ph-ndr

I don't see them as a cargo carrier, I also know they have a cargo fleet. All I'm saying is that since the local kerfuffle with SA and the blockade there is a greater varlue/need/service to be in moving cargo for the home market, so that allows them to just turn up the pricing as they don't need to worry that much of a drop in pax. If you ever fly out of e.g. BKK, sit at the gate and look at the cargo pallets and see what they load.

Go back to the early naughties and QR wasn't in an alliance and wanted to attract more customers and get a brand, so you saw prices as low as 800GBP for some Europe-Asia combinations in biz. Biz had foie gras and it was clearly a lot more spend per pax to make it a premium product. After a while they made their intentions clear about wanting into an alliance and was on it's way into *A untill something went pear shaped and all coopration very abruptly ended, they went out and got themselves into OW and also combined that with a large investment in IAG. Now, as a member of an alliance there is less need to astroturf all your revenue all alone anymore, so the prices can slowly be jacked up.
In the same time period since the early naugties air travel has expanded as a whole, the pie is bigger for all players, and that allows QR (and many more) to slowly increase the cost of tickets. An smaller example, when opening the OSL route it started with offers of 8.990 NOKs to do OSL-BKK in J, then it seemed to stabilise at around 14-16.000 NOK for a good few years with sales every few months, and post-blockade it's been at 23-26.000 NOKs as a floor on the route.
Different factors add up, making QR in general a lot more expensive than they were 2 years back for many markets, and as long as people keep flying them QR will keep trying to see how far they can squeeze the lemon. Thus far we have seen limitations on lounges, gutting of QRPC, and as their revenue department seems to have gotten their act together the last 6-12 months, pricing is mostly chasing a hair behind SQ and other premium carriers instead of trying to bottom feeding and generating a market.

-A

ph-ndr

Because their premium cabins seems to be pretty full from my last samples. Also, the amount of time and energy spent on caring for Y pax is likely a lot lower than J pax, as they mostly treat Y pax as SLF, especially in irrops.
-A

IAN-UK

The trouble I had was understanding the reasoning behind the idea that QR's membership of an alliance gave it a helping hand out of the cheap but glitzy hole it had dug for itself.




Because, yes, the hardening up fares has been well documented in these threads, as has the cutting of costs and reduction in frills.

The strategy, to carry with it those captivated by the experience, while maintaining intact the carrier's 5-star image and reputation was described in earlier threads. It was an odd strategy, implemented while the airline simultaneously attempted to expand its network. And all this at a time it faced an existential threat.

Bling on the Cheap worked well;
Bling on the Not-so-Cheap might have worked, but
Reduced-bling and Sharply Higher Fares puts the airline in a very awkward corner of the market

Over the last year I've witnessed QR long-haul and short-haul cabins in all classes with less than half the seats occupied: and two from Asia completely passenger-free in business-class. Hand-on-heart I've sat in no cabin which was rammed - two weeks back my flight from Doha to Muscat (in an elusive suite-equipped aircraft) was very light. My observation of passenger loads are clearly snap-shots, but i've seen similar reports from others in these threads.

It could well be that delivery of essentials to fill the shelves of Lulu and Carrefour in Qatar takes priority over getting bums on seats, leading the airline to search for fewer passengers at higher average yields - but that outcome is likely to be elusive.

PAL62V

So I bagged in July what I consider to be a decent fare OSL-BNE-ARN Dec/Jan for about £2100 in J. If what I read here is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, surely that fare shouldn't have been available? Or did I get lucky and am I unlikely to be able to repeat it next year?

ph-ndr

Which airline do you have in to BNE? As far as I know QR doesn't fly in to BNE. The price seems like a good one, depending on how you get into BNE.

-A

ph-ndr

The reasoning for the alliance being a good thing is that they have other means to fill seats than their own advertising, and QR has admitted as much in public that becoming part of OW has been good for filling seats, so that helps them pressuring the yield upwards.

The other part of cargo putting pressure on the need to fill seats and get money from cargo might be good business, or it might be QR being told to help out, as the airline isn't being run that many doors down the corridor from where the country is being run, and as with most countries in the area the national sentiments are abrupt and the seperation of government and it's closest businesses isn't that great.

What pax gets out of both of the above is upward pressure on yield, when all we want is our 1.000 euro fares in J to Asia.

-A

PAL62V

Grace B

Yes, Ian, that's my experience too. Just done CGK-MXP-CGK in J and all flights less than 50% in J. Don't know how QR will survive in its current form...

R2

A snapshot from earlier this week:

HEL-DOH, 3 pax in J on the 787
DOH-SIN, approx 50% in J on the A359

If I was an airline manager and my 22 seat capacity business class had 3 pax, I wouldn't be particularly happy...

JC880

A snapshot from earlier this month:
PVG-DOH: 8 pax in J (plan swap from Qsuites to 24 seat J version)
CDG-DOH: 2 pax in A
ARN-DOH: 5 pax in J (out of 22)
DOH-PVG: 15-20pax in J (out of 42)

Out of around 20 QR flight in the last year, I don't think business class has been more than 50% full more than 5 times. Still a small sample, but very much in line with other people's observations.

BobFF68

Really? After 3 months long period of almost continue J deal offers ex CGK to some EU destinations (MXP one of them) during last March-May period, I was quite sure they were able to fill up their J cabin for some time, I also took benefit of these offers for my next trip on November to Milan. Probably CGK itself is not a popular "business" route, even for Y cabin the blockade issue with KSA not helping the load factor as they lost all the pilgrimage traffic.

makrom

Even though it might very well be true that QR cuts pax capacity in exchange for more freight, this would not explain at all why QR shifted its sales almost exclusively to Y. If anything, Y is where they want to make cuts, not C where they get much more revenue per pax with almost no weight implications.

Mike P

I'm a big fan of QR J and am happy to be flexible about start point within Europe to get a business class return to Asia for £1500 or so. I haven't seen anything remotely useful to me at this price level recently so am actually looking at flying CX J for my next trip. Last week I even resorted to BA J!

Matt4

Mike P

Thanks, I did see that but couldn't quite make the dates work for the trip I've just got back from (there were restrictions on which days of the week were available I seem to remember). That's exactly the type of fare I'm talking about however.