How Qantas' non-stop Perth-London Boeing 787 flights will work

From what Alan Joyce has said, I'd think there will be a flight from each major city to Perth timed for the Boeing 787. Canberra-Perth would only need to move back a bit earlier. The current one is probably timed more for WA-based federal politicians who need to fly CBR-PER.

If Qantas cancels the Melbourne-Dubai-London A380 (which it's expected will happen) and hands the QF9/10 flight numbers across to Melbourne-Perth-London, then a lot of the current QF9 travellers would probably shift to the Boeing 787 direct service. Given the Boeing 787 has half as many economy seats as an A380 (166 vs 371) then allowing domestic flyers to do the Melbourne-Perth leg would effectively block those seats from being sold to passengers flying all the way to London. Those passengers would be paying a lot more to Qantas so why wouldn't Qantas want to prioritise them over domestic flyers whose sole reason to book the 787 is to eat and drink their weight at the Melbourne first class lounge?

I agree, there's no good reason why Qantas should allow the MEL-PER leg to be sold on its own. Plus how are they going to handle premium economy, as there is no domestic fare for this. It makes more sense to block it from the domestic schedule.

I agree with the point, but apart from customers flying MEL-PER-LHR there will also be passengers starting their journeys in PER or commencing in ADL, BNE or CBR (plus more) and then connecting through PER.

Mal remember there maybe some Melb Perth folk who originated in LA

It would be good if they cancelled the 9/10 altogether because that opens up 2 A380s at a time for the mid-life refresh, therefore speeding up the process and all the rest of it. 

Alex you may have forgotten the LA Perth passengers which this flight may be marketed and timetabled for. That may keep th flight full-ish on all sectors without the need for domestic passengers.

Agreed, as for the PE seats, they can either create a domestic PE fare or offer them as extra legroom seats to Y passengers at a fee like they do now.  Could be a good way to test the market for PE on PER domestic services.

With 7 flights a day Melbourne to Perth, if they got the calculations wrong, the domestic passengers can get bumped easy enough. I would be very surprised if Qantas flew the plane half empty. They pay people good money to ensure any seat that can get sold, does get sold.

And how exactly do you propose Qantas should 'carefully manage' selling of economy seats on a Melbourne-Perth domestic leg to make sure there's still seats enough for passengers flying all the way from Melbourne to London?

Exactly how they managed current supply v demand... using fare buckets. All is not lost, if they sell out of seats on the direct 787 between MEL-PER, they may offer passengers MEL-PER flights on regular domestic services and then connect at PER on the 787. No different to when they operated SYD-ADL-SIN, SYD-BNE-MNL, DFW-BNE-SYD... or more broadly, how they operate the current QF9 (they manage the yield for pax doing MEL-DXB, DXB-LHR and MEL-LHR).

Not if there were LA originating folk on it.

Status credits are directly related to distance, so there should be no change to that. 

Qantas could easily offer double status credits on this flight as a special incentive to book it once the initial novelty wears off. That would fill the seats plenty fast!

I find it hard to believe they won't keep some form of A380 service ex-Mel for EU bound passengers. The JV agreement has leeway for different options. 

I suspect all A380s will be out of Sydney and all 789s out of Melbourne for the first 8 and maybe 12

Alternatively, is this an opportunity for QF to fly another Dreamliner from MEL to Dubai and then on to another destination in Europe, with passengers on both flights "swapping over" in Dubai?

Do you mean will it have an EK flight number as well? I'd be surprised but I guess it's possible.

I guess it depends what QANTAS' deal with Emirates was and whether the flights bypassing DXB required any renegotiation.

Or: QF is reducing capacity to London.

Huge assumption! They haven't said anything about dropping DXB/LHR ex MEL

No they haven't but additional slots at LHR are difficult and expensive to come by.

Anyone think that there is a possibility that Qantas could be eying off adding a flight to Gatwick and using the EK facilities there?

This would free up the slot at LHR for the 787 and potentially make Qantas a more enticing proposition for those PAX who loath dealing with Heathrow. It would also give a bit more choice for those who currently use BA flights to connect through London.

I'm not sure about LGW but given QF1/2/9/10 tend to operate at or near capacity, i'd be staggered if the dreamliner PER route was a direct swap. They would lose too much business. I'd wager, with no basis for this whatsoever, that another ex-MEL A380 route will be opened up via DXB or perhaps SIN if the EK JV allows and on to another EU hub. I doubt it'd be FRA, they dropped that due to lack of demand but perhaps CDG.

QF9 isn't at premium capacity tonight given my upgrade to business from a discount economy fare. That is a first for me. I am not so sure QF9/10 is a raging success. Look to the second four 787s to see how European capacity is augmented. I think the second four will be based in Melbourne as well, but where they go outside of Dallas is anyone's guess. Could be Melb Perth Paris. 

There is also a problem with QF9 this week that has altered loads. I'm yet to be on it and have spare seats in J or F and I don't tend to travel at peak times. Most people I know report similar experiences.

They do own 2 more pairs of slots, but have leased to other airlines, BA I think.

Correct Qantas has 8 slots at London Heathrow. 4 of which are currently used for the 2 A380 flights. Another 4 are currently leased to BA.

Who knows maybe a BA code share is coming 

It is possible as some Qantas flights do have BA flight nubmers.

"Who knows maybe a BA code share is coming"
LOL - some down-voters on war path!
But I am with you and I personally most welcoming QF-BA codeshare.

19 months on, you and TheRealBabushka have long been proven correct.

That a lot of assumptions. It has already been said that domestic flights would be re timed to connect better.

EK doesn't seem to mind, departing MEL in the past at 3am-ish.

But I take your point.

Question is, is there a slot at LHR around 3h earlier at 9am, allowing for a PER dep at 2300h and MEL dep at 2000h?

If they can't get a 9am-ish slot, then we're looking at a LHR 1900h arrival since any earlier would mean a twilight MEL departure.

Personally I'd prefer a twilight MEL departure!

CX,MH pax won't be kicked out as they are currently when QF9 completes boarding!

Think you are close to the money. However it is clear London slots will need to be changed. Current slots are QF1 arrive 6:05, QF10 depart 11:55, QF9 arrive 12:40, QF2 depart 20:45. Cannot do that with QF1/2 at A380 and Perth as 787, assuming QF9/10 is canned or terminates in DXB the above slots need to change anyway.

I am sure they have traded a slot with someone (probably BA) just to do that. They may even put a BA flight number on the flight as well to sweeten the deal.

They do own two other pairs of slots too, so 3rd option, but one I doubt is they have got them back. If I recall one pair of slots were in the morning and the other in the evening.

Why operate a flight to DXB, when you can codeshare on EK metal anyway? Timing of current QF9 is also bad for connections to EK services ex DXB.

I am on that flight tonight for  exactly that very nice connections. It depends on where you are going. I must say as I got an upgrade to business from a discount economy ticket; Obviously not a flight full of premium passengers.

Same could be said for any flight couldn't it? Just codeshare to someone else. Virtual airline and all done.

Yes I believe around 90 minutes less than the current QF9 but I might be wrong.

QF9 you can average at 14 hours Melbourne-Dubai and 8 hours Dubai-London, plus about 2 hours in the lounge at Dubai = 24 hours.

For the Boeing 787  service you'd be looking at 4 hours from Melbourne to Perth, add 2 hours in the Perth lounge in transit, then 17 hours for Perth-London = 23 hours.

There is a 10pm QF2 for those connecting passengers who can't make a late morning flight.

But that won't get me back to Perth non stop?

Isn't that why the code-share agreement with Emirates is so valuable? Pax who don't want to or need to exit via Heathrow can pick up a code-share EK flight to Dubai and then multiple flight options back to Oz...

Much prefer Qantas metal London to Perth....

I would prefer Qantas was able to fly me to any destination in the world I so wished. 

Agreed to a point, however those like me who are from Perth in the recent past have had to look elsewhere for airlines to get us to London. I'm looking forward to Qantas better serving its Perth based customers

Well you will be able to get to London. But your comment was for connections OUTSIDE of London.

"Isn't that why the code-share agreement with Emirates is so valuable? Pax who don't want to or need to exit via Heathrow can pick up a code-share EK flight to Dubai and then multiple flight options back to Oz..."
Mate, I already learn that you EK fan. Why then not to book EK directly - they have plenty of options. As for me I may resume flight to Europe via Perth by QF (of course if price will be right or classic awards available) - since QF partnered themselves with Emirates I've never flown with them to Europe (use alternative carriers with transit in Asia) and I fly on average once per year for last 6 years.

QF-EK relationship is probably one of the major factors that allowed QF to keep operating to Europe. The capabilities and economics of the B787 can only do so much (possibly fly to the major cities but nowhere close to the thirty odd cities that EK serves in Europe) but if the relationship breaks down (which I doubt it will) QF has more to lose. 

QF does not "operate" in continental Europe - EK does. That relationship is sole reason for this - somehow QF stop flying to Frankfurt very soon after going to bed with EK. You may call it coincidence, but I do not think so.

And except for Frankfrut, Qantas didn't operate to Continental Europe either, at the time of the agreement coming into being.

I said this numerous times and can repeat again and again - if you happen to like DXB as your transit to Europe and EK as your carrier then please by all means fly EK and be happy! Just not say that it is QF has one-hop to Europe (it indeed EK does) and not try to convince me that DXB better than SIN, HKG or BKK because I happen to have different opinion. I did not use QF to fly Europe and found numerous ways to do so via Asia.
So indeed I really hope for QF plans to use our forgotten by QF 4-th city in the country as starting point to fly Europe. I hope that it will be cheaper for them to do so, I hope that eventually they open other routes and I hope that eventually they stop fly via DXB. And I will happily use QF to fly Perth-Europe, providing they pricing it right.

PS Yes it is more than a coincidence QF stopped fling to Frankfurt around the time of the EK tie up. However the EK tie ip was part of a wider plan to restructure QFi from loss making to profit making, which it seems they have done. Yes the EK tie was part of that, but frankly for the most part dropping Frankfurt was sensible.

I honestly believe that QF master prohibit them fly to Europe via anything but DXB and flying to Frankfurt via DXB indeed make little sense. Or may be QF was banned to fly anywhere except of LHR and no more than 2 flights per day, who knows?
Though I also hope that after probe Perth-Europe route QF will start to fly other European cities - it indeed does make sense to fly more smaller aircraft into many destinations instead of few bigger ones in one destination only.

I suspect with the second group of four 789s a routing wil be DFW- Melb-Perth-Paris return. Paris has a limit on weekly seats QF can offer but with the low capacity 789s this means a very viable 6 flights per week.

The Mainland France limit in the AU-FR Air Service Agreement isn't quite based on seats. It's based on "units". 3 per week. A "unit" is defined as a range of seats on a given aircraft, starting at under 150 seats for 0.25 units up to 1.0 units for over 400 seats.
The 236 seat plan for the QF 789s fall into the 200-239 range at 0.5 units (240-279 is 0.6).
With that config, they are allowed 6 flights/week to Paris. If they had just 4 more seats, they'd only be allowed 5 (and only 3 with the 747s/A380s).

As far as Germany goes, QF would be allowed upto 25 flights/week. EK is allowed to fly to 4 ports in Germany. They can't open a new port without cutting another. The hope would be for QF to start a AU-DXB-Germany flight to a port that EK doesn't fly to.

At any rate, using the first 8 787s to open new routes doesn't help them retire the 5 747s they keep saying is the plan. The thus far announced LAX-MEL-PER-LHR doesn't displace any 747s. At most, it might displace 2 A380s, if they stop the MEL-DXB-LHR.

Himeno,

The 2/3 weekly MEL-LAX 747 QF95/96 has been discontinued (as of last week I believe) and the 747 used for MEL-HKG. There is no 2nd MEL-LAX flight until the 787 comes.
HND is very limited in when A380s can go there (much like MNL only being able to have 1 A380 on the ground at a time). It is unlikely that QF25/26 will change from a 747 to 380 and the 787 is too small given the HND flight is often quite full.
After the through flights to EU were dropped from SIN, they no longer needed the extra seats into SIN. A330s are big enough for SIN.

Himeno,

No more flights to/from AU can go to HND unless MLIT assigns more slots for the Australia route. It isn't just a matter of 2 A330s and "find another slot". ("Find another slot" is the issue at HKG)
QF can send as many flights as it wants to any airport in Japan equipped with immigration and customs inspection, except HND.

I could see them putting 787s on SFO and YVR, maybe making YVR regular up from the current seasonal.

Plus more scope with a few more A330-200's doing more international flying and less domestic. Assuming of course that capacity isn't used on new/expanded services.

So stick with other carriers if London isn't your destination. Mentioned it above, point to point hub busting is the whole idea behind the flight and the 787's range in general.

Price war = win-win for customers