Analytic Flying

What are we working on at the moment? In June we published a detailed analysis of Qantas's A321XLR entry into service. Now it's time to have a look at the A220. With more data at our disposal, we're taking a look at reliability & network strategy! analyticflying.com/p/qantass…

How many mistakes can you spot in this rubbish?

A cracker from @ayeshadek @FinancialReview getting to grips with VietJet & their Australian plans! Madame Thao's deep pockets, questionable governance, leveraged working capital (it's not a Ponzi, but ...) & starting an airline during a fuel crisis! afr.com/companies/transport/…

There are many things to criticise BA on, but I call bullshit on this! 70% of their Indian flights use their newest and most modern aircraft! BA operated 10 daily flights to India: 1x A350-1000 (newest aircraft in the fleet) 6x 787-8/9 (pretty new) 3x B777-200ER (ancient)

2nd Qantas B737-800 has been retired. VH-VXA flew her last revenue service as QF694 (Adelaide to Melbourne) on October 25. She's since had her titles removed and positioned to Brisbane today (QF6128) for some maintenance. Still no word on where she'll end up!

Last month ACCC granted 5 year extension to Qantas & American Airlines joint venture, noting that without it AA would likely cancel its Australian routes! Very happy that "they've seen the light" given how they got it wrong rejecting Qantas & China Eastern's JV in 2023!

With Western Sydney Airport's opening over the weekend there's been some debate on the need for a 2nd Sydney airport: 🔴WSI doesn't have a curfew and it has an alternative catchment: while these are both important factors they're not the primary reasons! 🔴It's really about capacity at SYD, specifically capacity at peak times: figure ⬇️ shows hourly slot allocations for 21-27 Sept (peak week for NS26 season). Slots are limited to 80 movements (i.e. landings and takeoffs) per hour (any hour). 🔴The movement cap can't be increased since its affected by the theoretical maximum of the runway configuration in optimal conditions! Very rarely do weather conditions allow it to exceed 60 per hour for extended periods, nevermind 80! 🔴Filling the gaps, i.e. adding more flights during non-peak times can be useful but it's quite difficult to do this efficiently for short haul operators without compromising aircraft utilisation. Practically, these gaps are also needed for recovery when weather conditions reduce capacity below demand in peak periods (see previous point!). 🔴While improved technology and efficiencies in the future might allow the movement cap to be increase, this would be a negligible incease. 🔴Another option would be increasing the distance between the parallel runways, but this would be a huge infrastructure project adding a relatively small amount of capacity. 🔴Ultimately, the only way to increase capacity at Sydney is to build a 3rd parallel runway, and there's simply no space for that, and that's why we have WSI! 🔴While the lack of curfew and it's location are both very useful, these were both important factors for its location rather than its need!

Seeing as some people are booking flights to Western Sydney thinking they're going somewhere else, you have to try pretty hard to make a mistake as airlines are being pretty explicit about the differences!

🚨Melbourne says goodbye to Qantas’s A380 and hello again to London! But there's a catch: it's impossible for Qantas to extend Perth-London to Melbourne without withdrawing the A380 from Melbourne-Los Angeles! We explain how and why! analyticflying.com/p/melbour…

Finnair inaugural Helsinki-Melbourne flight is airborne! Still got a long way to go !!

Happy IATA NW26/27 (SC/158) to those who celebrate! One of the most significant in Australia for some time with WSI opening to passenger flights today! A lot happening for Melbourne incl Finnair's new direct flights, Qantas's direct London returning & BA returning in Jan!

Update from IASC: Qantas and Virgin until 5 November for their arguments, or as the IASC put it "address the additional public benefit criteria"!

This is a sleight of hand from Sir Tim: ⬆️Revenue is up because ticket prices are up ⬆️Ticket prices are up because fuel prices are up ⬇️And capacity is down so sharing fixed costs over fewer passengers, all while margins are declining

Tonight's QF94 LAX-MEL is the last westbound A380 flight on the route & tomorrow's QF93 MEL-LAX is QF's last scheduled A380 flight from MEL! We've seen lots of commentary ascribing change to declining demand, but it's actually something entirely different. Details later today!

🇮🇩🇦🇺What will IASC do with expanded Indonesia bilateral capacity? 🔴5,180 seats/week available: QF/JQ wants 4,539 & VA wants 5,086 🔴Favour new routes: PER-CGK & WSI-DPS (QF/JQ) 🔴Favour airlines on routes they don't fly: PER-DPS (VA) 🔴Then make numbers add up (we get 5,162)⬇️

I give it 48 hours before one of the AI slop merchants picks this up 🤣

It’s August 2018 and Virgin Australia have just announced an order of 10x Boeing 737-10 with deliveries beginning in 2022! While certification is a major milestone, it’s touch-and-go whether Virgin will eventually begin receiving them before the end of 2027!