OZFLYER86

Virgin has 1 daylight flight nonstop LAX/BNE. In January 2020(when I was looking at flying back to OZ, so I looked up the timetable) it leaves just after 12noon & lands BNE at around 8,15pm next day. VA have only 5 x B777-300ERs, which is not enough to do daily flights from BNE, SYD & MEL to LAX nonstop, but they could do a 1 stop by using 1 or more A330s.

Sonny84

Ah ok... I misunderstanded believing has something to do with the passangers.

cova

Continental once had a major hub in HNL with lots of flights from HNL to SYD, MEL, BNE, CNS. Some 2x a day. That was before the 744, when you could not fly non-stop from LAX to SYD. Flights from LAX had to stop in Tahiti. When the 744 came - allowing nonstops - it but CO out of business in HNL.

LAX, DFW have a much bigger feed of AA flights - to support A380.

serfty

The reason for this day flight is that VA don't have enough 773's to operate otherwise.

If they had the equipment it would not operate (i.e. the Saturday LAX-BNE flight would depart 11pm'ish).

lokijuh

At this time of the year plenty of connections, an 11:30 departure from LAX would reach SYD around 19:30. At the LAX end plenty of flights could connect, from up and down the west coast, and even from east coast such as New York, Washington, Charlotte... whilst at the SYD end could offer connections to MEL & BNE. The problem comes during the northern winter (SYD on daylight savings, LAX not), to make the connections at the Australian end, arriving by 2000 (to get the 2145 BNE flight), the flight would need to leave LAX at 10:00. So essentially the flight could get connections at the US year around, but couldn't offer any during the Australian summer.

But more to the point, Australians (or at least those travelling QF) , want to arrive on the east coast in the morning from from long haul flights, it would seem. There are a few exceptions, such as HNL, SCL and QF10 from LHR (for late afternoon/evening) and the earlier in the afternoon arrivals from JNB and PEK.

Bundy Bear

With the arrival of a few more 787s, Qantas might like to try a daylight 787 flight, as mentioned VA have one day flight which I thought was perfect timing, surprised more people weren't aware of it.

One option would be to try it during Australian winter time gives them a few extra hours in case of delays.

It wasn't until Hawaiian airlines started flights to Australia that the west bound flight became a day flight, previously left Hawaii at midnight.

CPMaverick

I think this is the key; the daytime flight LAX-AU isn't a bad option, most business travelers are probably staying on the east coast of Australia and an evening arrival, straight to bed, is sensible. There is enough time to feed into LAX too (only just).

But the return flight is bad; an evening departure from AU means you probably worked all day, many business travelers are continuing to the east coast USA, and options from LAX are limited in the evenings, you either arrive at a god-awful hour to NY or take a red-eye, neither is appealing after a 14 hour flight already.

You can't really have the daytime LAX-AU flight without a complimentary AU-LAX flight that is a hard sell.

One day a week, and a weekend flight, not the easiest to fit into one's schedule.

lokijuh

That's from a US carrier perspective, but QF do operate a 787 ( that usually comes from LHR/PER) in the evenings from MEL-LAX/SFO (2xweekly LAX and 4x weekly SFO ). Also UA do exactly with SIN/SFO, they have a day flight SFO-SIN which turns around as an evening flight, arriving evening back into SFO, with very few non-god-awful connections, but I suspect with SIN/SFO route probably a higher portion of non-connecting passengers.

The other reason of course for SYD, risky proposition due to curfew.

CPMaverick

I don't understand why you say that it is from a US carrier perspective? I wasn't thinking about US carriers at all...

Both AU carriers have close ties with US carriers and rely on USA onward connections as much as the US carriers do.

lokijuh

You mentioned " But the return flight is bad; an evening departure from AU ... " That's what US carriers would need to (or most likely) do (as UA does with it's day flight into SIN, turns around as evening departure to SFO). But not necessarily the case for Australian carriers, who could, in theory fly the plane elsewhere or do maintenance overnight before returning to US next morning.

Also the size of the A380 could be a problem, where many routes have moved to smaller aircraft @ higher frequency, could in theory run a double daily, highly utilised 787 into LAX, for example SYD-LAX 10:00/07:00 --> LAX-SYD 10:30/18:30+1 --> SYD-LAX 21:00/18:00 --> LAX/SYD 2230/0630+2

But for some reason, by contrast to flights from US west coast to HKG/SIN which run on similar "clock times", people travelling to/from Australia don't seem tob want to use such flights.

CPMaverick

Ah, I see. yes, fair point.

OZFLYER86

better still would be

SYD/LAX 0900/0600
LAX/SYD 0900/1700+1
SYD/LAX 2000+1 /1700+1
LAX/SYD 2100+1/0500+3

with 3 to 4 hour turns, which would allow for some delays.

(SYD allows arrivals as early as 0500)

eg. right now

BA15 LHR/SYD 2130/0510+2

I think the main reason departures out of LAX for OZ around midday, haven't worked very well, is very few people know or knew about them.

Travel agents like to book the same flight at the same time everyday & don't look for exceptions & they account for the majority of bookings ex OZ.

Just noticed a Qantas/America/Air NZ/Fiji Airways extra flight in DEC NAN/LAX departing at 0730 / 2115 -1.
(it turns around in 90 mins at LAX & back to NAN at 2245, so there are 2 x A330 flights nonstop LAX/NAN 75 mins apart on those days.

So you could stay in Fiji the night of 12DEC & then stay in LA night of 12DEC.

Maybe flights connecting with this 0730 departure out of NAN haven't been loaded yet, but I can only see 1 flight that connects & that's a red eye from BNE & that's a 737 connecting with an A332, so how are they going to fill this additional A332 ? Make many have night or more in Fiji ? Doesn't that mean it will have to be cheap ?

lokijuh

No that's probably not good for US-Australia connections. A 2100 departure from LAX is probably less than optimal for connections, and more importantly a 0900 departure from LAX is too early for connections , and you need connections at the US end for it to work. It s eems only flights from about 6 cities on QF partners (AA, AS) would arrive before 0730. You can do without connections at the SYD end (or to optimise all you need is to connect to the 2205 flight to MEL, and you've got >40% of Australian population covered).

It's interesting despite the perception of no connections, there are surprisingly a reasonable number that could connect to a 10:30 QF departure, albeit with early morning starts. With current MCT of 90 mins, could get traffic from arrivals into LAX before 9am from AA: XNA, TUS, SFO, DFW, DEN, EUG, OMA, IAH, SLC, PDX, OKC, PHX, JFK, SAT, SEA, SJC, SMF, BNA, RNO and MIA, and from AS: SFO, SEA, LAS, SJC, PDX, DAL. If QF left after 11:30am you could add STL, BDL, SDF, PHL, BOS, DCA,FLL, PAE and JAC to that list.

Gets complicated though with the northern winter timetable. It would then need to be: SYD-LAX 11:10/06:00 --> LAX-SYD 10:15/20:20+1 --> SYD-LAX 22:00/17:10--> LAX/SYD 2230/0835+2 With very little room to deal with unforeseen with the SYD curfew.

og

lokijuh

Yes, wouldn't work with A380 for this very reason, a well as too much capacity. Could make sense with 787 depending where/when they do maintenance with them. The current 787's that travel to LAX don't hang around. They either continue on to JFK (QF 15->QF11) and back with layovers of 2:20, 1:30 & 2:20 or turn around (QF95->QF96) with downtime of 5:40.