Donegal

I am traveling to Colombo in September or October and would like to fly with QR, partly because of a status extension.

Now I have checked various dates and the return-prices (at least here from Germany) are € 4000 - € 5000. They used to be about € 2500 in the past. This obviously has nothing to do with inflation or cost of fuel but is a simple attempt to push revenues and profit drastically. I could buy two tickets with LH-Group and AF/KLM for that amount. What a change!

My questions:
1. Do you have ideas how to find lower fares e.g. by starting from another country in Europe? Any other suggestions are very welcome.

2. How do you think these prices will change over the next 12-18 months? I think that a great many former QR customers can no longer afford or want this luxury and that other airlines are pushing more capacity into the market, which should lead to more realistic prices. I am not sure about load factors - I have the ability to check how many seats have been occupied on certain flights. Spot checks from Europe show a mixed picture: Some planes are full others have just a few business class guests booked.

KingCanute

Try CPH, OSL or ARN. Some of the eastern european countries can also have better fares, although you may be flying on a narrow body.

florin

Airline pricing is very much a supply and demand game; it has little to do with operating costs. While revenge travel in its true sense is largely over, there is a bit of a travel wave - just look at the amount of people travelling to places like MLE, BKK, or DPS. QR charges as much as they believe travellers will pay for it. Clearly they believe there is sufficient demand for Germany-CMB flights in J, so that's how they are pricing them. Maybe there are enough folks who choose CMB instead of the super popular destinations I've mentioned earlier. Despite the situation not being much better in Sri Lanka, it hasn't been in the news for a while and I think that many people think that it's all cosy now. (It's not.)

If AF/KL or LH are half the price, maybe consider how much QR status is worth to you.

As for the evolution of prices in the next 12-18 months, I don't think you'll find many people here who will attempt a guess. Things like the pandemic and recent (present) wars are a testament of how unpredictable things can be.

N1Rotate

Rising fares are not just isolated to QR, and capacity overall is still lower than pre-COVID levels and flights are fuller than ever. Check out the IATA reports on this, recent US CPI data, the Air Monitor 2023 report from AMEX as well as recent statements from LH's and DL's CEOs amongst others.

Ticket prices are dynamic, an airline won't look to pursue being competitive for every single connection or route but would look at the total revenue potential. If the routes you are looking at, at specific dates QR might be way more expensive than the competition it doesn't mean that it applies across the network at all dates. For example ex-JFK QR is selling business class tickets to CMB for almost 1000 euros cheaper than ex-FRA for those dates.

If you look at your dates it seems QR is scheduling the 24J 77W and 24J A35K and the 22J 787-8 to FRA, that is only 70 seats over 3 flights compared to 84 seats over 2 flights when they had 2 daily 77W 42J at some point in the past. They have less business class seats to sell for now so they can better manage their yields, if they later swap to a higher J configuration that might mean they could make more lower fares available.

If you want to go on QR to CMB from Germany check out departing from BER where the fare is around 3200 euros and QR is the cheapest 1 stop option from BER over most days September and October. Departing CPH and MXP is similarly priced.

KingCanute

It is also possible that their data suggests that traffic to or from Germany and other destinations at that time of year is much more lucrative than CMB, so they are prepared to make CMB traffic pay the opportunity cost of a lost passenger to or from Germany and, say, Beijing or Auckland (just for example).

Anecdotally, I have often found QR to be more expensive than others around late September, and that's been for many years and for a long time pre covid, but perhaps that's my particular routings. The price differential was so large once that I even had to slum it on Virgin to Tokyo, shiver... (honestly, it was comparatively awful.both ways)

IAN-UK

It's helpful to remember that FRA DOH is a sector married to a whole host of destinations beyond Doha.

So it's possible that the Frankfurt-Doha-Colombo tickets in, say, late July fall victim to a IG Farben get together in Singapore.

Or, more likely, J-class capacity on the FRA DOH route is limited all year because of cumulative demand for destinations on QR's network: meaning there's likely an opportunity cost to letting seats between Frankfurt and Colombo go cheaply.


PS
It would be crazy to pay $5K to fly Qatar rather than $2K on another carrier/alliance. Unless of course you are head over heels with QR, or the QR schedule is uniquely convenient.

If it's retention of your position within the FFP, couldn't you achieve this by generating the points travelling with another OneWorld airline ?

ph-ndr

OSL/ARN/CPH aren't done with A320, but some rotations of CPH-DOH seem to get the dreaded A330. HEL is a mix and miss situation.

Best suggestion to OP is a quick and cheap ticket to OSL. OSL seems to have lower fares than CPH/ARN and also consistently seem to get newer aircraft.

-A

Sheikh Yerbooty

The dreaded A330? In which palace of entitlement is that even remotely true? It’s a 1-2-1 config with the best hard product of any EU carrier, and completely perfect for a 6-hour flight.

Also, QR only serves CPH with WB equipment, usually a 787 + the AY A330. And AY is operating a daily A330 out of OSL to DOH.

ph-ndr

No sense of entitlement. Of all the QR widebodies the A330 is the least preferred. It is not 1-2-1, it is 2-2-2 with a seat that is not as comfortable as any of the other offerings of QR's widebodies. I'm not saying it is not possible to complete a 6 hour flight with this hard product, just comparing to the alternatives.

I think you confuse Sweden with Norway, the ultimate offense to us. You deserve to be doused in room temped Aquafina, no lemon nor ice. The A330 is ARN-DOH, AY1983.

-A

price123

Multi-City is often cheaper. I see MXP-CMB-FRA at around 3100 EUR.

Sheikh Yerbooty

The only A330 scheduled out of CPH to DOH is the AY one (AY1985). QR are operating 787, 777 or A350. Mainly 787.

My bad on the AY out of OSL; it’s a codeshare on the QR.

PS
I’m Danish, so not confused at all, but offending our brother nations is a treasured national sport 😊

gophish11

Those prices are pretty average these days. You might (counterintuitively) search one way fares from various cities and find a better deal mixing your point of embarkation and return, and may find a better deal in one direction or another by mixing carriers. Generally the gulf carriers don’t mark up one way fares the way US and EU carriers do, so it pays to shop around.

I’m flying RNO-ALA then IST-RNO in two weeks and found my best J cabin fare booking the outbound through AA (operated by QR) and the return booked through QR directly. Saved nearly $2000 USD. Still, my total fare was roughly $5500.

demue

Exactly this. The demand that drives price is not for CMB, the demand is Germany (FRA/MUC) to DOH and beyond. If OP was doing two trips within a year he/ she could buy one Europe - CMB and then nest another CMB - Europe in it as CMB is quite a low fare starting point. YMMV.

brunos

Ph-ndr statement was about QR A330, and it is swapped occasionally to Scandinavia.
QR A330 is a bad antique product in J. 2x2x2 and a coffin window seat. Worst than any other airline flying to Asia.

N1Rotate

Number of QR A330 flights to CPH in the past 12 months: 1 back in August 22
Number of QR A330 flights to OSL in the past 12 months: 1 back in October 22
Number of QR A330 flights to ARN in the past 12 months: 0

The routes have been mostly 787 with the occasional A350 or 777.

Didn't look at World Cup charters or cargo flights, there was at least one QR A320 chartered to CPH during the world cup.