Originally Posted by thadocta

In case it has been missed, DJ have announced the next tranche of destinations for the E-jets when they come on line - Albury (ABX) and Port Macquarie (PQQ).

This has interesting implications for QF. SYD-CBR (and vv) will not have much of a difference, as the short journey means that the faster trip times of the jets will be negligible when it comes to block times.

SYD-ABX however is 80 minutes on a QFLink Crash-8, whilst DJ are scheduling it for 50 minutes (although proclaiming it as 40 minutes). Frequency is better with QF, four daily as opposed to twice daily on DJ. ZL is also four-daily, also taking 80 minutes.

This is where it gets interesting. DJ is still feeling its way with the E-jets, and twice daily is probably - at the moment - just testing the waters. I would imagine that if the flights are solidly booked, to the detriment of the QF and ZL flights at around the same time, that DJ will expand their offering (subject to aircraft availability, of course). QF Crash-8's and ZL Saab-340's will simply be uncompetitive.

Likewise with other long routes which QF has chosen to serve with Crash-8's due to their long/thin nature, DJ will cream them due to the much quicker block times available to the E-jet, compared to the Crash-8.

Short/thin routes won't be as much of a problem, but on the long-thin routes I think that QF might have done themselves a disservice by heavily committing to the Q400. If they order the E-jets now, DJ publicity will have a field day, so this is probably not an option.

Not really sure what QF can do here.

Any thoughts?

Dave