armagebedar

http://www.ausbt.com.au/qantas-to-fl...port-next-year

NRT-SYD flights will apparently continue. The Australian airport has yet to be decided. Currently HND does not allow A380s to use HND during the day time; I imagine the most likely aircraft to operate a HND route would be the A330 with the new Business Suites.

Himeno

Where does it say that A380s are not allowed at HND? I thought EK had sent A380s to HND before.

The QF press release does not say that NRT-SYD will continue, it says that QF NRT service will continue. It could easily be a MEL-NRT and SYD-HND schedule.

There are also rumours that JL will resume service to a 2nd Australian city and change SYD flights to HND.

If the current QF SYD-NRT flight is retimed, they can have 2 daily flights AU-JP without needing any other aircraft as the aircraft currently sits at NRT for 16 hours between flights.

Australia only has rights for 7 weekly flights to HND. It is unclear of those slots are limited to the 11pm-7am block allocated in October 2010 or the day time slots allocated in March 2014.

joejones

Looks likely to be either MEL or BNE according to that article and a couple of Japanese sources. Nikkei quotes a company source as saying that there will be direct flights from "one or more state capitals" to HND/NRT. (Japanese link: http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLAS...4A121C1EAF000/)

armagebedar

Sorry, apparently they're only banned during the daytime (6:00-23:00) due to congestion and wake separation restrictions. However, even if A380s were allowed I'd be surprised if a new route was started with one.

Also, does QF even have A380s available to operate this route should they choose to? Unless they run a daytime flight up to HND and then a redeye back to Australia, they'd leave an aircraft sitting on the ground all day at HND -- an expensive proposition.

joejones

I believe they are only allowed during the late night hours. They are definitely banned dring the day due to congestion, although there was talk about lifting this ban in preparation for the Olympics.

RichardMEL

380 would be too big for QF to Tokyo anyway I think. The 330 seems like a good fit. Of course it would be a prime route for the 787's if AJ hadn't ceeded them all to JQ.

JL has talked a bit in the past about a return to BNE, and we know SEQ/GC and even up to CNS are preferred places for ex-JP tourist pax, so that would seem more likely, this could open the way for MEL-TYO on QF. That would provide a number of options to each city.

It's promising. The timings of the QF21/22 have not been ideal for various connection options for many, and the JL flights depart SYD usually too early for useful connections outbound. Of course the problem at both Tokyo airports will be slot times

Himeno

A good point was raised on AFF about the HND flight. We don't yet know if this was QF or QF Group (eg, Jetstar) asking for the slots.

The news is yet to be posted on the Qantas News Room website and the slot request needs to go through IASC. Such a request has not been posted there yet.

perthite

There is a note on the agents site that is quite explicit about it being QF flights. Schedule and aircraft type is expected to be published in December.

http://www.qantas.com.au/agents/dyn/qf/info/201411/1126

jpatokal

That particular combo sounds unlikely, since JQ already flies MEL-NRT. Also, the AusBT article says SYD-NRT will continue, although this isn't confirmed by the QF press release.

If they are going to add a new city, BNE is the obvious option, since OOL and CNS already have JQ service. Being a Sydneysider myself, though, I'd plump for SYD-HND.

oldfolky

AusBT also reports that Jetstar Japan is about to start flying internationally. This may be the start of a general recasting on QF/JQ/JL flying between Australia and Japan.

Personally I'd love to see MEL-HND on QF mainline, the timing of the SYD-NRT flight is pretty poor for connections from MEL. KIX via CNS or OOL on JQ could be interesting too. Even a better timed BNE-HND flight would be ok.

Himeno

GK only has A320s coming. Jetstar Group only has a few more widebodies (787s) coming and they are bound for JQ. The only international flights GK will be operating are the short 4-5 hour ex NRT/KIX flights around North and East Asia. The only longer flights they could do are the KIX-TPE-SIN or NRT-MNL-DRW flights that 3K and JQ used to do.

These are the current non stop AU-JP routes:
JQ NRT-CNS, NRT-OOL, NRT-MEL, KIX-CNS (there are MEL-KIX via CNS and SYD-KIX/NRT via CNS/OOL) A330/787
QF NRT-SYD 747
JL NRT-SYD 777

We are looking at 2 new routes being added, 1 by QF and 1 by JL. I can see a number of ways this could be done. But I just don't see GK starting flights to Australia. They'll start flights to places like ICN, HKG, PVG, TPE, MNL.

armagebedar

HND can command higher yields than NRT due to its closeness to the city center and its resulting attractiveness to business travelers. NRT, on the other hand, is primarily orientated towards leisure routes for O&D passengers.

I would be surprised if QF didn't fly to either MEL or SYD from HND given their relative importance as business centres.

screech

Just speculating but maybe the QF SYD-NRT service will move to Haneda and NRT will be solely for Jetstar.

soorox

I would also agree that HND would yield more premium pax and these pax would most likely be from SYD or MEL (mostly SYD though) - QF's main long haul markets. MEL has recently started building links again with Japan, and these are growing, so probably the government would like these links to be further strengthened with the addition of HND. Whilst JQ continues to serve the leisure traffic in MEL, flying MEL-NRT.

Plus it would be better for pax to transit in MEL with connections not requiring a train or bus ride, MEL also has a better reach to ADL, PER, HBA, SYD and CBR compared to BNE.

Himeno

Could we see a MEL-TYO split between QF and JQ as we have with SYD-HNL? (JQ1/2 tending to go the days QF3/4 doesn't)