Qantas – Direct DFW Service

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  • Anonymous
    Guest

    wanula1
    Participant

    As rumoured for a while QF have announced their direct DFW service from the 16th May, with SYD – SFO discontinued from the 14th May. Interesting routing will be:

    SYD to DFW (13.25 dep, arrive 13.50 same day)
    DFW to BNE (22.00 dep, arrive 05.00 two days later)
    BNE to SYD (06.00 dep)

    The route will run 4 days a week on Mon, Wed, Fri and Sat to DFW. However the interesting aspect is the seating. It will be sold as 3 class 744, with the following:

    First Class – sold as business class for Chairman’s Club & Platinum FF
    Last two rows of business sold as PE for Chairman’s Club and PFF
    Rows 36 to 39 of PE sold as economy for Chairman’s Club and PFF

    No indication as to whether the PE service will be provided to the customers lucky enough to get a Business Class seat or whether its purely the seating from which the customer benefits

    Qantas have done this previously when they suspended sales of First on some of their routes during 2009 / 2010.


    Binman62
    Participant

    You have to wonder who in Qantas thought this up! The route is one thing but the hotch potch of seating and entitlement is utterly bizarre. This is doomed to failure.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    It does seem doomed to failure, but I would imagine it’s probably something to do with the “Oprah” effect and the fact that there is increased demand from the US to Oz, and this is more easily served routing people through AA’s hub in DFW rather than SFO.

    Hopefully, the moment of madness will pass.


    JohnPhelanAustralia
    Participant

    The DFW-BNE leg will be 16 hours, which will make it the longest sector (by time) in the QF schedule.


    Binman62
    Participant

    Was talking to some friends over the weekend who think the route is a great idea but had concerns about the seating. Who gets downgraded for example from business to premium economy? Would they actually downgrade a full fare J class passenger to PE seat when in theory there are 7 passengers occupying J class with PE tickets?

    When operating with no First to Hong Kong and Melbourne from London last year, QF used only the upper deck as Business class and in theory it was possible to be downgraded from business and yet retain a business class seat on the lower deck.

    Makes the 60B issue seem insignificant!


    Senator
    Participant

    Dear all,

    Perhaps a few stats from WikiPedia about Dallas and its area may high-light the size of the area, and why it could make sense to direct flights here in addition to the AA hub. The interesting question is what happens with this 16hrs flight if a barrel of oil reaches $140 again.

    I suspect increasing commercial links between Texas and Oz due to natural resources influences the decision as well.

    Dallas (pronounced /?dæl?s/) is the third-largest city in Texas[4][5] and the ninth-largest in the United States. As of 2009, the population of Dallas was about 1.3 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.[6] The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of roughly 6.5 million as of July 2009.[7] The metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.[8]

    Founded in 1841 and formally incorporated as a city in February, 1856, the city’s economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, and transportation, home to several Fortune 500 companies.[9] Located in North Texas and a major city in the American South, Dallas is the core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.[10] The city’s prominence arose from its historical importance as a center for the oil and cotton industries, and its position along numerous railroad lines. Dallas developed a strong industrial and financial sector, and a major inland port, due largely to the presence of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, one of the largest and busiest in the world.[11] It was rated as a beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group & Network.[12]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas


    JohnPhelanAustralia
    Participant

    Binman, it’s actually going to work the other way around. High status pax are likely to be upgraded; no-one will be downgraded.

    QF will be using its 747-400ER aircraft on this route. The configuration is F/J/Y+/Y.

    They will not be selling F – but if you are a high-status flyer on a J ticket, you will be seated in F (but get J class service and meals).

    High status Y+ will be likely to be allocated seats in J (Skybed mark 1); high status Y pax will be likely to get a seat in Y+. However, it should be noted that this status ‘bonus’ does not override the ticketed class – i.e. no-one with a J ticket will be downgraded, irrespective of how many high status Y+ ticketholders there are. The booking engine will only allow a certain number of status upgrades, to fit the available number of seats.

    This sounds quite complex, but this is what QF already does on a couple of routes (such as BNE-LAX) where it sells 3 classes but often operates on an aircraft with 4 class configuration.

    So, for example, the total number of J tickets sold will be the number of F seats on the aircraft plus the number of J seats, minus the J seats in the last two rows (which go to Y+ ticketholders).

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