imminently launch and has just been granted an AOC by CASA.

Freebie Article via FlightGlobal: https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/a ... 04.article

And their fourth 737-8 Max will be on it's way to MCY soon too.

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Bonza/B ... AX/7109823

BNEFlyer wrote:

SCFlyer wrote:

According to payalls on News Corp and Australian Aviation, Bonza set to imminently launch and has just been granted an AOC by CASA.

Freebie Article via FlightGlobal: https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/a ... 04.article

And their fourth 737-8 Max will be on it's way to MCY soon too.

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Bonza/B ... AX/7109823

Great new for Bonza - can’t wait to see their aircraft up in the air. Whilst I’m skeptical, love to see a new airline in AU! Good luck to them

log0008 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

DNATA is the ground handler for all the Chinese carriers at Australian ports

As for the original poster's question: With the return of the Chinese and other carriers boosting capacity, I would describe the shortage at our international terminals as worse than ever.

I know of multiple situations where the opening of check-in for international flights out of Melbourne was delayed this week for up to an hour due to a massive shortage of upstairs people. Very few international flights, especially ones with under 90 min turn go out on time these days.

Be it hospitals, cafes or airports we just have to accept that until the nationwide workforce shortages slow down, the quality and timeliness of service just won't be there for quite a while.

Didn’t QF handle Air China before the pandemic? They don’t ground handle anymore. Seems like airlines are all moving around at the moment trying to find a stable provider - but they are all as bad as each other and with QF group out sourcing they just can’t handle the scale of the ramp up. Going to be a very ugly year at international airports. Hopefully with new EBAs coming online things will stabilise, think I read Dnata offered 17% pay increase…. Over three years…. Doesn’t really keep up with inflation in what has become an undesirable industry.

smi0006 wrote:

log0008 wrote:

tullamarine wrote:

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

DNATA is the ground handler for all the Chinese carriers at Australian ports

As for the original poster's question: With the return of the Chinese and other carriers boosting capacity, I would describe the shortage at our international terminals as worse than ever.

I know of multiple situations where the opening of check-in for international flights out of Melbourne was delayed this week for up to an hour due to a massive shortage of upstairs people. Very few international flights, especially ones with under 90 min turn go out on time these days.

Be it hospitals, cafes or airports we just have to accept that until the nationwide workforce shortages slow down, the quality and timeliness of service just won't be there for quite a while.

Didn’t QF handle Air China before the pandemic? They don’t ground handle anymore. Seems like airlines are all moving around at the moment trying to find a stable provider - but they are all as bad as each other and with QF group out sourcing they just can’t handle the scale of the ramp up. Going to be a very ugly year at international airports. Hopefully with new EBAs coming online things will stabilise, think I read Dnata offered 17% pay increase…. Over three years…. Doesn’t really keep up with inflation in what has become an undesirable industry.

QF handled a few airlines outside themselves before the pandemic. Those airlines all sort of automatically went over to dnata when QF did.

DNATA EBA just got passed. Its a bit confusing because the old EBA expired in 2019. Most of the 17% is immediate as it was backdated to 2020, 2021 and 2022. The new EBA expires next year.

Flying through Sydney this arvo - always surprises me how many 717s are parked up, is there a way to pull their utilisation from flight radar? Curious to see how the A220 compares if we see them used more on ADL, CBR off peak between CBR, HBA, and regional flying.

Speaking of Asia...

Vietnam Airlines / Cebu Pacific to trim flights in February; China Southern to boost MEL and SYD to 10x weekly in March.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230112-5jsyd
https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230112-czau
https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230111-vnau

smi0006 wrote:

BNEFlyer wrote:

SCFlyer wrote:

According to payalls on News Corp and Australian Aviation, Bonza set to imminently launch and has just been granted an AOC by CASA.

Freebie Article via FlightGlobal: https://www.flightglobal.com/airlines/a ... 04.article

And their fourth 737-8 Max will be on it's way to MCY soon too.

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Bonza/B ... AX/7109823

Great new for Bonza - can’t wait to see their aircraft up in the air. Whilst I’m skeptical, love to see a new airline in AU! Good luck to them

Congratulations to Bonza! Been a long time coming.

Any bets as to when we'll see Bazza and Shazza (and whatever other 'Aussie' names they manage to come up with) flying around our skies?
They seem very keen, so a start sometime in March wouldn't surprise me.

It will be interesting to see what their schedule looks like once they are up and running. I think they would be wise to stick to their larger ports first (like CNS or NTL) before venturing out to places like TMW or ABX - easier to fill seats, plus there won't be the inevitable headache that comes with introducing 737s to an airport designed for props.

- Edit -

According to the ABC, its CEO is talking of launching operations this month, possibly within the next fortnight.
Very ambitious!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-12/ ... /101849982

Goodbye wrote:

myki wrote:

Another one for MEL ... VJ to launch SGN-MEL, adding more competition to the route.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/victoria ... al-airline

Wow, so now you have VN, JQ, QH and VJ all serving MEL from Vietnam, yet BNE is still yet to get a single service. The Vietnamese population in SE QLD has exploded in the last few years, I'm very surprised we still have yet to see any direct service to Vietnam. So for my (Vietnamese) wife and I, SQ via SIN is still the best way to get to Vietnam from BNE.

There’s much more demand out of MEL to Vietnam and the market is largely 2-way compared to BNE. SE Asia is not really BNE’s strong point, there’s no service to Thailand, limited service to Malaysia soon and no service to Vietnam. Even for Singapore, MEL and SYD are a lot more lucrative.

I think VJ will eventually announce BNE later this year once MEL gets up and running as there have been rumours of them starting BNE. Either way, VJ hasn’t really had the best track record of announcing then starting services, this is probably the third or fourth time they have ‘announced’ flights to Australia.

But if you have been flying SQ, I don’t think that you are the target market that VJ are after.

smi0006 wrote:

Flying through Sydney this arvo - always surprises me how many 717s are parked up, is there a way to pull their utilisation from flight radar? Curious to see how the A220 compares if we see them used more on ADL, CBR off peak between CBR, HBA, and regional flying.

717 utilisation has been really low all year. I’m not sure whether that’s because Alliance are now doing a lot of the previous 717 flying with their E190s, or because National Jet are chronically short of staff, or both (probably a bit of both). I’m slightly intrigued by what happens with the A220s, as there’s no way they could be flown at such low frequency.

tullamarine wrote:

ArtV wrote:

Related question to the above topics, with the Chinese carriers returning to our ports, and other new entrants, are the airport ground handling providers ready for an uptick in services?
I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

It was reported this morning that Swissport is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $2000 for baggage handlers at MEL. Apparently delays in receiving international luggage into baggage hall stretched up to 4 hours last week, The baggage hall must have been a sea of frustrated people.

The sign-on bonus is useless, as I know for a fact that people leave once they are paid the bonus. Maybe if they actually improved T & C's, they may attract workers to stay longer...

ArtV wrote:

I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

Had a similar experience with Jetstar (domestic) at SYD last week, although to their credit they did warn us when we arrived that there would be a very lengthy delay in unloading luggage. Despite only being a 17:00 arrival the aircraft did not fly on anywhere else that night, so I assume we were triaged at the bottom of the pile compared to getting turnarounds pushed.

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... ghai-china

Speaking of China flights to and from Australia. Qantas is cautious on resuming flights to Shanghai and for now has no plans to return.

RyanairGuru wrote:

ArtV wrote:

I departed internationally from Melbourne on New Years Day and it was a [email protected] show....not enough staff to unload or load aircraft, so there were significant delays on the ground. You could watch the aircraft with their cargo doors open, and see the containers inside....but no staff or equipment ready to unload for some time.

Where are we at with staffing at the main airports?

Had a similar experience with Jetstar (domestic) at SYD last week, although to their credit they did warn us when we arrived that there would be a very lengthy delay in unloading luggage. Despite only being a 17:00 arrival the aircraft did not fly on anywhere else that night, so I assume we were triaged at the bottom of the pile compared to getting turnarounds pushed.

The problem in MEL is that Menzies just recently took on the JQ 787 contract. This has lead to them being the most understaffed at MEL and it is hurting their other operations. (MH being the example that keeps coming up in the media)

Congrats on Bonza and their AOC. Yes I hate the name and brand but I’m very keen to see another airline ply our skies especially one that’s seemingly keen to apply some out of the box thinking to their routes.

I’m not 100% convinced it will work out for them but JQ currently have a monopoly on the LCC space and their service offering since Covid has been appalling (not that it was ever great)

Unfortunately the press releases to go with the AOC mention the FlyBonza app to be the only place to book flights (other than a travel agent) which as per the discussions here earlier this month doesn’t make any logical sense and does make me question the business accumen of management. You don’t make it harder for customers to buy your product!

rgrassick wrote:

One carrier needs to look at another port in Vietnam, mainly DaNang, for direct flights from Oz - would differentiate and attract a lot who have no choice but to transfer in SGN

Funny you mention that - my wife is from Da Nang and that's where we're headed next week - BNE-SIN-DAD with SQ. Whilst it is the third largest port in Vietnam, I'd be very surprised to see any flights from Australia anytime soon. DAD is massive with Korean tourism - before the pandemic there were upwards of 30(!) flights a day between South Korea and DAD - around a 5 hour flight!

SGN and HAN would be much more popular than DAD for Australian tourists I would have thought. Most people I mention Da Nang to have never heard of it.

kriskim wrote:

But if you have been flying SQ, I don’t think that you are the target market that VJ are after.

Surprisingly SQ are generally the cheapest between BNE and Vietnam (not that there's much choice at the moment). We managed to get return flights for next week for around $800 return, despite it being Chinese New Year.

We're always after the cheapest, just so happens that it's usually SQ!

Goodbye wrote:

rgrassick wrote:

One carrier needs to look at another port in Vietnam, mainly DaNang, for direct flights from Oz - would differentiate and attract a lot who have no choice but to transfer in SGN

Funny you mention that - my wife is from Da Nang and that's where we're headed next week - BNE-SIN-DAD with SQ. Whilst it is the third largest port in Vietnam, I'd be very surprised to see any flights from Australia anytime soon. DAD is massive with Korean tourism - before the pandemic there were upwards of 30(!) flights a day between South Korea and DAD - around a 5 hour flight!

SGN and HAN would be much more popular than DAD for Australian tourists I would have thought. Most people I mention Da Nang to have never heard of it.

Australians might not know Da Nang, but Hoi An is popular with Australian tourists. With a bit of marketing of where Da Nang is, you might be able to make a go of a couple of weekly flights to SYD and MEL. That said, the route would be largely targeted at Australian tourists, many of whom start/end in HCMC or Hanoi and travel the length of the country, with Hanoi>Ha Long Bay>Hoi An>HCMC or vice versa being a pretty standard itinerary, with domestic flights (or trains for the backpackers) in between.

Fuling wrote:

I wonder if VA is still planning to make changes to their CNS schedules. Currently they don't have any early morning flights from CNS to SYD or MEL, with first flights of the day both departing at 10:45am. It won't be ideal for connections considering the 4h30m transit time.

On the topic of VA and HND, any idea if/when VA will sell tickets ex. Japan? As of now, Tokyo isn't an option for departure on their website, even on their JP site.

I wondered the same thing about connections in CNS. eg. ADL doesn't currently have a direct flight to Japan, so surely would be ripe to pick up some connections for the new CNS-HND flight, especially as its (almost) on the way. But the one daily ADL-CNS flight gets in at 14.10 and misses the HND departure by less than an hour.

I'd definitely consider this route from ADL in J if it was priced right & had a good connection in CNS.

I'm sure they're working on it

Have we ever had a time where there are 5 jet carriers (of 737/A320 size) running in the domestic market? QF, JQ, VA, ZL and now AB (yes that is Bonza's code). I know weve had 4 on a number of occasions, including Oz Jet and Strategic/Air Australia, but cannot think of 5.