Note: There is a correction concerning the Jetstar load factor indicated lower down in this post, fixing a misread table on the data Qantas lodged with the ASX.
The February traffic figures for domestic services imply that Qantas and Virgin Blue are in a race for the middle of the market, not the top or the bottom.
Virgin Blue’s passenger numbers were only down by 0.1% for the month, compared to February last year, which had an extra day anyhow.
But Qantas domestic was down by 10.1 %, and its predominantly turbo prop Qantaslink services, where competition by Virgin Blue’s Embraer E-jets is slowly building up, fell back measured by passengers boarded by 6.2% compared to the same month (but one day longer) last year.
Jetstar’s domestic routes boarded 3.3% fewer paying passengers.
A reasonable interpretation of these figures would be that they reflect the strong decline in paying business class passengers on domestic trunk routes as corporate travel managers crack down, as reported elsewhere, on both frequency of travel, class of travel, and the executive pursuit of ‘most convenient flight’ above company policies emphasising ‘cheapest possible flight.’
On domestic routes Jetstar also reported a seat factor of 78.9% in the month, not the 64.2% used in this post yesterday, which was a misreading of the table in which that figure belonged to Qantaslink. The Qantas domestic seat factor was 74.1%.
This means the pleasure of finding Jetstar was flying less laterally jammed to the hilt that the other carriers was based on error. It is just as miserably jam packed as ever.
This also weakens but I don’t think invalidates my point that there are signs of weakness in the appetite for very cheap fares as household budgets come under growing stress, and the notion of visiting friends and relatives or taking a flying holiday slip off the radar.
Qantas international routes suffered a 16.8 % decline in patronage in February, a bad number, yet considerably better than the 20% or more declines in passengers boarded being reported by most of its foreign flag carrier rivals.
Jetstar’s international passenger numbers soared by 24.5% compared to February last year as it grew its network.
3 Comments
Virgin Blue’s embraer jets seem more noisy than their 737. Who agrees?
Really hard to say. They are both fairly noisy inside, but the wider seats in the Embraer and the fact that there are no middle seats, and that you can get on and off a lot faster makes them for me the most comfortable of jets in domestic service.
It’s interesting that Virgin Blue bought two jets Qantas really should have included in their fleet, the E-jets and 777. But then again, I’ve never flown in a jet I didn’t like, including such rare birds as the Dassault Mercure (with Air-Inter, only about 11 made it into service) which was incredibly noisy inside, and Trident 1s and Trident 3s with BEA. It’s what some airlines do in their jets, with bad configurations, or something resembling (well, even a little) the convict airline attitude in the movie Con Air that really gets me.
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