Ross0

I just got back from my first trip from Australia (had a terrific time and loved every minute of the trip). QF was awesome and I was impressed and pleased with the service.

On both of my trans-pacific flights I was surprised to see how empty my cabins were. On QF 26 half the business class cabin was empty and on QF 93 half the FC cabin was empty. Why does QF prefer to let these planes fly with empty seats as opposed to releasing these seats for award travel? I was traveling with a buddy (we both booked 330 days out) but we had to return on different flights.

OT- the MEL FC lounge was incredible. I got a great massage!

justin_krusty

To preserve the prestige/eliteness of the cabins (which they charge lots for). If everyone knew they could buy economy and upgrade to business, then why would anyone pay full whack? US airlines do this = hardly anyone at the pointy end is paying $$$ = airline not making money.

bensyd

You answered your own question

Ross0

not really sure why/how having a good product means they should limit seats like this. I totally understand limiting to preserve the prestige to a degree, but at some point why not release them? Even the day before or day of would seem to make some sense. my friend had to fly back separately tomorrow despite tons of empty seats- makes no sense to me.

bensyd

QF make a tonne of money around 20% of their profit on Oz-USA flights. If they start releasing seats then people will stop stumping up the cash, it doesn't matter if you do it 6 months beforehand or the week before.

kiwiandrew

as has been mentioned - if pax knew that they stood a high chance of being upgraded when only paying an economy fare why would they pay for J or F .

This is surely one of the reasons why US carriers are in such a mess - they give so many seats away that people expect to be upgraded ( you only have to look at some of the whiny "why wasn't I upgraded?" threads/posts in the various US airline forums to see how much people take it for granted ) I dont think it is any coincidence that airlines which consistently give away their premium products tend to be the same ones which cant make ends meet ( and dont have the money available to invest in a decent premium product )

og

One less SLF means an additional 100 kgs of non-SLF in the cargo hold. QF moves a huge amount of freight trans-Pacific and even has an Atlas Air 744F chartered to do the run. Freight moving can be more profitable than people moving - and heavy aircraft are range limited Trans Pacific. QF only care about the bottom line.

tt7

They don't 'give them away' - they reward loyalty.

The U.S. has 6 main carriers in competition plus several others who, domestically, provide fierce competition. Australia has ..... QF. Who else are you going to fly? If QF found itself subject to the level of competition there is in the U.S. market versus what it has in the Australian market (virtually none), I think its economics would be somewhat different. QF has a stranglehold on the Oz-US market (particularly the premium market) and will do anything to maintain that (including screwing its FF members by not making seats available or by charging a ludicrous number of points for a seat). The only reason to be 'loyal' to QF is because you have to be - you don't really have any other choice.

notzac

Pax generally weigh the same amount regardless of whether they're sitting in Y or Y+/J/F

notzac

Perhaps, but it's gotta be said that rewarding so much loyalty has eroded the quality of service pretty badly -- AA first is bad enough, let well alone coach (and the only reason I'm flying with them at all is to get the SCs). Which would you rather - QF domestic J or AA domestic F? Who has better service up the back?

Wasn't it AA that was so impressed with how much money they'd saved by removing one olive from a salad?

vlt

From Australia I could go to the USA with...

QF
NZ
CX
SQ
JL
VA
JQ

plus many others

If I could pay $2000 for a whY with a garenteed upgrade to J, why would I spend the $8000 to $12000 for a J ticket.

Looking at the AA board on this website, we see the main complaint of not being upgraded.

I think QF are doing very well.

IMOA

I always think the most telling is that there are a number of US airlines which have the rights to fly transpac but don't and airlines like continental that do but only on obscure routes away from qantas. For a group of airlines hardened by the forge of competition they seem to go to water when faced with competition from soft old qantas

BD1959

Not wishing to put words into the OPs mouth - but I don't think they were decrying the lack of free (expected) upgrades, but the lack of award availability when seat in Premium cabins are empty.

QFF have obviously priced their Upgrade Awards at a level at which:

1) They feel they can cover the cost of the additional service

2) They can offset the liability of the points against them

It is an often gripe on this forum as to the lack of Award Availability trans-PAC and I think the OP has a point - but there's a basic flaw in their case....

QF do offer Award Upgrades - they are applied for prior to departure - and I think it's a good bet that these, too, have been priced/costed as above. In the OPs case, however, it appears that the OP and friend were already flying on Award tickets - and upgrades to Award Tickets are not allowed within QFF's basic T&Cs.

Maybe it was that not enough people had applied for upgrades on this occasion. Then again, maybe it was the dark-dragons of yield-management denying upgrade requests and allowing Premium seats to go empty when folk were prepared to pay cold, hard, points to sit in them.

BD

UA 882

I can assure you that while forecasting and pricing tools are very advanced in the airline industry, there are still so many facets that need to be taken into consideration in order to ensure the profitability of the route (and as a result the airline) in the long run.

As we all know, QF does receive some sort of monetary exchange for providing that award seat to a partner award program. QF also manages to reduce its liabilities in the FFP by accepting award bookings on a particular route - so either way they make money or reduce their (monetary) liabilities.

If I was at QF, I would be asking myself the following if looking at opening up award space on the OZ-US (or any, for that matter) route:

1. What does historical data show me about this flight? What is the pick-up pace for this flight? Am I going to fill each cabin?

2. If I open up award space, am I displacing passengers from paying for their seat with cash into using their miles? (this is very difficult to answer)

3. As a follow up to question 2 - will the revenue generated by the award seats I am able to fill on the flight outweight the revenue I lost due to the displacement of revenue pax as they found they could use their points? What about the pax I displaced who were willing to pay full fare for the seat but can't find availability because I already filled it with award seats?


I had a statistic some time ago that 75% of all F paying pax change their flying plans 72 hours before departure (on average). That makes forecasting and yield management incredibly difficult!

shillard

Oh, the economics are different allright.

You have one "budget" operator with a market capitalisation that exceeds that of any "mainline" operator (or, indeed, several of them combined).

As for the supposed "stranglehold", (which isn't), does this apply to the SYd-LHR route, which has equally tight award availability?

You know, the one with limited competition. From BA, SQ, EK, CX.......