ozflier

Not sure if this is in the correct thread.
I am trying to organise frequent flier award flights for 2022 march onwards - I hope then I will be able to travel from Australia .
No worries getting flights up to and including 26 march but no availability for many long haul carriers beyond that date - ? start of the 2022 northern summer season.
From memory , the northern summer season flights would normally be scheduled by this far ahead.
I'm guessing that the delay may be secondary to Covid19 uncertainties and may also be an individual thing for the various airlines eg Qantas has placeholder flights on many sectors beyond that date similarly for Qatar and some of the Africa airlines.
I am getting more optimistic that i will be able to travel to multiple overseas destinations by March next year.
If that happens , I fear award seats, once long haul flying starts again , may be few and far between as schedules may be thinner, aircraft smaller and maybe increased distancing still enforced forced on board . This may be wrong but who knows what is going to happen.
Any thoughts re when flights for the 2022 northern summer schedule will be added.

MSPeconomist

Are you looking for schedules or award availability? In many FF programs, award flights cannot be booked more than 330 days in advance of scheduled departure. (This doesn't mean that some or all award inventory will necessarily be released at this time.) However, you might be able to see very tentative schedule information (highly variable with many changes due to COVID-19) farther in advance by searching for tickets to be paid with money.

You can probably find further information on when award availability is likely to open in the fora for airline FF programs whose miles you want to use.

ozflier

Thank you for your response .My question was a big confusing.

In the end I am looking for award availability but that is linked in sometimes with schedules.

I can understand the situation where flights are scheduled with numbers allocated to at least some of the fare bases in expert flyer but there are no award seats on offer. That’s life.

I can understand where no award or revenue seats are available when a flight is scheduled on expertflyer eg

MH 1340 BNE
03/04/22 9:30 KUL
03/04/22 16:00 333
Su,T,F
NA / NA J0 C0 D0 Z0 I0 Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 G0

I’m assuming this is just a "placeholder".

I’m interested in when the schedule is released from 27 march 2022 onwards because some , but not all , airlines have released nil information re flights beyond 26 march 2022. This information helps with my forward planning and it is an indication when I can look for award seats depending on the airline.

You are not correct that award seats are not released more than 330 days ahead. This happens commonly with QR and BA and others. I made this booking successfully yesterday as part of a bigger one world award so there is no mistake in availability. Attached was the expertflyer page.

Repooc17

Most placeholder schedules are loaded around 330 to 360/5/6 days, which is why you are only seeing schedule up 'till late March or so. Has nothing to do with Covid.

Some airlines offer schedule up to 360 days, 365 days (or 366 days) out; some less at 330 days - there is no universal rules on this. Just wait and be patient, you have a whole year left to go.

LondonElite

Yes, I think you are a bit missing the point. You can't book tickets more than a year out, so wait a bit longer.

ozflier

Thank you for that.
I don't want to book tickets more than a year out to be clear.
Today is the second May 2021.
I want to book tickets for the 28 March 2022 .
This is now less than 330 days ahead.
As I intend to travel on airmiles , I need to book as far ahead as possible - hence my interest in when the schedule opens up for bookings .
Re your statement you can't book flights more than a year out , this is generally true but not universally - an example is Easyjet currently selling seats up to September 2022 https://www.easyjet.com/en/schedule-release

SK AAR

Be patient and check on a regular basis. In general, during Covid, very few would book this far out and there is no rush to do it.

GrayAnderson

My guess is that the airlines are waiting for something resembling a "signal" from the Australia/New Zealand governments that things will actually open back up. That's probably the difference between, for example, AA and BA even sending a plane down thataway vs just letting Qantas figure it out. Were the government down there to announce that they expected to maintain a hard quarantine in Australia/New Zealand, I wouldn't be too terribly shocked to find the rest of *A/OW would just opt to throw up their hands on the region. Only SkyTeam might have a reason to keep flights in place (and only then because Virgin Australia, which was bound up with Delta, pulled out of the international market).

The bottom line is that until ScoMo decides to clearly signal to airlines that international travel will be able to resume without a two-week quarantine and/or increase capacity to a level that can support more flights, everyone is being a bit cautious. Remember, until fairly recently it was presumed that once Australians got vaccinated the quarantines would be either eliminated or reduced (i.e. some areas exempted). That's now gone out the window and I think it's putting a bit of a damper on airline enthusiasm here.