[Paulantonycooper]

I think people are forgetting that airlines borrowed billions of £/€/$ to stay in business, these loans have to be paid back.

[TonyR]

My experience also but I think Tom’s point 3 is the main one. Capacity is not there because of crew shortages. Speaking to crew on a recent Virgin flight they have been running at minimum crew levels on their flights for some time with many having left during the pandemic and not returned. As a result what flights there are are full – I booked tickets to Australia a couple of months ago for a trip next month and the agent had to grab the last seats available on an unusual routing to get me there in Business Class on the dates I wanted. In periods of high demand pricing always goes up on top of any fuel related increases. Maybe the Flybe crews coming available will help but not on the flight deck.

[TonyR]

[postquote quote=1341972]

Interesting to see now the number of A380s coming back into service after they were mothballed and production cancelled late last year after the Emirates cancellation. A short-sighted move by Airbus?

[AMcWhirter]

Writing from a global angle I am not sure whether crew shortages affect all airlines worldwide.

Regarding Flybe crew … would they need more training before being allowed to operate long-haul flights ?

The London-Sydney fares continue to remain very high.

This morning I was again checking SIA and QF and J return in March is still around £10,000 (the final price depends of chosen dates).

I also checked Y class.

Again the prices for early March (by no means a peak time) with SIA and QF were roughly around £2,000 return with QF for a two week stay. I mean that’s more than the previous peak of peak fare in December.

The new UK rep for New South Wales is about to launch a promotional campaign.

[DerekVH]

[quote quote=1342897]Regarding Flybe crew … would they need more training before being allowed to operate long-haul flights ?[/quote]

Alex, BA would probably move them immediately to work in First !

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AMcWhirter

[COCODA Ltd]

A note major issue I didn’t see mentioned in replies is routing.

I’m flying LHR-HND next month, even PE was almost £2k rtn! Business Class was out of the question
BUT, most Europe to Asia routes would ordinarily fly over Russia. With that airspace closed, routings have to take a more southerly, and esp in the case of Japan, a much further route. Almost 15 hours instead of the usual 12.
That’s a significant extra cost in fuel, crew hours etc..

Sure that’s not accounting for all of the increases in fares we’re all seeing but it’s a fair chunk of it. Add that to all the other reasons noted and perhaps an element of ‘making up for lost revenues’ and we are where we are..

[cwoodward]

COCODA. Welcome, there is an thread on this subject but active for a few weeks as all thoughts had been expressed. As mentioned in other threads there are many contributory factors to the current high fares.
Most seem to distil down to 2 major factors – Higher costs and a real need for most airlines to recoup some of the huge losses from the pandemic.

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DerekVH, BPP

[BPP]

cwoodward. That sums it up well but I cannot see these very high fares being sustainable long term – lets hope not!

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MartynSinclair

[lostantipod]

Yes, the constrained capacity is a key factor on top of fuel costs. There has pretty much been an absence of Chinese carriers, and also reduced capacity at the ME3. I need to go to Oz in May and have been looking , am seeing fares from LHR where it’s easy to spend £6k in J …so I’m getting creative at options beginning in Europe. (For reference I snagged a £2,5k Oz return last Christmas on Singapore out of Rome ). I am hearing EK and possibly QR are reopening routes and adding capacity soon so hopefully that will drive some competition. If it helps at all and you don’t mind the extra legs, Turkish has some good deals to BKK out of European capitals, last time I looked.

[lostantipod]

Every “discount” email I have ever received from QR has proved a bit of a joke….ymmv

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LuganoPirate, Jacob

[alistairNicoll]

As someone who is very familiar with the UK/Bangkok route I would say it is a red herring to say that the fares are down to BA pulling out because there are many indirect flights and the likes of Etihad, Emirates and Qatar to mention a few have all significantly increase their fares on the UK Bangkok route and they do not fly over Russia.

My own view is that the airlines having reduced flights and increased prices during covid have decided for the time being not to compete on price and frequency but to instead to concentrate on filling up planes at the maximum revenue per seat. This way they are laughing all the way to the bank

I did manage to bag a bargain with Austrian airlines at pre pandemic costs a while back though.

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Jeffrey, DerekVH, BPP

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1343163]I need to go to Oz in May and have been looking , am seeing fares from LHR where it’s easy to spend £6k in J …[/quote]

So J fares to Oz are coming down (in May).

For February and March the rates with reputable airlines are around £10,000 return for LHR-SYD-LHR.

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1343178]the likes of Etihad, Emirates and Qatar to mention a few have all significantly increase their fares on the UK Bangkok route and they do not fly over Russia.[/quote]

Yes that’s true in the case of LON-BKK.

But as this is an international site I ought to point out that it depends on the route.

All the Gulfies have multiple flights to N America and these do overfly Russia.

Certainly the non-stop flights between the Gulf and India (with Air India) to the US West Coast have to overfly Russia.

Even for flights to the US East Coast have to go that way.

That’s why, if AC wants to serve Mumbai, it has to make and en route stop (in this case it’s LHR) as we reported on June 21, 2022.

[alistairNicoll]

[postquote quote=1343308]

I was referring to Bangkok as that was the example in the question. Sure they Gulfies may have some flights that used to overfly Russia but in a real world would they not just increase the cost of those small number of flights and not on all of their flights that go nowhere near Russia

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Jeffrey, BPP

[AMcWhirter]

Thanks Alistair. Forgive me for asking but we have many international readers and English may not be their first language so I wanted to clarify.

Here in Europe we forget how many flights are operated by the Gulfies (both the national carriers and their budget susidiaries to Russia).

I checked Emirates.com and there are five daily flights Dubai-Moscow. But of course with the other Gulfies too.

But as regards the Emirates Group there are three with Emirates mainline (2xA380s and 1xB777) and two with Flydubai (both B737s).

I then Emirates business class fares from Dubai to New York JFK for travel during the working week March 3 to March 7.

From what I remember from pre-pandemic Emirates’ business class fares on this route have risen.

Dubai-JFK J return was quoted at Dhms 33,325 which converts to GBP 7,520.

As we find in aviation it is the indirect carriers who offer the best rates.

Checking with Ba.com for the above dates via LHR gave a fare of Dhs 20,935 or GBP 4,724 which is substantially less.

What about London-New York JFK one might ask ?

From LHR to JFK with BA.com on the above dates the J return fares varied between £4,187 and £5,088.

[Author]

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