Qantas Frequent Flyer - OW vs Star

Sure, it is appearing on another board, but I thought I would give a heads up to those who also frequent it but *might* miss the thread, since THAT board has so many trivial threads, it is easy to miss a good one.

http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1432843/

One of the valid comments is "not everyone wants to transit London". And this is where it becomes on-topic for Qantas.

I am thinking that with the entry of Swiss to oneworld, the opportunities for connections to Central and Eastern Europe are GREATLY expanded.

So this is where I am coming from, to keep this on topic on the QF board.

Would it be A GOOD THING for QF to switch the FRA flights to ZRH, with extensions to CDG and FRA? This would allow good on-carriage on another oneworld carrier to other places in Europe which aren't possible from FRA and CDG. How would the demand and yield go?

Over to you lot.

Dave

Perhaps SWISS will help to open up parts of central and eastern Europe.
However, I think that OneWorld should be looking seriously for an Eastern European carrier. Star poached LOT right of the vine (and LOT is probably the best run of the Eastern European lot). Skyteam already have Malev (I think?). So it leaves precious little for OneWorld. Given all those countries are about to join in the EU, it could be a good investment.
One way around it may well be convincing Finnair to project into more parts of Eastern Europe.
The other obvious gap for OneWorld is China, although CX's expansion may fill this gap over the next few years, as well as the talked about QF service to a port in China.
A smaller gap in OneWorld is Canada as AA services there aren't that great.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by thadocta:
One of the valid comments is "not everyone wants to transit London". And this is where it becomes on-topic for Qantas.

Would it be A GOOD THING for QF to switch the FRA flights to ZRH, with extensions to CDG and FRA? This would allow good on-carriage on another oneworld carrier to other places in Europe which aren't possible from FRA and CDG. How would the demand and yield go?
</font>

Yes the problem with transitting London is the annoyance at having to fly back from where you come from to get almost everywhere in Europe. Though BA have a very comprehensive network the connection times are usually minimal.

I understood the FRA flights to be quite profitable and the CDG (& previously FCO) to be marginal. What proportion of the FRA traffic terminate at FRA?

If Swiss maintain a decent Western & Central European network then it might be worth QF pulling Paris and going almost daily into ZUR to connect on a host of codeshares. Again the key would be what proportion of the CDG terminate there and what travels further. It is only going to be the terminators that may move to AF - but then their options are limited.

Ahh, the old Logic verses Politics debate again. logic says ZRH is a good point for QF. But one of he largest (if not the largest) QF shareholders may have something to say about sending Euro-destined pax to ZRH rather than to the BA stronghold of LHR.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by NM:
Ahh, the old Logic verses Politics debate again. logic says ZRH is a good point for QF. But one of he largest (if not the largest) QF shareholders may have something to say about sending Euro-destined pax to ZRH rather than to the BA stronghold of LHR.</font>

Do not have a QF annual report with me right now, but AFAIK BA has 25% holding, so must be the largest single shareholder by a long way. Therefore we are doomed to overfly Continental Europe for the time being. If BA instead of AF had bought KLM, AMS may have become an option for the LHR overflow.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by QF ExLurker:
but AFAIK BA has 25% holding</font>BA used to have a 25% holding but this was diluted to approx. 19% as BA chose not to exercise its option to buy shares in QF during the last stock offering. BA is generally considered to have a controlling interest in QF (though some might say that with the Eddington as BA CEO it is QF who has a controlling interest in BA).

Don't forget those London taxes are a killer on any ticket! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

------------------
RichardMEL, UA 1P (It's Time to Fly)
A Star Alliance Member.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RichardMEL:
Don't forget those London taxes are a killer on any ticket! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

</font>

..but only if you can't arrange to transit through LHR on your way out. The best lurk ever was Concorde paying "only" GBP20 whereas WT+, J and F all paid GBP40.

Hi,

For those not wanting to transit london can already do so on a QF flight number:

Flight Frm Departs To Arrives Typ Meal Freq Begins Until OperatedBy
QF 3853 BKK 11:55pm ZRH 6:10am 343 B MT...SS 21FEB04 26MAR04 SWISS

So perhaps this is a sign of things to come.

The other option is to transit in Helsinki. Where the minimum connection time is only 30 minutes.

Personally, I can't wait to give Swiss a go.

I remember a couple of years ago the Qantas GM for Switzerland telling me at a do in ZRH that QF had been looking at SIN/ZRH for some time but decided that it was only marginal. I can't recall his reason. Marginally profitable? I've travelled this route for years with SQ, occasionally with LX or QF via FRA, and other than when the SARS scare was around, the planes are full (or fullish).
As for choice on the route, SQ beats LX hands down.

Zermatt is your handle named after the village or for some other reason - I heard the village is beautiful.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mikalee:
Zermatt is your handle named after the village or for some other reason - I heard the village is beautiful.</font>

Guilty! It's one of the most beautiful mountain villages I've seen. Great skiing, including summer skiing on the Klein Matterhorn, and fantastic walking, hiking and climbing in suumer. No cars in the village adds to its appeal. It's well worth a visit if you get to Switzerland.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Zermatt:
I remember a couple of years ago the Qantas GM for Switzerland telling me at a do in ZRH that QF had been looking at SIN/ZRH for some time but decided that it was only marginal. I can't recall his reason. Marginally profitable? I've travelled this route for years with SQ, occasionally with LX or QF via FRA, and other than when the SARS scare was around, the planes are full (or fullish).
As for choice on the route, SQ beats LX hands down. </font>
From what I can find in my research, SQ is the only regular 747 operator into Zurich. Swiss and others (JAL?) operate MD11's and some use A340's. So if QF were to move FRA to ZRH, they would me the second 744 operating there.

So with SIA moving the evil empire passengers, and Swiss carrying the OW gang, there really may not be the ability for QF to grow the demand to a 744.

So I see a few options, perhaps it may be an attractive destination for the A330's in international guise. Or perhaps a QF codeshare on a Swiss MD11 from SIN or HGK might be a better way to keep both the pax and the major shareholder happy.

Swiss opearte A340's from BKK SIN and HKG to ZRH, looking forward to trying them out in June.

By the way is there any news about when Swiss is joining Oneworld.

If they don't join before June am I right in believing I will not earn points on my ZRH to AMS sector?

You will earn points (if in the appropriate class) but not SC's, since they have been a QF FF partner for some time now.

Dave

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RB:
By the way is there any news about when Swiss is joining Oneworld.</font>The original plan was for April 1, 2004 but there has been no announced date yet and Oneworld is now saying "mid-2004" instead of the "early 2004" stated last fall. Swiss cannot join until it has enough IT integration to issue boarding passes for OW flights (this in turn requires quite a bit of integration, hence the slippage in dates). My guess is that it will be Christmas before Swiss joins.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by number_6:
My guess is that it will be Christmas before Swiss joins.</font>If that's right, it's going to be a race between LX actually joining and them running out of money. If the rumours still floating around are anything to go by, they must be pretty desperate to get the OW feed to boost their revenues.