FlyerGoldII

AC is flying to Sydney and Brisbane daily.
It started a few month trial service to Melbourne over the winter - in a few months service service will resume and become daily service.

Qantas has flown in the past to Canada. Why not now?
Why does AC feel the service to Australia may be profitable, but not vice versa.

PS-hopefully the issue is not around the first class cabin - Qantas offers them but AC does not. So perhaps Canadian passengers feel they can not afford flying true first class?

Globaliser

You may want to see the previous discussion on this topic: Is Qantas dropping the ball on Canada?

I suspect the answer is a single word: feed.

DownUnderFlyer

There really only is one city in Canada QF could fly to and that is Vancouver. QF used to fly there in the past as a tag on to the SFO flight. But QF has really reduced its route network during the last decade and has now just started to slowly build it up again.

og

AFAIK QF sees Canada as a leisure destination for the Australian market. That means sales of Economy seats but few Business. QF is prioritising on flights to the USA and Europe and is only now discovering how the 787 rewrites the rule book (all be it 5 years after everyone else did it). First Class is only on the 380s - don’t expect to see one of these in YVR unless QF can fill it - and I don’t think they can. QF doesn’t and is not likely to have enough 787s to try YVR - but JQ might ‘av a go. Some people may prefer to swim than fly JQ for such a trip.

Himeno

Qantas has a 3 weekly seasonal service to Vancouver during the peak summer and winter travel seasons.

Until recently, the Australia - Canada air service agreement was quite poor, only allowing travel between SYD and YVR "+1" per country and 3000 seats per country. So AC could only fly 3000 people a week between SYD and 1 other city in Australia and YVR and QF could only fly 3000 people a week between SYD and YVR and 1 other city in Canada.

This was changed to 9000 seats/week and the more "standard" AU agreement of PER/BNE/SYD/MEL when AC started their push to open MEL and BNE with 787s.

Qantas might want to go to YYZ, but they would need to stop somewhere. Stopping in YVR means they can't pick up new pax in Vancouver, and they are only allowed 5th freedom rights to Canada via PPT, NAN, HNL and SFO. Going SFO or HNL-YYZ (or YVR) will have the same result as when they used to have SFO-YVR tag flights 10 or so years ago. Few people want to go to Canada and have to go though US CBP on the way.

cavemanzk

Yet this pars NW NZ went 10x weekly at peak, although they have the 77E, don't think the A330 could make it?

number_6

QF did fly to YYZ a long time ago, when they also flew to Bermuda. I think the routing was SYD-NAN-HNL-SFO-YYZ-BDA-LHR. I remember seeing QF signage on a hangar in YYZ when QF didn't fly there, maybe legacy of past services and ownership. Of course they didn't want to fly to YYZ but rather to get to England eastbound. QF also flew via PPT=MEX-NAS to England for a while in the early 60s? Before my time but I think there is still residual route authority to MEX and NAS.

worldtraveller73

Air Canada is charging outrageous sums of money for Candians wanting to fly direct to Australia. They also offfer a major discount if you fly departing the USA if they can steal traffic from american carriers. The business fares are around $10,000 CAD round trip.

I don't know what Qantas is charging but it stands to suggest that there is money to be made. For example, they could fly to Seattle (almost Vancouver) and feed traffic to Alaska Airlines

lokijuh

Actually they have flown there more recently than that. After AC took over CP, (2000?) QF initiated SYD-HNL-YYZ and SYD-HNL-YVR services on 767-300's. I don't think they lasted very long, dropped in favour of codeshare on AA's LAX-YYZ service.

Revenge

Makes sense.

I'd do it in JQ business class if it cost around the same as an AC premium economy! There are some good JQ business class deals to be had from time to time.

southpac

there's almost always money to be made on nonstop monopoly routes.

If Qantas costs are so high they can't do SYD/YVR year round at least 3 to 4 times a week, maybe Jetstar should.

Just had a look at QF schedule SYD/YVR & it's 3 times a week in a very old 744 from 13DEC-26JAN only, or that's all I could see.

NOTE: Australian summer school holidays run from mid-Nov(in Qld) to late JAN, but not many Australian skiers would head to Canada to ski prior to Xmas.

og

worldtraveller73

Totally valid point. I never thought of Jetstar servicing the americas.

southpac

Jetstar(JQ) has flown SYD/HNL nonstop for years & used to be an A330 but no B787. They fly it 5-6 times a week depending on time of year, in competition to their owner QF 5 times a week in an A333 & HA daily with an A332.

JQ also flies MEL/HNL 3 times a week nonstop using a B787.

JQ also used to fly BNE/HNL nonstop, but canned it & now HA flies it 3 times a week with an A332(monopoly). Air Australia used to fly it until 2012 when they closed down.

southpac

The Qantas 744s are getting very tired.