I like to give credit where it is due and this last week, our very good friends at Travel Daily published a very interesting set of aviation figures that reflect very badly on our very own home grown Aussie airlines, QANTAS and also Virgin Australia, while reflecting very well on their overseas based airline competitors.
Why do I think these figures are important?
Well, if I was a travel agent or even a traveller, when this dastardly COVID-19 allows us to travel once again, I would be rewarding those airlines that bothered to operate during the pandemic rather than saying to h**l with you in Australia we are grounding our fleets, i.e. definitely QANTAS and we appreciate that Virgin has had its own troubles to deal with, by giving our overseas airline friends my business.
So, what are the numbers?
FIRST PLACE goes to Qatar Airways QATAR Airways which remains the largest carrier operating international flights in Australia in August, with a 24.5% market share.
SECOND PLACE goes to Air New Zealand with 12.3% market share.
THIRD PLACE goes to Emirates with 10.6% market share.
FOURTH PLACE goes to China Southern Airlines at 6.5% market share.
FIFTH PLACE goes to Singapore Airlines with 6.2% market share
However, we do need to remember the overall number of flights was a tiny fraction of the figures for the corresponding period in 2019, with just 71,998 international passengers carried, down 98%.
There were though a very surprising, almost 300,000 total seats available on scheduled operations to and from Australia during the month, down 93.4%, with an overall seat utilisation percentage of just 24.4%.
So, where were Australian carriers QANTAS and Virgin Australia on the air traffic controller’s radar screens?
Sadly, nowhere!
Why?
Because, it appears that both QANTAS and Virgin Australia did not carry any international passengers at all in August 2020, compared to a combined 33.1% share last year, because amazingly their international fleets were all grounded!
What can one say!
A report by John Alwyn-Jones edited from information provided by Travel Daily
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