There are a few puzzles to consider as the Qantas Cityflyer fleet, which is mostly based on aging but comfortable 254 seat Boeing 767-300s faces falling demand, rising competition and a delayed Boeing 787.
Part of the puzzle is that 787s were supposed to have replaced the oldest and thus most costly to maintain 767s well before late 2014 which is latest promised delivery date for the first 787-8s Qantas was originally supposed to receive from late last year in the jet that at the moment not even Boeing dares to fly while it sorts out a wing/body join failure.
Another immediate issue is the inability of Qantas full service domestic flights to compete against Virgin Blue, with Qantas loosing more than 4% of passengers and bleeding through loss making fares against Virgin Blue gaining more than 5% by people flown on such routes and apparently doing OK yield wise.
The position darkens for the Cityflyers further as business account travel shrinkage exposes the vulnerability of the Qantas services to the top end of town, and especially the retreat from domestic business class.
Tiger’s targeting of the key Cityflyer routes following its entry to the Melbourne-Sydney route (with a lot more to come) greatly complicates matters, because it also undermines the Qantas owned alternative to Qantas service which is Jetstar.
Which raises the possibility that Qantas really doesn’t need to replace its 767s with another widebody, but with those lovely high density narrow body single aisle torture tubes like the Airbus A321 or the Boeing 737-900ER.
Each can be crammed with close to 220 seats Jetstar or Tiger style, compared to 224 economy seats in the current 767s which also have an increasingly unused 30 seat business class cabin.
Both jets are also exceptionally efficient, in terms of fuel and maintenance economy, and in totally p*ssing off the customers which appears to be an integral part of the Qantas group service culture.
Jetstar already has some A321s in its fleet and is possibly less than a year away from taking over more than 50% of Qantas domestic carriage from current levels of over 40%. Jetstar is eating Qantas from the bottom up, while the top payers get down traded by their employers. More A321s for Jetstar looks likely, each carrying around 40 more seats than its A320s.
The 737-900ER is operationally easy to integrate into a Qantas fleet which already includes 737-800s.
Don’t rule out the 737-900ER for Virgin Blue either at some stage. It offers an easy way to get more seats per slot at Sydney Airport especially if there is an up trade on some of its smaller 737s as their leases expire.
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I am also frustrated by Qantas suggesting that there is nothing they can do (after the event/s) when things have gone wrong. A previous blogger was quite correct that the key purpose of flying is to get safely to and from destination, and the point I have repeatedly made to Qantas via feedback to the Executive Customer Care centre is that that expectation is factored into the cheapest fare. Anything over the most basic airfare is equated with services (or promises of services) that attracts extra costs – those little extras are not gifts – a contract of offer and accept – and yet just about every flight that I have flown on has failed in some or many ways to meet the ‘offer’ side of the contract! And one of the reasons Qantas and the airline industry get away with this is that they already have our money!!! The most they can do is offer vouchers that are inadequate in value to provide the level of compensation to match their failure to deliver – the offer of vouchers also further invests the disgruntled traveller with Qantas product and service, and the other typical offer of a single sector upgrade is often difficult to redeem and yet again requires the fed up paying public to continue to be invested in the lottery that is the Qantas experience! If the little extras that could easily equate to the further average $8k cost of a return business class ticket to the States (over the cost of economy ticket that has the same expectation of safe journey) are not delivered to the customer it is fair to ask “how does Qantas – or any service provider – get away with not delivering what is offered to the customer”? What are the penalties and boundaries imposed on large airline corporations that flaunt consumer codes? And is it possible for compensation to be objectively set by the offending party? I have even been told by several executive customer service operatives that Qantas NEVER refunds – does that mean that the regulators have never on a single occasion made Qantas refund where they have not delivered on the marketed experience (And I don’t mean safe take off and landing – that is seldom the stuff of promotional material for business travel instead it is usually a promise of pleasant happy staff, a clean cabin, gourmet meals and premium wines and the inflight personal screens and extra personal space that is all paid for by the flying customer. What also annoys me is the supreme confidence at Qantas that it is a business above consumer codes and that it is entirely at the Qantas discretion how it will address consumer complaints – and once again the word lottery comes to mind. The logic trap that Qantas has frequently employed with me is the same lame one used with fellow Qantas customer/bloggers – “sometimes things regrettably don’t work” WELL WHAT ELSE ISN’T WORKING? It has been widely reported in the media that small technical errors underpinned the space shuttle disaster/s!! How many ‘little technical errors’ are tolerated by an airline and how are we to know the difference. Every time there is even a small technical problem inflight it makes me anxious that something else, more vital to my safety, may have been allowed to go unchecked. I recently travelled on the new A380 and during the night all the lighting came on, seatbelt light came on but no announcement was made by the captain – then lights lowered and the seatbelt light went off. I asked the attendant what had happened and I was told that it is a ‘glitch’ a ‘ghost’ that occasionly happens and they don’t know why. DONT KNOW WHY??!! UNACCEPTABLE!!! When I suggested to Qantas customer care that CASA might like to have this situation run by them I was called back by another customer service operator and told my issue/complaint would be directed to the engineers (and for anyone that doesn’t understand what the issue is, simply put, it is terrifying to be somewhere over the Pacific in the middle of the night and the aircraft seems to shift a gear to wake passengers from their sleep in the same way that precedes an emergency). How can Qantas – or any of the airlines – operate in such a safety driven domain whilst tolerating constant technical faults (unrelated or otherwise to safety)? Perhaps if the airlines were made to refund customers then their service providers (of inflight entertainment for example) might feel pressure to also get it right in order for customers to get what they have already paid for. On the ground customers have consumer protection, how about that standard is extended to the flying public to inspire our airlines to do a better job (not that their marketing isn’t fantastic – in the truest sense of the word). People aren’t stupid – we know when turbulence prevents service and we know when the pilot is attending to matters of safety but we also know if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then it is usually an inferior product or service.
kforte I agree with you about what Airlines offer, but the waters are really muddied in regards to Airline travel and purtchasing tickets by a High Court case: MacRobertson Miller Airline Services v Commissioner of State Taxation (WA)(1975). (google the case if you want to read about it)
Apart from other things the Chief Justice in that case found that the sweeping exclusion clauses on airline tickets in effect prevented the ticket from being an offer at all. There was simply nothing to accept. The airline company is saying: we will carry you from A to B but we are not in any way obliged to do that (have a read of your tickets conditions next time you get one). This cannot be the basis of contract. Optional performance is not what contract is all about.
The Chief Justice said that the ticket was a statement of terms which would govern the relationship between the parties if the airline in fact carried the passenger. He thought that an airline ticket was like a reward, something which the airline company could claim if they carried the passenger. It was, in other words, a unilateral contract.
I don’t know if legislation has modified this but I doubt it has in any significant way.
kforte sounds like every crew member’s nightmare. What will ever please someone like him/her?
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