Can non-Australian airline operate Australian domestic routes through wet lease request from domestic airlines?

Can non-Australian airline operate Australian domestic routes through wet lease request from domestic airlines?

The AFL season is about to conclude and one speculation is that Frementle and West Coast Eagles may come head to head in the Grand Final held in the MCG. If that happens, and assuming only 50% of attendance are from Western Australia (50,000) will be present, this will cause extreme stress to Australian's aviation system.

The entire fleet of Virgin Australia can only offer 19403 seats and 29002 of Qantas, totalling it to be only 48405 seats available on game day, provided each airline sacrifices all other services of the day except PER-MEL-PER to cater for the special event.

Clearly this is unrealistic and therefore should Freo is going against West Coast on the Grand Final day, for the huge demand of coast to coast traffic, is it possible for Virgin and Qantas to wet lease (plane + crew) planes from overseas, such as Emirates 777 and A380 from Qantas and ANZ, SIA and Etihad fleet for Virgin to operate this domestic sector to relieve special event demand?

You are assuming all people will fly on the same day.

Even not everyone is flying on the same day, using the current capacity between Perth and East Coast, it will take both airlines at least 2 - 3 days to digest the passengers flow.

Moreover, going coast to coast is 4 hours one way therefor the turnaround time is talking at 10 hours, not 3 hours for east coast to east coast flights. So the more planes you are deploying to the west, the less planes will be available for other flights, which means either they have to cancel lots of flights on the east coast to cater the west coast that day or deploy additional aircrafts elsewhere to cater the demand.

Or they could use aircraft they already have...

QF can change schedule around to use a 747/A330 and VA a 777/A330

Yes they can, Air New Zealand has operated flights on behalf of VA in the past and when Qantas halted flights VA had arranged for aircraft to be supplied by Etihad to help fulfill demand.

I dont think it is too likel that it will be both WA teams in the grand final but if so, they would have domesticate international airlines. The answer to your question is yes.

Admittedly, I don't do sports and don't care very much for it and the tribalism that it instigates. But, if you have two WA teams playing in the finals, wouldn't it be logical to hold the game in Perth?

*puts up force field against the backlash of hatred coming my way*

AFL finals are always heald at the MCG. At least partly because its far bigger than any other stadium in Australia.

Fair enough. I'm not going to complain, particularly for the extra public holiday. We need it to break the long spell between Queen's Birthday and Melb Cup. Perfect time in fact to fly away for the long weekend somewhere!

held* posted this pre coffee.

Common sense, logic and the AFL are not compatible, or an oxymoron as some would say.  About 10 years ago the AFL signed a contract with the MCG to hold all Grand Finals at the MCG for the next 40 years, no matter who was playing.  So much for having a 'national' competition.

Last time West Coast were in the grand final, Qantas threw on a heap of capacity between Perth and Melbourne (and much of it back of clock), so I woud imagine there is some scope for them to shuffle the schedules around. It doen't all have to happen on oned day though. And you don't have to fly - some people drove across, some took the train, some flew via Singapore.

via Singapore geez that must of been a long trip

Considering both airlines have an aggresive refurb program underway, there won't be a heap of spare aircraft on the deck. Factoring in it's 3.5 weeks away and we won't have an definitive outcome until a week prior, there's no provision for the airlines to delay maintenance. 

You could at best expect all coast to coast services into Melbourne to be A330 for both airlines, and 737s pick up the slack to Sydney and Brisbane. Virgin could chip in a couple of extra 737 flights on top of the schedulled and Qantas possibly a 747 or A332/A333.

Luckily the allocations of tickets to the teams is modest.

You also don't seem to understand how grandfinal ticketing works - the bulk of seats are presold to fans who aren't from the competing clubs. (this was allocation for last year)

MCC Members - 25,000

AFL Reserve - 21,000 (inc Medallion Club)

AFL Corporate Sales - 17,000 (the expensive packages)

Club Allocation - 7,340 (mostly given to Sponsors)

Grand final Teams - 30,000 (half each)

So I would say you are limited to 35,000 at most (assuming some also snap up other tickets)