The earlier thread on the QR DOH - MEL - ADL is quite informative on what was / wasn’t possible for MEL passengers, so I won’t go into that aspect.
I can however absolutely confirm that QR was only allowed to put on this flight due to serving a “lesser destination”.
They originally looked at DOH - MEL - Canberra to take advantage of the same “loophole” before alighting on the Adelaide solution, and I think there are a few Aussie / Brit posters who can confirm that.
From memory I think the Qatar / Australian Bi Lateral allows 28 flights / week to SYD/ MEL/ BNE / PER and any extra flights have to have another port as their ultimate destination.
But I do take your point that QR will still sell tickets to MEL on that flight - my thinking was just that the economics of a “tag” to ADL with 6 hours on the ground at MEL and then coming back ADL - MEL - DOH can’t be great.
Incidentally the DOH - ADL flight I think continues to AKL unless things have changed.
Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
The whole premise seems flawed though. People don;t have to just hop off early from their Adelaide booking - QR will sell MEL-DOH-LHR and v/v on the flight anyway. There is seemingly demand for ADL-DOH services since QR also runs a non stop service on that route too
Whether QR was only granted access based on also serving a lesser destination with the service, I don;t know
Also, this hopping off early only really works for passengers that have a one way ticket to Adelaide - those buying a r/t to Adelaide would find their inbound cancelled due to the no show and those trying to hop on in Melbourne with an Adelaide ticket would not be allowed through to board