Originally Posted by
lokijuh
However what is interesting, airlines that are considered to have quite a strong customer focus (such as SQ and CX) are really struggling with the shifts in the industry at the moment, despite the low fuel price. .
It is reported that CX were caught out by the collapse in fuel prices because their fuel contracts had tied the airline to higher prices for up to four years.
So the very fact that has bent the good fortune of QF has been the opposite for CX.
The second factor is the changing Asian aviation landscape, including Chinese airlines now flying directly to countries, which may have formerly involved a routing via HKG.
SQ is taking on the challenges with an impressive roll out (compared with the excruciatingly slow uptake of 787s by QF!) of new cost-efficient aircraft with the A350 already assigned to 16 ports with BNE to come in a few weeks.
And pricing?
I just priced a LAX-CNS return for early Dec 2017 through early Feb 2018: QF was USD8361 and CX was USD6169, making QF 36% more expensive.
This partly reflecting the fact that QF has largely "given up" on northern Australia forcing all to route through the southern cities: in CNS we'll soon have two mainland Chinese and two HKG based airlines serving CNS together with Silk Air and not a QF-branded aircraft to be found!