Originally Posted by
edy4eva
@FD1971, you do raise some valid points with regards to competition and subsidies. But you seem to be assuming that it's a turf war, like east versus west, or two competing suitors. The thing is, EK are only one of many competitors to LH in several markets. EK are NOT THE sole competitor. Competition is a lot more dynamic than portrayed.
Not really and this is major point several people incl. the mainstream media fail to understand. A huge chunk of the market is simple not attractive at all for the incumbent national carrier. People buying the cheapest Huawei smartphone are not customers Apple wants to have. Many Ryanair or Emirates backpackers' are not interesting for LH at all, simply because they are not paying enough. Of course, LH has more competitors than EK, but EK is working on three waves, so three daily flights are certainly a different option on key Europe-Asia markets.
Originally Posted by
edy4eva
You also seem to ignore how several airlines are using their A380 profitably. I still have to refer back to QF's SYD-DFW, the longest A380 route. Going westward from DFW the loads are restricted (usually blocking as many as 80 seats). Now that works out to be about 80% load when going full house. This is an ULH route with SYD's catchment area a tiny fraction of EK's around DXB. And this isn't their sole A380 route to the US. Yet all we hear from QF are praises for the A380 and its performance. This is coming from an airline known to shuffle entities to reduce tax liability, bring forward depreciation to show massive losses and use that as excuse to reduce the workforce size. And QF pay top dollar for their jet fuel, crew salaries, and so on. Their A380 seats 452 in a 4-class configuration, whereas EK's are 3-class 489-517. So while QF may have higher yields, they're capacity constrained. EK's high density configuration means they can achieve lower cost per seat mile.
If QF with their lower density can make the A380 work, EK should be able to do the same at a much larger scale. I am not assuming that margins are linear, it's just the QF case can be seen as a model much more constrained than EK.
Do you really think that any airline in the world can fly 450 passengers and no cargo over a distance like SYD-DFW-SYD and make a profit? We are talking about an A380 taking off with roughly 250 tons of fuel per leg.
DFW is (in)famous for luring anyone to the greater Dallas area, it is the airport with one of the highest airline marketing budgets on this planet and they are doing a good job.
Again, the 380 is performing well on many routes between 4000-6000 miles, the diseconomies of scale are starting to get insane once you cross a certain threshold.
Qantas has always been subject to certain 'accounting' rules, e.g. parking their aircraft at LAX for half a day. If you take a look how other airlines calculate the costs of aircraft on the ground, you might get an idea how profitable certain Qantas routes would be in their respective books...
Of course, those calculations are presented by LH Cargo, when it comes to night curfews and the financial consequences from such measures.
I can assure you that sometimes numbers presented by airlines are not that far apart from election results in former Eastern European countries. @:-)