Austman

But many of the FJ flights are still 737s?

According to www.airfleets.net the average ages of the 737 fleet is:

FJ: 13.2 years
QF: 10.7 years

IME when QF fly operate their 737s internationally they tend to use their newer aircraft, with more modern IFE etc. But I suppose that's never guaranteed.

I note too that, at least on the days I checked, the FJ A330s arrive into NAN much later in the day - at 19:00 or 20:00 - compared with QF's 16:30.

OZFLYER86

[QUOTE=cslovacek;30682021]so Qantas is safer cos the Qantas spin doctors tell you they are ? Seriously.

OZFLYER86

FJ is in process of replacing all 737-800s & a 737-700 with max's. Think by end of the year, the old birds will be gone, but find it a little strange that they don't keep a 738 in reserve, as surely the leasing costs would be dramatically lower & they could put on extra flights in peak periods (no restrictions on flights to anywhere in OZ, except BNE, SYD, MEL & PER I believe.)

or FJ could counter the Jetstars/Tigers with a low cost product, with no business class & fly thin routes like OOL/NAN.

They could still connect at NAN to places like LAX. At present if you want to fly OOL/LAX you must fly via AKL, or SYD or drive to BNE. International connections at NAN are painless like at AKL, unlike at terrible SYD.

For mid Dec 2019-Jan 2020 school holidays, FJ, will fly 2 x A330s/day SYD/NAN as currently timetabled below:

FJ 914 SYD/NAN 0615/1210

FJ 910 SYD/NAN 1320/1915

Some operated by A332s & some by A333. (am sure they switch them around depending on demand) as think the A333 has 40 more economy seats, although am not sure about the 2 ex Seychelles A330s they have just leased.

+ at least 3 days a week a 738 max

FJ 916 SYD/NAN 1340/1940

(all timings local)

FJ910/FJ916 provide very good connections with NAN/LAX & NAN/SFO flights.

lokijuh

Umm, not so sure about this. Landing on runways (even if you end up on a golf course) tend to have better results in terms of passenger safety, than landing on a golf course to begin with ......

In any event, it is difficult to compare the safety results of an airline with 13 aircraft, to one with 130 aircraft based on incident data alone. You would need to look into procedures, handling of incidents, management attitude, culture of the organisation, etc etc to gauge that. If everything was equal you would expect QF to have 10x number of incidents that FJ have in a given period of time.

og

lokijuh

Why do hotel operators have three different hotels all close to one another in the same city? (eg Westin, Sheraton, Four Points). Classic market segmentation. Different customers willing to pay different amounts ... depending on services offered and indeed the brand itself.

The history of Qantas and holiday markets:
- Qantas operated all routes
- Ansett collapsed, and Virgin Blue emerged a strong competitor in the leisure segment
- Qantas formed "Australian Airlines (2)" to serve lower margin international leisure destinations.
- Qantas created Jetstar (and eventually dissolved Australian) to serve the low cost segment domestically, and eventually internationally and wedge Virgin Blue. QF itself abandoned many leisure routes
- Virgin Blue started increasing offerings, and moving upmarket eventually transforming to (almost) full service Virgin Australia
- This created incentive for passengers to move to VA on the routes served only by Jetstar
- QF returned to leisure routes, commanding brand premium and taking back market share from VA, operating alongside JQ.

If VA was still Virgin Blue v1.0, I'd hypothesise that QF might not have returned to the leisure routes it abandoned to JQ. Where does FJ fit into all of these? A competitor? Or serving the role of a mid-tier brand for QF, that keeps VA honest? I don't know. But given QF, along with BA, AA and CX have sponsored FJ to be a one world connect partner recently. I suspect the relationship with FJ will still remain in tact.

oldchinahand

Good to see that Fiji Airways made a profit of over FJD 60 million last FY.
Over 2 million for Qantas which may perhaps be useful to assist with updating their fast aging fleet of now largely last generation aircraft.
Fleet Average age
Airbus A330 28 12 years On 131 airlines operating this type of aircraft Qantas ranks 94
Boeing 737 Next Gen 75 1 0.7 years On 247 airlines operating this type of aircraft Qantas ranks 136
(last generation perhaps a better description as most are now over 15 years old)
Boeing 747 9 17.7 years On 77 airlines operating this type of aircraft Qantas ranks 26
(the oldest are now over 25 years !)

og

You should include the QF and JQ 787s - these put a somewhat newer emphasis on your statistics. And you'd know that the 744s will be retired very soon and that the JQ 787s may end up in the QF fleet in due course.

Using rankings casts a particular emphasis, but this is just one way of using statistics to promote an opinion. My Uni professor recommended we read the book "How to Lie with Statistics".

ANstar

77 Airlines still fly the 747????

lokijuh

No, according to Wikipedia there seem still to be 91 operators of the 747 Mostly cargo, some government and military, and some charter it seems, but only about 20 airlines operating regular scheduled passenger services using the aircraft. Narrow operators down to "airlines" (including cargo and charter) then 77 would seem a slight over-estimate, but pretty close.

oldchinahand

Re og's post above

My post was in response to the posts re aging aircraft forecast to be deployed by Fiji Airways and Qantas on the AU / Fiji routing (or those aircraft used previously that are still in the fleet(s) .
It is my understanding the majority of the 9 Boeing 747s currently in the fleet are NOT being retired 'very soon'.
I deliberately did not include the 787 because it is unlikely to be used on this route by Qantas as QF have already advised that they will use the elderly 737.
Jq use the A320 to Fiji the age of which averages at 10 about years in their AU fleet though some are considerably older than this.
The point being made by me and some here is that the Qantas fleet is generally old by industry norms while the Fiji fleet is relatively young with the older of (3 only older 737s) is bing retired in the next months rather than years and being replaced by the 737X with one already delivered.
Facts rather than statistics......

oldchinahand

lokijuh.
Wikipedia is often not the most reliable industry source as it in not well monitored for content correctness and often out of date or just wrong.
The discussion here related to passenger routes and aircraft not to freight or charter flights .

lokijuh

You brought freight/charter flights into the discussion, as there is absolutely no way there are 77 airlines still currently operating 747's on RPT passenger routes, which is the figure you mentioned in your post above. The 77 figure you mentioned would have to include freighter and charter operators as well.

markis10

oldchinahand

I would be interested to the source of your information as I believe that you are incorrect.