There’s no brand that’s been tarnished as much in Australia over the past year as Qantas. They don’t have enough seats to meet demand, and their operations have been awful as they’ve returned to international service. Stories are rampant of passengers with cancelled flights, where the airline stranded them abroad telling them they couldn’t return home for weeks.
Yet the Aussie government still protects Qantas from competition, limiting flights and keeping prices high. Citizens there should be outraged at the crazy stunts Qatar Airways has to engage in just to provide more flights in and out of the country.
Would you believe that Qatar Airways has to fly domestic ghost flights inside of Australia?
- For the last month Qatar has been running daily Boeing 777s without passengers between Melbourne and Adelaide
- They’ve started selling tickets for the Melbourne – Adelaide flight, but legally they’re limited to passengers continuing on from Doha or headed there (since they cannot sell Australia domestic service)
This is all because the Australian government limits Qatar’s flights – at the insistence of Qantas – and therefore only serves Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth once a day. Since they aren’t restricted in service to secondary airports they added another Melbourne flight by serving Doha – Melbourne – Adelaide and back.
Qatar also has Doha – Melbourne – Canberra in the schedule starting in March. It was supposed to start in December but reportedly Qatar Airways has had challenges setting up a ground handling agreement there.
The Doha – Melbourne – Adelaide flight though really serves no purpose other than circumventing restrictions on competition. In fact there’s a forced overnight in Melbourne on the way to Adelaide. Next month the Melbourne stop reduces to less than 7 hours, allowing a passenger to sleep perhaps four hours at most at an airport hotel.
The Australian government shows tremendous disregard for the environment in protecting Qantas in this way, and throwing its own passengers under the bus – with fewer options and higher fares – as a result.
(HT: Donald W)
Imagine all the CO2 spewing out all over Australia for nothing. The liberal wack-jobs running the Australia government should be ashamed of themselves.
Qatar doesn’t have to operate the flight at all. The rules didn’t change just because QR showed up.
Virtually no countries allow cabotage (foreign carriers operating domestic flights) in another country.
If there was sufficient demand, there would be no shortage of Australian airlines flying the route.
You should be shaming QR for the environmental destruction they are doing in Australia.
Tim is correct (this time) that foreign carriers have almost zero leverage to operate domestically in another country.
That doesn’t excuse Qantas, and the entire government of AUS, from being a dumpster fire. But you get what you vote for.
Make Australia Great Again
Tired and frustrated with points/miles blogs on BoardingArea being completely overwhelmed by the toxic cesspool of right wing MAGA a**hats spewing s* they know absolutely nothing about. This blog, like LiveAndLetsFly and OMAAT would be far far better if they didn’t allow any comments at all.
On Reddit, I can go into a SUB dedicated to award travel or travel hacks and not have to read people like Alan talking about stuff that is 1) FALSE 2) completely unrelated to the topic at hand. That I don’t have to deal with the affiliate links. For blogs, DoctorOfCredit , CrankyFlier… the comments and community are on-topic.
Moderate the comments and keep them on-topic or its time to move on.
OK, would QF be allowed to operate a domestic flight in Qatar? I bet the Qataris have some silly answer why they can’t.
Was this article paid for by Qatar?
Weirdly coincides with their CEO doing media interviews trying to angle for more QR flights into Aus. It has also been suggested the timing could be a distraction from the Australian women being strip searched at gun point in Qatar.
And finally, QR operate direct DOH – ADL flights anyway?
@Ryan
LOL – the people who scream diversity and equity everywhere actually hate it when they have to interact with people who think or act differently than them. Maybe people are realizing that people only want to be around other people that are the same as them. We’ve finally come full circle.
@Fred, I assume you’re joking here. There are no commercial airports in Qatar besides DOH. I don’t think the point here isn’t that Qatar really wants to fly domestic passengers in Australia, but that it has to run those empty domestic legs to satisfy artificial routing restrictions. \
I agree with Ryan that the blog would be much better off without the incessant and irrelevant political comments. There are certainly tens of thousands of political blogs where those who enjoy political pissing contests can have at it.
I’m confused. Is the issue that QR wants to operate a second flight to MEL and the only way they can do this is by making it part of a tag flight to a city they would never otherwise fly to?
Ryan
perhaps you haven’t bothered to read all that Gary has written over the past few days but my charge that he needs to address environmentalism about these QR flights comes from his article about DL’s menu to opt out of meal service which he, not Delta, turned into an environmental issue.
And yet here Gary is more concerned about arguing that Australia should open its domestic airline market than recognize that the real problem is that QR has no reason whatsoever to be operating a sector with a widebody – which requires an overnight in one direction – just so they can put another dot on their route map.
It should be clear to you and everyone else that Gary has no convictions and merely writes what he does to generate the most clicks – which he could not possibly do from hawking credit cards. Thus, this site is a steady diet of political issues because Gary has learned that people will respond – even if it is the same predictable people and comments.
Move on if you don’t like that. It is doubtful that most of the people that argue about politics are candidates for credit cards or even clients of the airline services he highlights. Gary travels far less than other bloggers which is why he doesn’t do many travel reports. And he doesn’t do analysis like Cranky.
No, Gary, is not going to shut off comments and he isn’t going to moderate them because he wants the maximum amount of clicks.
@Tim Dunn – “my charge that he needs to address environmentalism about these QR flights”
See the post: “The Australian government shows tremendous disregard for the environment”
@Tim Dunn – “Gary is more concerned about arguing that Australia should open its domestic airline market”
Actually nowhere in the post do I ever say this. The entire post is focused on Australia’s protectionism in the international airline market.
@Tim Dunn – “Gary has no convictions and merely writes what he does to generate the most clicks”
Really?
@Tim Dunn – “Gary travels far less than other bloggers”
Really? Willing to wager I travel more than a majority of bloggers. If you mean there *are* bloggers who put up more miles than I do in a year, I’m sure that’s true, but I’m not sure that my lifetime total is lower even there.
@Tim Dunn – “Gary, is not going to shut off comments and he isn’t going to moderate them because he wants the maximum amount of clicks.”
Again you show how little insight you have, 100 comments = 100 clicks = meaningless to me. I’ve written about why I don’t shut off comments, and why I delete so sparingly.
Meh I dropped points guy after they eliminated comments. Just scroll quickly through the garbage and you find some good insight. I was reading about this flight earlier in the week and found the concept bizarre. Australians love wantas and their frequent flier for some bizarre reason and the gov facilitates the craziness
Gary,
the vast majority of the content in your article is trying to shift responsibility to the Australian government because a Middle East airline wants to add a city behind a gateway.
It is no different than if British Airways decided that they want to add El Paso or Albuquerque on the end of their London – Austin flight.
The US government will not allow Qantas to carry local passengers between NYC and LAX but QF flies it anyway – so is the US government eco-terrorists or is QF just more focused on putting another dot on their route map rather than funneling passengers onto AA flights?
Your logic simply doesn’t stack up.
And if you don’t like the comments, you can and would shut them off.
Your blog gets more traffic by the dumb arguments that are made by many here – including some of your very own arguments.
Tim, except QR do have to operate it if they want to operate a 2nd MEL-DOH service because they are only allowed 1 flight a day, rather than it being on commercial merit it is protection for Qantas. QF wouldn’t stand up to open competition
@Mick +1 as someone else who quit TPG once he banned comments. Half their reports are garbage, one needed the comments for corrections/to clear things up
As for this post, it just once again shows the lack of reading comprehension from many of you. This is about Qantas limiting intl competition. Qatar flying empty 777s is the fault of Qantas/the Aussie govt’s insane anti-competition policies. Blame them for the environmental damage, not Qatar
Josh,
QR DOES NOT have to operate a second flight and “destroy the environment” in the process.
Australia didn’t change the rules recently or just because of Qatar AND Australia’s rules are not any different from laws against cabotage in other countries.
Delta doesn’t fly São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro but it briefly did when it started service to Rio as a tag on the end of São Paulo. They couldn’t carry local traffic then and can’t now.
British Airways can’t carry local passengers beyond its US gateways and don’t try – they have a partnership with AA and serve more cities in the US nonstop from the UK than any other airline from any other country.
Qantas DOES FLY or HAS FLOWN a widebody from JFK to LAX without the right to carry local USA passengers because the USA, like Australia, does not allow cabotage but Qantas does it any way – with no regard to the environment.
Qatar has simply exceeded the amount of capacity it can have on the routes into Australia which says that Australia and Qatar don’t have Open Skies meaning capacity IS LIMITED.
The US and Australia has Open Skies meaning there can be unlimited flights – based on market conditions between the two conditions.
The fact that Australia hasn’t done the same with Qatar (the country) tells you there is little value to Australia in opening the doors to QR. If QR does economically stupid stuff, such as adding a tag beyond the gateway in order to justify an additional flight and “destroys the environment” in Australia, that says volumes about the levels that QR is willing to go there and the fact that there is no benefit to Australia to allow QR to add capacity without limit in the process.
QR is “at fault” here, not Australia esp. if the issue is the environment.
No @Tim Dunn – Australia needs more capacity, Australians are incredibly frustrated with Qantas, but the Australian government continues to serve up its citizens to the airline. Qatar is trying to offer the flights that Aussies want, and is following the rules that the Australian government set down for it to do so. It is those rules which require the airline to operate stupid flights.
“The fact that Australia hasn’t done the same with Qatar (the country) tells you there is little value to Australia in opening the doors to QR.”
What a stupid statement. Every policy a government has in place is optimal, representing the best outcome for its population? Surely you do not believe that. Aren’t there policies in the U.S. you’d disagree with, either under the current administration or the last one? If so, then you concede that ‘not changing a policy’ does not mean ‘current policy is what’s best’.
I didn’t say that Australia does everything best…. but to say that Australia is causing environmental destruction because they refuse to allow QR to carry local passengers within Australia is not only incorrect (I could use a harsher word but won’t) but also detached from the laws that govern not just Australia but most countries.
The point of BILATERAL agreements is that BOTH countries have something to gain. Australian airlines have no benefit in serving multiple cities in Qatar because there aren’t any besides Doha.
Australian airlines don’t need to fly multiple times per day to Doha – so they don’t.
Expanding the agreement to allow QR to fly to multiple cities within Australia IS what the governmen of Australia is supposed to do in representing the interests of its airlines.
That is NO DIFFERENT than what every other country does.
If there is no benefit to Australian airlines, then there is no reason for the Australian government to give away larger and larger parts of the market to foreign airlines.
The US and Australia have Open Skies and, other than the QF flight noted, no airlines from either side operate on their own metal beyond their gateways.
The US has provided Open Skies to the Middle East airlines so they can serve as much of the US as they want – but none of the ME airlines can fly within the US.
If QR needs more access to Australia, then they need to give Australian airlines a reason to want more access. There is ZERO benefit to Australia to have even more foreign carrier access by Qatari airlines.
QR is not operating multiple flights/day to Doha to serve the local market; they are doing it to compete for connecting traffic. There are plenty of other airlines around the world that have figured out how to cooperate with Australian airlines and to get Open Skies between their COUNTRIES, not between specific airlines.
QR just needs to figure out how to make that case and then not convince sheeple that they are being discriminated against when they reach the limits of the number of flights they can operate to justify stupid stuff like flying virtually empty planes around within Australia.
@Ryan…Agreed. Some of us are just Av-geeks who enjoy reading about anything aviation. These freaks can’t spend a minute without trying to twist something into a talking point. Gary doesn’t do anything about it because his beliefs dovetail with a lot of their energy. Unofficially of course…
I find it very hard to see people siding with an airline from a despicable country.
@Tim Dunn – ” to say that Australia is causing environmental destruction because they refuse to allow QR to carry local passengers within Australia is not only incorrect ”
Except that’s not the claim anyone is making!
QR is only operating the domestic segments because Australian law requires it in order to operate the international flights. If Australia were to legally allow just the international segment, that’s what QR would fly, it’s all QR wants to fly. That would benefit the environment. It would benefit Australian consumers. It would benefit everyone but Qantas. That’s what I am calling out, a law that has bad consequences for the environment and consumers.
Nowhere do I suggest in this post Qatar ought to be able to carry domestic passengers within Australia, I don’t know why you keep coming back to that. It’s a separate conversation we can have, but not one that has anything to do with this post.
@Tim Dunn “That is NO DIFFERENT than what every other country does.” except you know that it is different that what many countries do (Open Skies), right?
@Tim Dunn “If QR needs more access to Australia, then they need to give Australian airlines a reason to want more access. There is ZERO benefit to Australia to have even more foreign carrier access by Qatari airlines.”
1) more flight options [right now there simply aren’t enough international seats in and out of Australia to meet Australian consumer demand!] and 2) lower prices. The ONLY one that benefits from the current policy of protectionism is incumbent airlines in the market, most prominent of which is Qantas.
You most certainly threw the environment issue into the conversation just as you have on several other recent topics presumably because you somehow think that trumps other issues.
“The Australian government shows tremendous disregard for the environment..”
It is hard to understand how anyone that calls themselves a thought leader in travel doesn’t understand the BASIC concepts of travel and why this case isn’t about the Australian government but about Qatar Airways.
Australia has Open Skies wiht a number of countries and airlines from those countries can fly as much as they want in/out of Australia.
Operating flights within Australia is not permitted by foreign airlines in nearly all cases (AUS and NZ have some weird levels of cooperation and I don’t way to say “never”) but QR’s ability to operate a domestic segment within AU is limited just as is true AROUND THE WORLD.
QR and only QR feels the need to tag on a city beyond its gateway in order to try to be able to justify more service.
If QR wants more service, they need to get THEIR government to negotiate greater access to AU and then ACCEPT the limits when they reach them or be criticized for flying empty planes within AU.
The US has more Open Skies agreements with other countries than any other country and yet there are still limits; the US does not break the rules against cabotage just because a country can’t make a compelling case for ITS airlines to the US which represents US economic interests AS WELL AS those of its airlines.
There is plenty of capacity in/out of Australia and SOME countries can keep adding flights while QR is at its limit.
The longer you persist and fail to acknowlege the real issues at play here while pushing a narrative about how disadvantaged QR is and how bad AU is being to the environment, the more apparent it is that YOU have some sort of financial interest in pushing a narrative that not only lacks legal backing but isn’t even logical.
Just tell QR that you tried to make the case but that you have smarter readers than them that aren’t willing to let you shovel your s235234 past us.
Term limits, much like the USA is in dire need of.
The emotionally fragile will be in full meltdown mode tomorrow. I had my cabin butler stock my room up with popcorn.
@Tim Dunn – “You most certainly threw the environment issue into the conversation just as you have on several other recent topics presumably because you somehow think that trumps other issues.”
You have such weird takes. It was at the end of the post, it wasn’t the lede.
@Tim Dunn – “Just tell QR that you tried to make the case but that you have smarter readers than them ”
You also do not argue in good faith. I have had zero communications with Qatar Airways, the state of Qatar, or anyone else on this issue.
If you were smarter you would stop arguing strawmen.
Doesn’t matter whether it was the headline or elsewhere. You threw environmentalism into an issue which is not at all driven by that reason.
The basic issue – which you clearly don’t seem to grasp – is that there are limits on air service between countries based on treaty. Countries that have gone to Open Skies agreements do not renegotiate and largely remove limits on flights between those two countries – and in some cases go even further.
There is nothing unique about the relationship between QR and Australia than between Qatar (the country) and multiple other countries or between multiple other countries and Australia.
If you aren’t personally trying to push something for QR, then we have to ask why you continue to argue and can only assume you do it because 1. you are argumentative or 2. you truly don’t understand how international aviation agreements work.
If there is something else, let us know but repeating the same drivel about how disadvantaged that QR has to fly empty planes within Australia and how Australia is environmentally reckless won’t cut it.
@ Tim Dunn
“Expanding the agreement to allow QR to fly to multiple cities within Australia IS what the governmen of Australia is supposed to do in representing the interests of its airlines.
That is NO DIFFERENT than what every other country does.
If there is no benefit to Australian airlines, then there is no reason for the Australian government to give away larger and larger parts of the market to foreign airlines.”
So the AU government’s job is to represent its airlines as compared to the greatest good for the greatest number of its citizens. I agree this i what governments do but not that its what ought to be done.
Jack,
governments negotiate treaties (which air service agreements are) on behalf of their citizens.
Of course Australia considers the economic benefits of foreign carrier service just as it does in providing tax credit to foreign manufacturers – but they don’t break the rules about what foreigners can or can’t do just because one airline has reached the limits of the agreement that country reached with the country in which they want to fly.
There is more than enough air service between Australia and Qatar to satisfy the local demand. QR wants more access to Australia because QR wants to siphon more and more passengers off of other carriers – not just QF but other foreign carrier that serve Australia to the east – and there is value in Australia saying they aren’t interested in allowing a country that can’t give anything more of value to Australia greater rights to Australia’s air travel market.
If Adelaide is worth serving, then QR will ask to reallocate its existing number of flights to add nonstop flights. But they don’t really need Adelaide. They are after more flights from the biggest cities that are already well-served.
The flight to Adelaide is a stunt. Gary just fell for it rather than see the fundamental issue of negotiated traffic rights.
@ Gary
Get your facts right, first, Gary, before you publish such drivel about stuff about which you are clearly wantonly ignorant. The sad thing is you obviously just don’t care, if you get the basics right or wrong.
@ TIm has correctly called you out on all points.
FWIW Qatar is increasing capacity between Australia and the Middle East (and onward destinations), both in terms of capacity of individual aircraft and number of services.
Add in the services on Emirates and Etihad and there is a substantial and increasing capacity between Australia and ME.
Qantas doesn’t even muster a single flight to any ME location (relying instead on its alliance with Emirates).
In key Australia-SE Asia routes Qantas is easily outgunned in capacity (and quality) by Singapore Airlines. They fly internationally from CNS and DRW whereas QF mainline can’t be bothered to muster even one major international service (OK you can go to Timor Leste from DRW). Singapore fly more flights per day to the key capital cities in Australia than Qantas.
So just what are you claiming is being protected, fella?!
And no, QR will not be able to sell a domestic sector of an international service. Such has ever generally been the case for foreign carriers save the brief remission of such policy back in 1988 when the then government was seeking to alleviate the impacts of the then pilots’ strike.
And that is relevant given your comments about MEL-ADL flying “empty” despite your woeful protestations when roasted by @ Tim Dunn.
Why would you expect anything different? What US domestic flights are on sale serviced as domestic sectors of the international services of foreign international carriers?
Emirates used to fly its A380s from BNE, SYD, MEL to AKL and CHC (777) rather than leave them on down time at those respective airports. Was that part of a conspiracy by the Australian Government of the day? Why is the current DOH-ADL-AKL route any different?
Then there is the issue is that Qantas has publicly stated that its strategy is to consolidate flights for maximal loads (using the excuse of higher fuel costs).
So, tell us, Gary, self proclaimed “thought leader” just which routes would Qantas want to launch if your claim that the government is engaged in an abject state of genuflection and up for wantonly limiting competitors? Qantas even swapped out A380s on the flagship SYD-LAX route. Yes – the airline has messed up.
Qantas is also staking its point of differentiation on ultra long flights. It was and is and will be a niche player.That’s about brand identity and difference, not capacity.
And Tim is also right that you cannot resist some asinine quip about the environment.
In your Delta (opt out of meals article) Delta claimed that it was seeking to limit food wastage! The environment bit was pure Gary BS spin.
Of course Gary knows that even using the word “environment” will trigger the dumb right wing American anti-science / anti-environment twats that infest this blog. It took only one post to secure that goal!
No, you can’t help yourself trying to spin Qatar’s scheduling choices as some failure of the Australian government’s environmental position / policy. No substance. No reason. No logical proposition. Just spin.
Ever failing credibility.
@ Alan
Strangely enough the right wing nut jobs, who used to run Australia for 9 years until recently regressed environmental policy (aka a policy position that corporates have a right to pollute the environment and should be compensated for environmental abatement by the taxpayer).
As always, the dumb anti-science and anti-environment right wing can be relied upon to take the irresponsible and unscientific path….;)
Policy now shifting under the new government.
But don’t tell Gary Leff – he’s happy living in abject ignorance like yourself and other certain posters herein.
DRWAs…..