All to do with economics. If it isn’t viable to operate the route, they won’t. They may offer it as a codeshare, to try to keep an appearance in that port. As an example, how many European airlines that used to fly here no longer do?
Quite a lot. Either they pulled because of losing too much money, too much competition, or it wasn't viable. Nowadays, they still make an appearance in big Australian ports like SYD, MEL, and BNE.
For example, Virgin Atlantic operated an SYD-HKG service for more than 10 years. The route was pulled in 2014 because they were losing too much money. Now, they say they fly to SYD, but only via codeshares with Virgin Australia via Hong Kong. Virgin Atlantic didn't pull out of HKG, though, that's a relief. So Virgin Atlantic frequent flyers won't have to go all over the place to find a Virgin Atlantic destination.
Air France had a very big presence in Sydney in the '80s and '90s. They even sent one of their Concordes to Oz. It was pulled at the turn of the century for an unknown reason. Nowadays, they codeshare with Qantas, who flies them to SIN or HKG, then passengers en route to Paris hop on Air France.
Lufthansa operated a lot of services to Australia in the second half of the last century. If you don't know what that means, it means the period of years between 1951 and 2000. They normally used their 707s, 727s, and 747s on the route. Possibly did a lot of stops back then. But long after it was terminated, it made an appearance AGAIN in many Australian ports, some that they didn't even service. But it was a charter flight for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Now, they let SQ do all the work by flying passengers to SIN, then flying them all the way to FRA.
KLM operated services to SYD and MEL in the '70s and '80s. Not why it was terminated though. Now they codeshare with MH. MH takes passengers to KUL, then KLM takes passengers all the way to Europe.
Aeroflot operated services to Sydney during the '90s. It was mostly because of charter flights or the APEC summit in 1999 and they had to find SOME port to hold their aircraft. Not saying that SYD is a bad airport, though. They now codeshare with CZ, which flies them to Guangzhou, then Aeroflot flies them to Russia.
Alitalia operated using their DC-8 55s on the Italy-Australia routes. I'm not sure why it was terminated. But......... but, but, but, but...... in 2014 an Etihad aircraft painted in a special WORLD EXPO livery was seen flying above Brisbane operating for Alitalia. They now codeshare with Etihad, who takes them to Abu Dhabi, then an Alitalia plane either takes them to Rome or Milan.
Oh god, that was quite a lot of info! If anyone has more info to add on, please write it down, thank you!
Red Cee
Red Cee
Member since 15 Feb 2018
Total posts 151
All to do with economics. If it isn’t viable to operate the route, they won’t. They may offer it as a codeshare, to try to keep an appearance in that port. As an example, how many European airlines that used to fly here no longer do?
ljot
ljot
Etihad - Etihad Guest
Member since 18 May 2019
Total posts 11
Quite a lot. Either they pulled because of losing too much money, too much competition, or it wasn't viable. Nowadays, they still make an appearance in big Australian ports like SYD, MEL, and BNE.